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Episodes
Weekly sermons and Bible studies led by a retired pastor of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod
Episodes
Wednesday Jun 21, 2023
Wednesday Jun 21, 2023
Psalm 91 is a psalm of great confidence and hope for those who “dwell in the shelter of the Lord.” Some have understood it to be a promise to believers that once they are in the faith, everything will go just right for them, as they would wish. Instead, this psalm says that the Lord and His angels will be with them and us and help us through the many challenges and temptations we face in a very troubled, sin-sick world. The author is not identified in the original Hebrew text, though some think (and the Greek translation of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, says) that David is the writer.
Verses 1 and 9 indicate that this psalm is about those whose “dwelling place” is the Lord and who “abide” in Him. These are people, as verse 2 indicates, who say that they “trust” in the Lord God. Four different names are given for God in these verses. He is “the Most High,” above all things and the Creator of heaven and earth. (See Genesis 14:19, for example.) He is also “the Almighty,” the all-powerful, who is stronger than the greatest mountain. (See Genesis 17:1, “El Shaddai.”) He is also called “God” and “the LORD, “ the special name for the God of Israel in the Old Testament, “I Am Who I Am" (Exodus 3:13-15, 6:6-7).
Four descriptive words for the Lord are also used. He is “the shelter, the shadow, the refuge, and the fortress” for His people. We can probably understand all these, except for “the shadow.” In a very hot climate, the Lord provides shade, protection from the hot, blinding sun. (See the phrase “a shade from the heat” in Isaiah 4:6 and 25:4. Sunstroke was a real danger to many.)
All these names and descriptions for the Lord are to indicate that He is great and powerful enough to provide all the protection that His people need, and we need that protection, as the verses that follow indicate. There is “the snare of the fowler,” one who sets traps to catch birds (Psalm 91:3). This picture image really means “one who has the power of capture and death” over others. (See Ecclesiastes 9:12: “ Man does not know his time… Like birds that are caught in a snare, so the children of man are snared in an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.”)
The New Testament uses the same sort of image for the dangers of Satan. See 2 Timothy 2:25 and the warning about “escaping from the snares of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” See also Hebrews 2:14-15 and Christ’s battle and death “to destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,” who wants to enslave people. Psalm 91:3 and 5 also uses the term “deadly pestilence,” and verse 10, “plague,” referring to illness and deadly diseases. We certainly know of these dangers, too, in our own day, dangers like Covid that come so unexpectedly, “that stalk in the darkness and waste at noonday.”
We are grateful for doctors and nurses and medications today that help us, but we also lean upon our Lord and His help and healing power, especially when there seem to be no human help and answers. Remember what was said of Jesus, God’s Son, in his earthly ministry in Israel. We read in Matthew 9:35 that Jesus was preaching the Gospel, but also “healing every disease and every affliction.” He could do that for people.
Psalm 91:4 uses the image of the Lord as an eagle, with large, strong wings, to protect His people. (See similar images in Deuteronomy 32:9-12, where the Lord is “like an eagle… bearing His people on His pinions,” His wings, and bringing them to safety.) He told them at Mt. Sinai, “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Myself” (Exodus 19:4). The Lord can provide “cover” and “refuge” and “shield and buckler” (a small shield) in His “faithfulness” to them. He can act like a protecting eagle or like a faithful warrior in battle, for them (Psalm 91:5-8). Eventually, “recompense” (just judgment and punishment) will come for the wicked” (Psalm 91:8).
Again, Jesus used some of the same images in His ministry, in reaching out to His fellow Jews. (See Luke 13:34-35. Jesus said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem… How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!”) This is one of the reasons that some people do not get to enjoy the blessings of God’s promises in Psalm 91. They simply resist and reject the Lord and His will for them, including His plan for salvation through Jesus. They never come to faith in Christ or fall away from that faith and no longer dwell in the shelter of the Most High, rejecting God’s grace and blessing, earned by Christ and still available to them.
