God Has Broken the Teeth of the Ungodly.

This is a short look at Psalm 3.

God is Angry Every Day!

Is it true that God is angry every day?

Man's Life is a Vapor

The Haunting Effects of Sin (video)

He Restores My Soul - Psalm 23:3

Dead. Black. Harmful. Guilty. These are not words that describe a mere principle that worked within me, they described me. Though life coursed through my veins I was spiritually dead, and death was to be the only wage I would merit. Not simply physical death, but eternal death. Flesh was the only word that could described me. As in death my eyes were closed and lifeless, there was no light allowed to enter because I loved the darkness. Blackness permeated everything I was. Though my eyes could see, in rebellion they would not look upon light and life. All my actions, though I boasted of goodness, were done in darkness, and because of this I was harmful; harmful to myself and to those around me, and none of it was accidental or blameless. In all of it I was culpable for I had gone astray.

Broken, Injured. Restless. Fearful. Of no merit in myself and entirely for His name’s sake, He called this wandering sheep. For the first time I heard His voice and it me gave life, and light began to penetrate my soul. And though still somewhat harmful something had changed. Something old had passed away and all things were becoming new. Yet in it all I was still broken. I had injured myself and those around me, and in restlessness and fear I began to wonder if He could give me all He promised.

Guided. Nourished. Protected. Loved. From a distance I followed His voice learning that He would only lead me to places that would be for my advantage. In all His leading He began to feed my wounded soul with nourishment that could not be found from any other source. In my ignorance I would wander from time to time but He never failed to fend off the enemies of my soul with His rod, and if necessary He would even use His rod to chasten me. When my foolish legs began to wander He did not hesitate to wound them. Then in my weakness He would gather me up into His arms and keep me close and protect me from myself while I would mend. In those times I began to know Him better, and as He spoke to me using a name that was all my own, I knew I was loved.

Peace. Comfort. Fearless. Endless. My Shepherd’s name is Jesus and He restores my soul. I now lay down in peace wherever He leads me and I shall not be in want. I am comforted by His rod and staff and now long to be at my Shepherd’s side. No longer do I fear evil for He is with me. His goodness and mercy will be with me all the days of my life and my dwelling in the house of the Lord will be endless.

Doug

"Thou Art With Me" Psalm 23:4

“Thou art with me.” Do you know the sweetness, the security, the strength of “Thou art with me”? When anticipating the solemn hour of death, when the soul is ready to halt and ask, How shall it then be? can you turn in soul-affection to your God and say, “There is nothing in death to harm me, while thy love is left to me”? Can you say, “O death, where is thy sting”? It is said, when a bee has left its sting in any one, it has no more power to hurt. Death has left its sting in the humanity of Christ, and has no more power to harm his child. Christ's victory over the grave is his people's. “At that moment I am with you,” whispers Christ; “the same arm you have proved strong and faithful all the way up through the wilderness, which has never failed, though you have been often forced to lean on it all your weakness.” “On this arm,” answers the believer, “I feel at home; with soul-confidence, I repose on my Beloved; for he has supported through so many difficulties, from the contemplation of which I shuddered. He has carried over so many depths, that I know his arm to be the arm of love.” How can that be dark, in which God's child is to have the accomplishment of the longing desire of his life? How can it be dark to come in contact with the light of life? It is “his rod, his staff;” therefore they “comfort.” Prove him - prove him now, believer! it is your privilege to do so. It will be precious to him to support your weakness; prove that when weak, then are you strong; that you may be secure, his strength shall be perfected in your perfect weakness. Omnipotent love must fail before one of his sheep can perish; for, says Christ, “none shall pluck my sheep out of my hand.” “I and my Father are one;” therefore we may boldly say, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me”

-Viscountess Powerscourt-

God is Angry with the Wicked Every Day

God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day. Psa 7:11

They are children of wrath. They are not to be envied, for God is angry with them, is angry with the wicked every day. They are every day doing that which is provoking to him, and he resents it, and treasures it up against the day of wrath. As his mercies are new every morning towards his people, so his anger is new every morning against the wicked, upon the fresh occasions given for it by their renewed transgressions. God is angry with the wicked even in the merriest and most prosperous of their days, even in the days of their devotion; for, if they be suffered to prosper, it is in wrath; if they pray, their very prayers are an abomination. The wrath of God abides upon them (Joh_3:36) and continual additions are made to it.

