A Thought From The Psalms

O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. Psalm 137:8,9

What a terrible thing to say. Why is the writer of Psalm 137 speaking this way? He is furious and wrathful. His people have been conquered and brutalized by Babylonian soldiers, and he wishes that the Babylonians will be cursed with the same brutality that they have heaped upon God’s people.

This Psalm is what Bible teachers and theologians call an imprecatory Psalm, one that calls down curses on the enemy. It’s an angry, revenge filled, “You’re gonna get yours!” kind of Psalm.

Babylon in its conquering of the world in ancient times was not a nation that waged war according to international laws. They had no rules of engagement intended to protect the civilian population of their enemies. Kill, spoil, and destroy is how they did it.

Imagine what this Psalmist had seen with his own eyes when Babylon conquered Jerusalem and all Israel. Like other nations in battle at that time, they mowed down people in the streets chopping them in pieces with swords. Like other nations in battle at that time, they probably “ripped up the women with child” (Amos 1:13 re: Amalek), and may have pulled some baby (babies) from the mother’s belly and cast it on the ground to die, if it wasn’t dead already. When little toddlers were running in fear from the battle hardened brutes of Babylon, the soldiers, like other soldiers at that time, may have grabbed the child by its ankles, swung it around his head, and battered it against a rock or other object hard enough to crush the little skull. They may have heard cheers and laughter from their fellow soldiers patrolling the streets of the vanquished city.

It is hard for any modern person to imagine how even a battle hardened soldier of any army, who had seen and been a part of the most horrendous war situations, could, for any reason, be that hard, that murderous.

The Psalmist implies he expected that one day Babylon’s children would be treated “as thou has served us.”

Eventually God judged Babylon as He had promised (Jeremiah 25:12) for their iniquity, and the women and children of that wicked city did not fair well.

A Devotional Thought From Isaiah

Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever: That this is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of the LORD: Which say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits:      Isaiah 30:8-10

God calls out His ancient people in this passage. He says they are rebellious people (rebelling against Him), they are lying people who should be a people of truth. They are His children (chosen and called), but they will not hear His law. They will not listen, and they do not want to obey God. They tell their preachers do not preach right things, tell us smooth, easy things. Things we want to hear. Prophesy deceits, tell us lies that fit what we want to believe.

How could these be the people God called His own?

Today in some Christian denominations there is almost the same cry from many who call themselves God’s children. Don’t tell us the Bible says things we approve are really sin, we don’t want to hear that. Don’t tell us we must follow God’s teaching if we are to call ourselves Christians. The world around us approves certain values that the Bible does not, so prophesy deceits, tell us that sin and God’s word are actually compatible. We will believe it because that is what we want to believe.

How could these be the people God calls His own?

A Devotional Thought From Isaiah

In the city is left desolation, and the gate is smitten with destruction. Isaiah 24:12
At the noise of the tumult the people fled; at the lifting up of thyself the nations were scattered.   Isaiah 33:3

In his sermons, the prophet Isaiah gives us the clear understanding that God is in control of the future of the nations. They do not determine their futures except in the sense that their wicked and sinful societies can bring forth the judgment of God.

Isaiah tells us that Moab, Damascus, Tyre, Judah, Israel, Assyria, Egypt, and even Babylon, the great, lost their power and faced destruction under His hand. They could not stop it.

The news hounds and political junkies, politicians and military leaders, of that day, viewing many of these nations from the earthly perspective, would never have expected them to be flattened and desolated as they were. They were, so to speak, too big to fail. They were too great to fall. They were too powerful to be overpowered. So it seemed, so they just went on their merry, sinful way. They did not expect that their behavior could bring down their country, but it did.

If God still rules in the affairs of the nations, and He does, the modern countries have obligations to govern themselves and be righteous according to God’s biblical directives. Present day nations could fall just as remarkably as those of Babylon’s time.

A Devotional Thought From Isaiah

Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Isaiah 6:5

“Woe is me!”

What brought on this lamentable exclamation from the prophet Isaiah? What terrible thing had occurred in his life that caused him to see himself this way? What circumstance had brought him to this revelation? Was he just diagnosed with some dread disease? Had he lost a lawsuit and the payout would bankrupt him? Had his son decided to marry outside the faith? Had any one of a myriad of awful or tragic things happened to him?

No.

Isaiah had experienced something so spectacular that it had shown him how pitiful and sinful he was. Isaiah had been at the Temple, and there he had a vision of the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.