Psalm 91 does not answer the question, though, about those who are or seem to be in the faith and yet still suffer great troubles in this life. In contrast with Psalm 91:10, what about Christians who have evil befall them and those who suffer and even die from a plague like Covid or cancer or some other ill that came near to them? We do not understand many things and we struggle when these things happen. As believers, though, we still seek to trust in God, as Psalm 91:2 says. We believe that God is working for good, though we cannot see it, in what he allows, and He can turn things for some good purpose, in His wisdom, in things that happen to us and others. Certainly, even in the life and death of loved ones in the faith, God is showing His salvation and bringing them out of the troubles of this life and into eternal life and joy. God promises, through the Psalmist, to each believer, “Because he holds fast to Me in love, I will deliver him; I will protect him, because he knows My name.” The ultimate deliverance is to eternal life in heaven.
God also talks about the protection He and His angels give in this life, in Psalm 91:11-13. Who knows how many times we have been spared from trouble when we did not even realize it? David writes, in Psalm 34:6-7, “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him from all his troubles, The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and delivers him.” Psalm 91:13 even says, “You will tread on the lion and the adder, the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.” See what David told Saul, when he was willing to confront the giant, Goliath, in 1 Samuel 17:34-37. He had been able to battle lions and bears already and been victorious.
There are other such examples: Daniel in the lion’s den in Daniel 6:19-23, and Paul bitten by a deadly viper in Acts 28:3-8 and “suffering no harm.” See also promises such as Mark 16:18 and Jesus’ own words to his disciples in Luke 10:19-20. Note in this last passage that examples of protection from literal “serpents and scorpions” are rare in the Scriptures, though God can do what He chooses. More important, Jesus says, is “authority… over all the power of the enemy” (referring to Satan) and “having your names written in heaven.” That saving work could only be done by Jesus.
That is why we must end this look at Psalm 91 by seeing how it is used by Satan and explained by Jesus, when He was being tempted by Satan, the devil, in the wilderness and when He was defeating all his temptations. You can read this story in both Matthew 4:1-11 and in Luke 4:1-13. I will focus on the account in Luke. While we pray “Lead us not into temptation,” the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted, yet to do everything in the right way, where we so often fail. Though weakened by 40 days of fasting, Jesus was able to resist temptations about food and about authority and glory and false worship. These were all the sort of temptations the devil had used against the children of Israel in the wilderness in the Old Testament and was very successful in getting them to sin. Jesus defeated Satan each time in Luke 4 by just quoting Scripture from Moses and the wilderness days and what was truly God’s will.
Finally, Satan decided to quote Scripture himself, but in a distorted way, as he had done with Eve in the Garden of Eden. His temptation to Jesus went something like this: "If you really are the Son of God, as you claim to be, then surely God cares for you. He has promised, in Psalm 91, to guard and protect you and even send angels to help you, if needed. Here are the Scriptures you need, as proof texts, Psalm 91:11-12. Why don’t you jump off the highest point of the temple? The angels will surely catch you. Think how impressive a miracle this would be." (Of course, Satan left out the parts about trusting God in all one does and holding fast to Him and knowing His name and doing His will.) Jesus knew better. He simply quoted again Scripture from Moses and the wilderness days, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test” by doing something risky and dangerous, especially at the suggestion of Satan.
Jesus knew something else, much more important, too. His plan and the Father’s plan was not for Him to live a safe and secure life here on earth, but to suffer and die in our place, a death and hell that we deserve for our sins. We have those amazing Scriptures that say, “For our sake, God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin… and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree” of the cross, to pay for and forgive all our sins and count us righteous and acceptable to God, with the gift of salvation and eternal life earned for us by Him (2 Corinthians 5:21 and 1 Peter 2:24).
Through all this and His mighty resurrection, Jesus also broke the power of Satan for us. We cannot see it completely yet, but when Christ returns, what Paul wrote will finally and fully happen: “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet” (Romans 16:20). That will be the ultimate “trampling of the serpent, Satan, under our feet,” through Christ the King (Psalm 91:13).
