A Devotional Though From The Psalms

What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.     Psalm 89:48

The poet of this song touches here on something none of us like to really think about - our own death. Who is the person who can stop this tragedy? Who can say “Not me! I will not die,” and then keep his word. After putting this question, the psalmist adds the word Selah, probably a musical chord or interlude which is intended to tell the reader, or singer, or pray-er of this Psalm to stop and think about what was just said.

Who can stop his own death? You? Are you exercising to get your BMI down? Are you changing your diet and eating only dark green veggies? Are you sleeping eight hours every night? Are you thinking beautiful thoughts 24 hours a day? Are you resolving in your mind not to die? Will any of these things keep you from dying? That’s a rhetorical question.

It is appointed unto men once to die but after this the judgment. Death can be defeated in you, but only by Jesus who met death and walked out of the grave alive. Do you want to beat death? Be in Christ by faith, and because he lives you too shall live.

A Devotional Thought From Psalms

These things hast thou done and I kept silence; thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes.     Psalm 50:21

In the verses (16-19) immediately before this text God is speaking to the wicked (people who claim to be religious, or righteous, or good, but do bad) and He lists some of their sins. They hate instruction, and show it plainly by casting the word of God behind their backs, out of their lives. They have OK’ed thieving in some ways, and ihave made their society a safe harbor for adultery and sexual sin. You can’t trust what they say because they have yielded their speech to saying evil, and deceitful things. They do not even have brotherly love for their own brothers.

Modern Western societies seem to have fallen into just such a pattern of life. Morality is a no-no. Sins from the minor to the major are tolerated and indulged because the wicked in our society want to be able to do them without any kind of spiritual restraint on their behavior, although the large majority of these wicked folk would say they are “spiritual” in one way or another. How could they think their so-called “spirituality” justifies their sinful lifestyle? Verse 21 answers that question.

You did this wickedness, and because I did not speak out against you and take action, says God, you thought that I was like you are. You thought the holy God was okay with sin. What a foolish idea! I will reprove thee. I will set things right. And, if you continue to forget me I will punish you. If that judgment was declared for God’s own chosen people in the Old Testament shouldn’t people today take it into consideration for their own lives? And their own lands?