When Isaiah saw the glory of God, in that moment he saw himself and his people for the unclean, sinful, unglorious beings he, and they, were.

When that happens to anyone, he/she sees the LORD, it is the beginning of moral and spiritual reformation. A modern word, still in vogue, is renewal.

The people of this country, much less the world, need this! They need to see God as He has revealed Himself. That revelation of Himself, as we know, is in the Bible. Real improvement, personal and national, begins with this experience.

A Devotional Thought From Proverbs

At the end of Proverbs 16 verse 6, Solomon, the wise, makes this great statement, by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

This is true. It has always been true. It will never cease to be true. When men and women, boys and girls, revere God, and honor God, and lovingly fear him as a little child does his or her father, they will depart from evil. When they fear him, when they know him, they will think the LORD would not want me to do this or that or the other sinful thing, and they will depart from the evil. They will go away from it. They will stop doing evil.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if leaders of nations, and political parties, and religions, and street criminals would all begin to fear the LORD. If they did national policies would be for the good of all people, politics would be clean and decent, religion would be loving and Bible-based, criminals would turn from crime and give up their guns and other weapons, and streets would not run with blood and tears.

None of these things, unlikely as they are, can’t happen. If people start fearing and trusting the one eternal God of the universe, their hearts can be changed and the individual evil deeds will disappear. If people around the world en masse were to fear the Lord, the world would have an unprecedented period of peace and prosperity, but it takes departing from evil by fearing the Lord.

Consider what God said in Isaiah 1:18; Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

Your sins that are blood red will be cleansed by the blood shed by the Savior of the world, Jesus. So if you want to personally help renew the world fear of God and depart from evil.

Another Thought From The Psalms

He turneth rivers into a wilderness, and the watersprings into dry ground; A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein. Psalm 107:33.34

These two verses speak of both the power of God, and the judgment of God. If he desires he can turn a beautiful, verdant, pastureland fed by a vibrant flowing river into a wilderness; a lush and pleasant, productive, flood plain into a desert. What follows is a natural result of the dryness. He can turn a fruitful land into barrenness, producing famine and the terrible things that come with it.

A natural question coming from such a statement is, why would God do such a thing? Why would he put the inhabitants of such a land into such a time of distress?

The answer concludes the two verses, “for the wickedness of them that dwell there.” Because the people who live in the land are doing things that are wicked. Wickedness perpetrated by the populace can put a nation at risk for losing its blessings.

This nation, America, has been a blessed, bountiful land, well- watered, and fruitful, in so many ways most of its storied history. She still is, but it is a land where wickedness is prevalent. Depending on one’s political views various list of what wicked things are among us could be made, and publicized and argued, in most cases without changing anyone’s mind, but there is one wickedness that should be agreed upon, and rejected, by all Americans.

It is wrong to kill viable pre-born babies, and  babies who have been born, some even surviving terrible abortion procedures. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist, or pro-life activist, to know that some things are wicked. Abortion and infanticide are. Some things are just wrong.

So here’s the thought question. Is our nation risking God’s judgment because of our destruction of babies? If He expresses his feelings about this pre-born and after born infanticide will our fruitful land face barrenness?

A Thought from the Psalms

The author of Psalm 96 calls earth to be glad (v. 11), “for he (God) cometh to judge the earth; he shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth.” Psalm 96:13

In our modern day the cries of politicians and people in general, are filled with words like equality, fairness, justice, values, and right. It sounds as though the world should be in better shape with so many agreed we need what is good. The problem lies in definitions.

Many want equality as long as they are the ones to define equality. So it is with fairness, and values, and right, as long as they are the ones who define what these things mean they want them.

At the same time they call for what is “right,” they cheer a legal statute to allow some abortions right up to the day before the baby is due. Of course, that is not right or fair or equal.

This is just one of the issues in modern society where people call for these noble words, and apply them to things that are not right, not just, not fair, not good.

And so the earth, because of people, who want to be considered right, but just do wrong and redefine it, goes its sad and weary way saying right is wrong, and wrong is right.

One day the earth’s way will be glad because the LORD is coming, and he shall judge the world with righteousness. One would think this to be something all the politicians and people would look forward to, but I don’t think it’s a popular hope. The reason? Note what the scripture says here. God will judge the people with HIS truth.

When the LORD comes all the false definitions will be in the trash heap of history, and God will judge by his truth. God’s definitions will rule the day. God’s definitions will determine justice, and equality, and fairness. Then, killing babies in the womb will be what it always has been, wrong, and worthy of judgment.