It is in relationship with Christ that we now read Psalm 91 and all the Scriptures. As Paul said, in Romans 8:32, “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?” We will have what we really need, for this life and for eternity, in God’s great love for each of us in Christ, whether we can always see it or not. Paul put it so well in Romans 11:33-36: “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable (impossible to understand and interpret) His ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen." (Paul’s quotation is based on words from Isaiah 40:12-14 and Job 41:11.)
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
The first half of the Church Year, the “Festival” half, is now over. Beginning with Advent and Christmas, we were told the story of God’s plan of salvation for us, centered in the birth, life and ministry, suffering and death, and then resurrection and ascension of our Savior, Jesus Christ. That first half ended with Pentecost and Trinity Sundays, when we heard of our Triune God’s continuing work for us, especially through the Holy Spirit, bringing us to faith and keeping us in that faith, through the Word of God and the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.
Now we move into the Sundays after Pentecost and Trinity, when we think about our response to all that God has done for us, as we live in the “ordinary” days and months ahead, until a new Church Year begins in late November. Even in these days, though, we are reminded again and again of God’s love and grace and power that make it possible for us to seek to follow His will.
The psalm for this week is Psalm 100, “a psalm for giving thanks to God.” It hardly needs explanation. The Lord alone is God. He made us and calls us His own, the dear sheep of His pasture. He is good to us, with steadfast love and faithfulness always. We, in turn, serve Him with gladness and eagerly enter His Presence with joy and thanksgiving. The Lord brings Good News for “all the earth,” including us.
In the First lesson, Exodus 19:2-8, God speaks to His chosen people of the Old Testament, whom He had just rescued from slavery in Egypt. They are to be His “treasured possession,” a “kingdom of priests” and a “holy nation.” In response, God’s people are to seek to “obey His voice” and “keep” and trust in His covenant, His agreement by which He called them. Though “all peoples” and “all the earth” are His, He will work through this nation to be a blessing to all, and His chosen people agree to seek to follow all that He has spoken.
In the Epistle lesson, Romans 5:6-15, Paul speaks of the fact that since sin and death came into the world, we are all sinners. He describes us all, left on our own, as “weak” and “ungodly” and “sinners” and even “enemies” of God. That’s why Jesus had to come to be our Savior. “We were reconciled to God only by the death of His Son” and “saved by His life.” This was the “free gift of God by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ” that “abounded” for us and is available to “the many,” to all.
In the Gospel lesson, Matthew 9:35-6:20, Jesus is “teaching” and “proclaiming the Gospel” and helping many people, because he sees that they are “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a Shepherd.” He knows that “more laborers” are needed to reach people with God’s love and hope. He sends out His twelve chosen disciples, “apostles,” at this point telling them to reach out to “the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Many of God’s own chosen people had drifted away from the Lord and His will, though they had promised to be faithful. Jesus says that He would later be sending His apostles out ‘as sheep in the midst of wolves.” There would be much opposition, but they were then to be reaching out to Gentiles (non-Jews) as well as Jews. (See v.19.) They can do so with confidence, because “the Spirit of their Heavenly Father would be speaking through them,” as they told everyone about Jesus. They were not and never would be on their own, as they shared Jesus and His Word. That is still true today for us.
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
Two times in the Gospels Jesus says very similar things about fathers (and parents). In Luke 11:11-13, He refers specifically to fathers. In Matthew 7:9-11, Jesus speaks of “men,” but uses a term that sometimes just means “human beings” and not just “males.”
(Jesus preached for three years, off and on, and said similar things to many of the people, but did not always use the exact same words, as we see in these passages. Take a look at both passages, to begin with.) In both passages, Jesus says something that seems contradictory. He says to fathers (and mothers), very bluntly, “You are evil.” Yet at the same time he says, “You know how to give good gifts to your children.” You would not give stones or serpents or scorpions to your children, but you give what they need - bread or fish or an egg.