-Matthew Henry-

The Song of the Slandered Saint

O Lord my God, in You I put my trust; Save me from all those who persecute me; And deliver me, Lest they tear me like a lion, Rending me in pieces, while there is none to deliver. O Lord my God, if I have done this: If there is iniquity in my hands, If I have repaid evil to him who was at peace with me, Or have plundered my enemy without cause, Let the enemy pursue me and overtake me; Yes, let him trample my life to the earth, And lay my honor in the dust. Selah Arise, O Lord, in Your anger; Lift Yourself up because of the rage of my enemies; Rise up for me to the judgment You have commanded! So the congregation of the peoples shall surround You; For their sakes, therefore, return on high. The Lord shall judge the peoples; Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, And according to my integrity within me. Oh, let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, But establish the just; For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds. My defense is of God, Who saves the upright in heart. God is a just judge, And God is angry with the wicked every day. If he does not turn back, He will sharpen His sword; He bends His bow and makes it ready. He also prepares for Himself instruments of death; He makes His arrows into fiery shafts. Behold, the wicked brings forth iniquity; Yes, he conceives trouble and brings forth falsehood. He made a pit and dug it out, And has fallen into the ditch which he made. His trouble shall return upon his own head, And his violent dealing shall come down on his own crown. I will praise the Lord according to His righteousness, And will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.

Psalm 7 - A Meditation of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning the words of Cush, a Benjamite.


"Lest he tear my soul like a lion," etc. It is reported of tigers, that they enter into a rage upon the scent of fragrant spices; so do ungodly men at the blessed savour of godliness. I have read of some barbarous nations, who, when the sun shines hot upon them, they shoot up their arrows against it; so do wicked men at the light and heat of godliness. There is a natural antipathy between the spirits of godly men and the wicked. Gen_3:15. "I will put enmity between thy seed and her seed."

-Jeremiah Burroughs-

Even this sorest of evils may furnish occasion for a Psalm. What a blessing would it be if we could turn even the most disastrous event into a theme for song, and so turn the tables upon our great enemy. Let us learn a lesson from Luther, who once said, "David made Psalms; we also will make Psalms, and sing them as well as we can to the honour of our Lord, and to spite and mock the devil."

-Charles Spurgeon-

To the Disheartened

"Why art thou cast down, O my soul?" Psa_43:5

It is one source of the eternal freshness of the Psalms that they tell the story of a struggling soul. They open a window on to that battlefield with which no other battle can be compared—the moral struggle of the individual with himself. And it is well that that story should be told in poetry, for there is nothing like poetry for describing battles. There is a rich suggestiveness in poetry, a rush of emotion, an enthusiasm that catches and conveys the excitement of the field. The dullest war correspondent grows poetical, his words become colored, vivid, picturesque, when he narrates the actions in the war. It was right, then, that for this warfare of the soul we should have the strong music of the Psalms.

Now as we read that story of the psalmist's struggle, one of the first things to arrest us is the likeness of that battle to our own. Ages have fled, and everything is different since the shepherd-king poured out his heart in melody. And yet his failures and his hopes are so like ours, he might have been shepherding and reigning yesterday. We are so apt to think we fight alone. We are so prone to think there never was a life so weak, so ragged, so full of a dull gnawing, as ours. We are so ready to believe that we have suffered more than any heart that ever loved and lost. And then God opens up the heart of David, and we see its failures and we hear its cries, and the sense of loneliness at least is gone. He prayed as we have prayed. He fell as we have fallen. He rose and started again as we have done. He was disheartened, and so are we.

Speaking of disheartenment, there is one temperament that is peculiarly exposed to that temptation. It is that of the eager and sensitive and earnest soul. If you are never in earnest about anything, you may escape disheartening altogether. To be disheartened is a kind of price we pay for having a glimpse at the heavens now and then.

"The mark of rank in nature is capacity for pain;
And the anguish of the singer makes the sweetness of the strain."

So the dull pain of being disheartened now and then is the other side of man's capacity for enthusiasm. Give me a flood-tide and I shall expect an ebb. Give me an earnest, daring, generous, loyal heart, and I shall know where to discover melancholy.