Why would Jesus particularly say to fathers (and mothers), “You are evil"? That’s not what we want to hear on a day like Father’s Day. (I’ll just speak about fathers, since I am a father.) Jesus always spoke the truth, and so He had to speak the Law of God to us. Ever since the fall into sin, we have all been sinful people, born with a sinful nature.
As early as Genesis 6:5 we read, “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intention of his heart was only evil continually.” The Lord said through Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it” (Jeremiah 17:9). Jesus Himself said, “What comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts… false witness, slander”…. and so much else (Matthew 15:18-20).
The commentator Martin Franzmann says that the Matthew passage might be the strongest “indictment" of us in the Sermon on the Mount. “Jesus is here taking man at his best, in his fatherhood, where the very structure imposed on his life by the Creator forces a certain selflessness on him - Jesus is taking man as the giver of good gifts to his children and is even there calling him evil. Man’s incapacity for real righteousness… could hardly be more strongly stated” (Discipleship, p.50-51).
At the same time, Jesus always also preached the Gospel. As we hear in this week’s Epistle lesson, Romans 5:6-15, we have, at times, been “weak,” “ungodly,” “sinners,” and even “enemies of God” (Romans 5:6-10). “But God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us… We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son… and saved by His life.” Paul put it this way in 2 Corinthians 5:17-19: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this from God… In Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them.” Again, Paul wrote, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel,” the same one Jesus preached, “for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). He also said that those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ are loved by God and called to be saints” (Romans 1:6-7). This all means that in Christ, we are now forgiven sinners, but also saints, headed for eternal life, in Christ.
We can also, as a new creation in Christ, give good gifts to our children and be a blessing to them. We know the tension we still face in this life, as both a saint and a sinner. We have good intentions, but can’t always seem to keep them. We make promises, but can’t or don’t always follow through on them. We battle our sinful nature, even as fathers, as Paul describes in Romans 7:15-25. Yet we rejoice that God loves and forgives us and that our children and spouse love and forgive us, too. That is the grace of God at work in us all, because “our (perfect) Father who is in heaven gives His greatest good gifts to us, in Christ.
God’s love and forgiveness help us learn and do better as fathers, too. Just before the Matthew 7 passage, Jesus had taught that we need to be careful about judging others too harshly, if we want God to continue to be merciful to us with our own failings. We can grow in being more forgiving, as we have been forgiven by our Lord (Matthew 7:1-5). Jesus also said, right after the Matthew passage, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12).
We can grow into being better fathers, as the Lord works mercifully in our own lives, but we need God’s power to do so. That is why just before the Luke 11 passage, Jesus was teaching about prayer and the need to keep praying for the Lord’s help for our lives, even as fathers. We can “ask and seek and knock” and the Lord will hear our prayers and answer in the way that is best for us (Luke 11:1-10). It is a great privilege to be fathers and to give good gifts to our children and spouse and others around us. What joy we can bring to others and receive from them, in our families, as we work and serve together. And we have the promise of Jesus that our caring Heavenly Father will keep giving us His Holy Spirit to strengthen our own faith through His Word and help us in dealing with our children and spouse and family (Luke 11:13).
One last thought. We rejoice in our own fathers who have been a blessing to us and gave us good gifts and good examples, as imperfect as they were, too. And even if our fathers were not so helpful or even troubling or absent, we have a Heavenly Father who can bring us healing and strength and help to go a better way through His love and care. As Peter wrote, “In everything may God be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever” (1 Peter 4:11).
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
Sermon for 5th Sunday after Pentecost, based on:
Sermon originally delivered June 26, 2011
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Sermon for Trinity Sunday, based on:
Sermon originally delivered June 4, 2023
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
The psalm is Psalm 119:65-72, one of 22 eight-verse portions of this psalm. The author knows that the Lord has been “good” and has “dealt well” with him. He had been going “astray,” but the Lord had “afflicted” him in some way that drew him back to His Word and the value of His law, “better than thousands of gold and silver pieces.” (In the next portion of the psalm, Psalm 119:75, the psalmist even says to the Lord, “In Your faithfulness, you have afflicted me.” You can hear more about this psalm in this week’s podcast study, also.)
In the Old Testament lesson, Hosea 5:15-6:6, the Lord is also being faithful to His Old Testament people by allowing them to have “distress” because they had gone away from Him and His will for them. He says that He will go away from them, until they admit “their guilt” and “seek His face” again. The people seem to “return to the Lord” after He has “struck them down” and “torn” them, but the Lord knows that their “love” is only temporary, like a “cloud” or “morning dew” that quickly “goes away” as soon as their troubles lessen, with the Lord’s help. The Lord “slays them” by His Words through the prophet Hosea and says that He really desires “steadfast love” (mercy) and their continuing attention to “the knowledge of God,” instead of insincere “offerings and sacrifices.”
Jesus quotes from this Old Testament lesson in the Gospel lesson, Matthew 9:9-13. Jesus had just called Matthew, one of the hated “tax collectors,” to be His disciple. Matthew followed Jesus and invited other people who were considered to be more notorious “sinners” to join them for a meal. Religious leaders, the Pharisees, criticize Jesus for associating with such “bad” people. Jesus said that He had come for those who were “sick” and knew they were “sinners,” and that the Pharisees needed to learn what God meant when He said through Hosea, “I desire mercy (steadfast love from people) and not" simply outward “sacrifice.”
Paul was teaching, in the Epistle lesson, Romans 4:13-25, that everyone is a “sinner” and that the Law of God brings “wrath,” exposing our sins and showing that none of us keeps the Law perfectly, as Abraham and the psalmist knew, though they tried to do the right things. Abraham was “counted righteous by faith” by trusting that “God was able to do what He had promised.” The same is true for people “of many nations” - all those who “believe in Him, (the Lord) “who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification.” It is through the Great “Physician,” our Lord, that we are “called” and brought to saving faith, too, not by our efforts.
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
This week, we look at Psalm 119:65-72. This is also the assigned psalm for the Second Sunday after Pentecost, this year. Psalm 119 is the longest Psalm in the Scriptures, and the author is not identified. This is also an acrostic psalm, like Psalm 25, that we studies earlier. It is even more complex, though, because there are 22 eight-verse portions and each portion begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The first portion begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the second portion begins with the second letter, and so on through all twenty-two letters. In addition, in each portion, each of the eight verses begins with a word with that same letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is “Aleph.” So, verses 1 to 8 all begin with a word that starts with the letter “Aleph.” Verses 65-72 all begin with the ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, “Teth.” (Some translations, including the NIV and the ESV, list these letters at the beginning of each portion. Otherwise, you would not be able to tell that this psalm is so carefully structured.)
The whole psalm is a celebration of the importance and value of God’s Word for the author and for us. Every verse includes a reference to God’s Word. Verses 65-72 use the words: Your Word, Commandments, Statutes, Precepts, and Law. Other verses in the psalm also use the words: Your Righteous Rules, Testimonies, Promise, Ways, and other words. The word “Law” is used at least 25 times, and Dr. Roehrs indicates that it is not always the opposite of the Gospel, but it refers to “all manner of instruction given for our benefit.” Dr. Roehrs also says that the repetition of the words and phrases is like “the language of a lover who does not tire of saying the same ‘I love you’ to the one he loves,” even in a variety of ways. God and His Words are so, so important to the author, and he is reminding us that they are equally important for us, because God loves us.