-George H. Morrison- Devotional Sermons

The Heavy Hand of God - John Calvin

For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me. Psalm 32:4

The greatest of all afflictions is to be so heavily pressed with the hand of God, that the sinner feels he has to do with a Judge whose indignation and severity involve in them many deaths, besides eternal death. David, accordingly, complains that his moisture was dried up, not merely from simply meditating on his sore afflictions, but because he had discovered their cause and spring. The whole strength of men fails when God appears as a Judge and humbles and lays them prostrate by exhibiting the signs of his displeasure. Then is fulfilled the saying of Isaiah, “The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it.” (Isaiah 40:7)

The Psalmist, moreover, tells us, that it was no common chastisement by which he had been taught truly to fear the divine wrath; for the hand of the Lord ceased not to be heavy upon him both day and night. From a child, indeed, he had been inspired with the fear of God, by the secret influence of the Holy Spirit, and had been taught in true religion and godliness by sound doctrine and instruction. And yet so insufficient was this instruction for his attainment of this wisdom, that he had to be taught again like a new beginner in the very midst of his course. Yea, although he had now been long accustomed to mourn over his sins, he was every day anew reduced to this exercise, which teaches us, how long it is ere men recover themselves when once they have fallen; and also how slow they are to obey until God, from time to time, redouble their stripes, and increase them from day to day. Should any one ask concerning David, whether he had become callous under the stripes which he well knew were inflicted on him by the hand of God, the context furnishes the answer; namely, that he was kept down and fettered by perplexing griefs, and distracted with lingering torments, until he was well subdued and made meek, which is the first sign of seeking a remedy. And this again teaches us, that it is not without cause that the chastisements by which God seems to deal cruelly with us are repeated, and his hand made heavy against us, until our fierce pride, which we know to be un-tameable, unless subdued with the heaviest stripes, is humbled.

John Calvin – Commentary on the Psalms

The Power of Praise

5. I will speak of the glorious honor of thy majesty, and of thy wondrous works. 6. And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts: and I will declare thy greatness. Psalm 145:5-6

There is power in our praise, and the primary reason has to do with the fact that it is the Lord who has worked in our hearts to produce that praise. We being sinful men do not naturally praise God, but when His Holy Spirit does His regenerating work, our spiritually dead souls are resurrected, our blind eyes begin to see, and our spiritually mute mouths begin to speak of the greatness of our God. With this in mind it is not hard to see why there is power in our praise, because God Himself is at work.

The Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth, is constantly bearing witness of Christ, so it is only natural for a person who has been born of the Spirit to desire to exalt the name of Jesus also. When we begin to extol our Lord, God is working, and when God works, we should take notice of the effects. In Psalm 145 we see an interesting accumulation of praise that can take place when we begin to exalt the Lord. In verse 5 we hear David say, I will speak of God’s wondrous works, then, because of it, we see in verse 6 that others will speak of his awesome deeds resulting in David once again declaring the greatness of our God.

When we begin to praise the Lord, others, within whom the Spirit is working, will hear our praise and begin to join in. As we hear their praise, we become more abundant in our own praise because we see our Lord working in others as well. Then once again as we are praising our God with a more abundant heart, others will see us praising Him and they too will join in which will lift our praise to even greater heights.

Wherever you are and with whatever measure of faith you have at this moment, rejoice in the Lord, for He is great and worthy of our praise. Speak of His glorious honor and majesty, and tell of His wondrous works, for when you do, you do so by the power of the Spirit. Then once you have done so, praise Him again for He has opened your lips. Then continue to bless His name, for we have the gracious privilege of continuing for all eternity. Then look for others to join in and watch as the Lord strengthens your voice. And who knows what the Lord may do with one short moment of exalting God. It may go further than you will ever know in this life. After all, He is still using David’s praise in Psalm 145 to cause others to glorify His name.

I will exalt You my God and King!

Doug Eaton

God Will Destroy the Wicked

The LORD preserveth all them that love him: but all the wicked will he destroy. Psa 145:20

"All the wicked will he destroy." God has so many different, unsearchable ways of taking wicked men out of the world, and sending them to hell, that there is nothing to make it appear that God had need to be at the expense of a miracle, or go out of the ordinary course of his providence, to destroy any wicked man at any moment.

-Jonathan Edwards-

Great is the Lord!

"Great is the Lord" Psalm 145:3

If "great" here be referred to God as a king, then a great king he is in respect of the breadth of his empire, for all creatures, from the highest angel to the poorest worm, are under him. "Great" for length; for "his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom." "Great" for depth; for he rules even in the hearts of kings, of all men, overrules their thoughts, affections, nothing is hid from him. And "great" again for height; being "a great King above all gods," ruling by his own absolute power and authority; whereas all other kings have their sword from him, and rule by a delegated and vicarious power.

-William Nicholson-