Psalm 119:65-72 especially teaches us that, as P.E. Kretzmann says, “A course in the school of suffering always works benefits for the children of God.” The author of the psalm says that the Lord had “dealt well” (v. 65) with him, even in times of trouble and difficulty. “It is good for me that I was afflicted,” he says (v.71). And why? He writes, “Before I was afflicted I went astray” (v.67). He had gotten away from the Lord and His will in some way and needed to be re-awakened and drawn back to God and His Word. Affliction, trouble of some kind, can do that. For Christians, affliction is not so much punishment, as it is discipline from the Lord because He cares for us. See again words we have read before from Hebrews12:5-11. The Lord is our loving Heavenly Father who disciplines us because He loves us, or like a good Friend who chastises us and shows us where we are wrong and then helps us go in a better direction.
Look at Psalm 119:75, where the author now realizes that the Lord was acting in “faithfulness” to him as He afflicted him. Maybe he had been doing things that were very wrong and dangerous and needed to be corrected. Now, he says, ”I know, O Lord, that Your rules are righteous.” He says, ”You are good and do good” (v.68), even when the correction hurts. Now the author wants to be “taught” more, through the Lord and His Word (v.68). He “believes” and trusts more that the Lord is working for his good, even in tough times. He wants to have “good judgment” and better “knowledge” in the decisions he makes, for the Lord’s way is the wisest and the best for him and for others (v. 66). He “delights again in the law of the Lord” (v.70).
The author is also learning humility before the Lord. “Those who are insolent,” arrogant people “smear him” (and others) “with lies”(v. 69). “Their hearts are” (literally, in the Hebrew) “fat with grease,” “unfeeling with fat” in the ESV (v.70). We know today how dangerous it is to have build-up of bad things in our heart and arteries. That seems to be the picture image here. It is used in other place: “hearts of the arrogant (literally) closed with fat, with no pity for others” (Psalm 17:10) and people with “pride as their necklace… Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with folly” (Psalm 73:6-7). In Isaiah 6:9-10, also, Isaiah is to warn of those who “hear but don’t understand and see, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people (literally) greasy and their ears heavy and their eyes sticky” (F.Delitzsch translation). Some people still call others “greasy” today, and that is not good or a compliment.
In contrast, the author of Psalm 119 now has a “whole heart” open to God’s precepts (v.69). He humbly calls himself God’s servant (v.65) and wants to keep His Word in his heart. He know that what comes “from the mouth of the Lord is always better for him than thousands of gold and silver pieces” (v. 72). If you look ahead to v.76-77, the author also finds “comfort in the steadfast love” and “promises” of the Lord, even to “servants, and he prays that the Lord’s mercy would come to him, that he might live.”
That Word of God is prophetic of Christ and His great mercy and forgiveness earned for us, that we may live, too, in and through Him. Truly, as the author discovers and says in Psalm 119, the Word of God is the true treasure for all believers, including us, as Kretzmann also says. May we keep learning from that Word.
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Wednesday Jun 07, 2023
Sermon for Trinity Sunday, based on:
Sermon originally delivered June 19, 2011
Wednesday May 31, 2023
Wednesday May 31, 2023
The Scriptures for this week teach us many things, but also show us examples of how the one true Triune God is revealed to us in the Bible. This teaching is very important for us always, and is seen in the readings this Trinity Sunday.
The Gospel Lesson, Matthew 28:16-20, gives us words of Jesus just before He ascended into heaven and received again “the glory He had with the Father before the the world existed” (John 17:5). He truly does have “all authority in heaven and on earth” and His disciples are now to “teach” and “baptize” people of “all nations” in His Name, along with “the Father” and “the Holy Spirit.” Yet this is one Name, the Name of the one true Triune God. As God’s Son, Jesus promised to be “with us always, to the end of the age” (along with the Father and the Spirit). He can do so as the Son of God.
In the Epistle lesson, Acts 2:14a, 22-36, we hear Peter preaching about “this Jesus“ being “crucified and killed,” and yet death could not hold Him. “This Jesus God raised up” and “exalted to the right hand of God.” And who was involved in all these mighty works and deeds? It was “the Father” and “the promised Holy Spirit,” along with Jesus, who is called both “Lord and Christ,” along with God “the Lord.” It is the One True Triune God at work, for us and our salvation.
The Old Testament lesson is Genesis 1:1-2:4a, the story of the Creation of all things by God. Who was involved? Only God. Only He existed in the beginning. Yet we hear of “the Spirit of God hovering over the waters,” and we hear God saying, “Let us make man in our image.” There is both singular and plural language for God, as God created “male and female He created them.” The New Testament also reveals that God the Son, called “the Word,” was also there at the beginning, “through whom all things were made.” “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This Word is clearly identified as God the Son, Jesus, “the Light,” “the Word” Who “became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:1-9, 14).
The Psalm is Psalm 8. David begins and ends this psalm by declaring the “excellencies,” the majestic nature of God’s Name, because that special Name, LORD (Yahweh). speaks of the “glory” and “strength” of God Himself and His “eternal power and divine nature” over all His creation (Exodus 3:13-15, 6:6-7, Romans 1:20). This Psalm is also a prophecy of Jesus, the “Son of Man.” Four times, parts of Psalm 8 are quoted in the New Testament with regard to Jesus and His becoming a true “man,” “a little lower than the heavenly beings,” both angels and the Lord, in order to do His saving work for us. Once that work was complete, Jesus received “dominion” again, “with things under His feet,” as the true Son of God, as well as true man. (See for example, Philippians 2:5-11.)
If you want more detail on Psalm 8, see the Bible Study for this week in my podcast. If you want more information about the teaching of the Trinity, listen to a new sermon I will preach this coming Sunday and will include with the materials in the podcast next week.
Wednesday May 31, 2023
Wednesday May 31, 2023
Our Bible Study this week focuses on another psalm of David in the Old Testament, Psalm 8. As you may have heard before, the “Gittith” mentioned in the introduction is probably a musical notation or a kind of musical instrument to be used with singing the psalm. This psalm was to be given to the “choirmaster” to prepare for use in worship in the tabernacle, and later on, in the temple, in praise of the Lord.
David begins and ends this psalm with the phrase, “O LORD, our LORD, how excellent is Your Name in all the earth.” Some translations use the term “how majestic” or another term of great honor for God and His Name. The capitalization of the word “Lord” in the Old Testament always indicates that this is the special name of God, mostly likely “Yahweh.” The name was so special, though, that Jews often did not say it out loud, but used some alternative vowels which made it look like “Jehovah.” We still see that alternate Name in hymns and other materials and translations. (I do not usually capitalize all the letters, for simplicity’s sake, in what I write for my podcasts, nor are they all capitalized in the New Testament. When we hear “Jesus is Lord,” though, it is referring to Him as Lord and God, as in the Old Testament. You can read more about this special Name for God in Exodus 3:13-16 and 6:6-7, for example.)
David also adds that the Lord’s Name is excellent “in all the earth” - or it should be! The earth and the whole universe are the Lord’s. His glory is everywhere, even “above the heavens” that we can see (Psalm 8:1). Though there are “enemies” and “foes” and “avengers” against the Lord, He is still in control and can finally “still” them and their opposition. (Psalm 8:2).
Isaiah 40:22-24 describes the enemies as like “grasshoppers” compared with God, even if they are “princes” and “rulers.” They come and go, and the heat and tempest of life will eventually bring them to “nothing,” like “stubble.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-28 says God can “choose what is “foolish” and “weak” in the world to “shame the wise and the strong” in the world’s eyes. Even what looks “low and despised” in the world can “bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.”
David says that God can even use babies and infants to accomplish His purposes (Psalm 8:2). Jesus Himself quoted this passage in Matthew 21:14-16 when He was “healing the blind and the lame,” people weak and despised by the religious leaders, and “the children were crying out, ”Hosannah to the Son of David.” Little children could recognize who Jesus was, while the “chief priests and scribes” could not. Jesus said that the Lord had “prepared perfect praise out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies,” just as David had predicted. Earlier, Jesus had also said, “Father, Lord of heaven and earth, You have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was Your gracious will” (Matthew 11:25-26). Simple, childlike trust in the Lord is what God wishes to bring to all of us.
In Psalm 8:3, David “looks at the heavens” …. “ the moon and the stars” and all “the work” of God that He has created,” and marvels that God still cares about the little people of this earth. David “clearly perceived” “the eternal power and divine nature” of God “through His creation and the things that have been made” by God, as Paul described in Romans 1:18-32. So many people, then and now, have rejected God as Creator and think that this amazing universe just happened through natural and/or accidental, random processes. They have worshipped things in the creation and themselves and their wisdom and ideas, instead of God. Terrible things have happened as a result. The Scriptures say that all of this has happened, of course, because of rebellion against God and the fall into sin, beginning with Adam and Eve and now infecting all people.
Then David, in Psalm 8:4, by the inspiration of God, speaks in a prophetic way of “the Son of Man.” This is a phrase in Daniel 7:13-14 and here in Psalm 8 and in other places, predicting the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus used this phrase more than 80 times in the Gospels of the New Testament to refer to Himself, as “the Son of Man sent to seek and to save those who were lost” (Luke 19:10).
Jesus was God the Son, the second “Person” of the Triune God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, from all eternity. As David prophesied, though, in Psalm 8:5, God the Son needed to be made a real human being, “a little lower than the heavenly beings,” in order to come into this world and do His saving work for us all. The Hebrew phrase here is hard to translate. It literally seems to say that the Savior, Jesus, would be a little lower than God. What we see in the New Testament is that God the Son was still God, and yet did not use His Godly power much of the time, and became the true man, Jesus. Sometimes Jesus said, as true man, not using all power, that only the Father knew certain things. (See passages like Matthew 24:35-36 and Acts 1:7.) As true man, Jesus would be tempted as we are, yet did not sin, and would fulfill perfectly what we fail to do in our lives, as we do not always follow God’s will as we should. He would also suffer the penalty for all of our sins, as He suffered and died for us, to free us from condemnation for our sins, and earn for us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
This amazing, humble work of Jesus, as true God and yet true man, is described for us also in passages like Philippians 2:5-8, 2 Corinthians 5:21, and 1 Peter 2:24-25. When that work was complete, the Lord did exactly what David also predicted in Psalm 8:5b-8. Jesus, with His Ascension into heaven, was “crowned with glory and honor.” See the words of Jesus in John 17:4-5, and what happened after Jesus’ “state of humiliation” for our sake was completed, in Philippians 2:9-11. The name of Jesus is now “the name that is above every other human name.” “Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord, our Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
As David also predicted, God the Son, Jesus, also had His “dominion” over all creation restored, and “all things were again put under His feet” as “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Psalm 8:6-8 and Revelation 19:16, etc.). Notice also how the writer to the Hebrews quotes also from Psalm 8:4-8 in Hebrews 2:5-9. God the Son was even made lower than “the heavenly beings, the angels,” as well as God the Father “for a little while” when on earth: but His power and authority have been restored, though “at present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him.” The world is still in great chaos, and we have our own struggles. We can’t see it all yet, but we know the Lord’s promises in Christ, and “we have that peace in Christ that surpasses all human understanding” (Philippians 4:4-7).
Psalm 8:6 is quoted two more times in the New Testament, with regard to “all things being put under the feet of Jesus,” after His resurrection and ascension. See 1 Corinthians 15:22-27, when Christ returns on the last day and death will no longer bother any believers any more. See also Ephesians 1:18-23, especially v.22. God the Son, Jesus, will rule, “not only in this age, but also in the one to come.”
We will also be with Him in that eternal existence, as His church, the body of Christ, all who trust in Him. What a future is in store for us, too, because of Jesus, Son of God and true man, and all He sacrificed for us, along with the plan and working of God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. We, too, look forward and say with David, again and again, “O LORD, our LORD, how excellent, how majestic is Your Name in all the earth.” We are secure in Christ.