For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
The proverb writer reminds us that the places where no explorer has ever returned to tell us about, the kingdoms of death and destruction, hide no mysteries from God. Since even the kingdom of death holds no secrets from God, what chance is there that God does not thoroughly understand our hearts?
This psalm makes a great meditation. Pick a verse and meditate on it throughout the day…or come back to this psalm every hour or so and meditate on a different verse each time. I will start the day with verse 2:
All who delight in him should ponder them.
Perhaps I will return to the psalm later in the day and pick a different verse. Or perhaps I will spend the day pondering God’s deeds. It will depend on how my day goes.
Jesus told the people that He would be going away and they would be unable to go to where He was going. When the people wondered what He meant by that He told them that they would die in their sins if they did not believe that He was who He said He was (the way the NLT translates it). Other translations say that Jesus said that they (that we) would die in their sins if they did not believe that “I AM he.” I had to read several different translations until I came to understand what Jesus was saying by that. The first part of understanding is the realization that Jesus used “I AM” in a way that His listeners would have understood to be a reference to Exodus 3:14 when God told Moses to tell the Israelites, “I AM who I AM.” From there I came to understand that when Jesus said, “I am he,” He was saying that He was the Messiah. Together this phrase is a claim to divinity.
From there Jesus goes on to speak about being lifted up, by which He meant His crucifixion. As He continued He made His claim to divinity even more explicit. As we read this, Jesus is making it plain that those who do not believe that He is God will die in their sins. And when He says that He means a belief that causes us to act in ways which reflect that belief.
When David’s older brother, Eliab, got angry with him, I think that Eliab was worried about his young brother. He knew how cocky and confident David was. He had probably seen David get into dangerous situations before. Eliab certainly knew what David was up to. David was not going to put himself forward as the champion to take on Goliath…Buuut if someone were to ask him about it, he would certainly declare his willingness to do so. When Saul heard that David was asking questions about Goliath and the reward for defeating him, Saul sent for him. However, when Saul met David, he did not believe that David could possibly take on Goliath.
When I read about David’s actions leading up to facing Goliath, I am tempted to think that David was arrogant. And David’s behavior has a lot in common with someone who is arrogant and thinks they are better than others. However, I realized the key tell that David is merely confident. An arrogant man would have wanted to go out to face Goliath wearing Saul’s armor and carrying Saul’s sword. An arrogant man would have been confident that he could go into battle successfully with unfamiliar equipment. David knew better. He tried on the armor and picked up the sword, but realized that he did not know how to use such equipment.
David chose to rely on what he knew…and the fact that Goliath, in defying the armies of Israel, had defied God. Let us remember David’s response to Goliath’s insult, “You come to me with sword, spear, and javelin, but I come to you in the name of the Lord of Heaven’s Armies…” When we face those who defy God’s will we do not need to fear their weapons, nor do we need to match their weapons. Instead, let us face them confident in the skills which God has caused us to develop and in the gifts which God has given us. If we are serving God, let us remember David’s final word before the battle began, “This is the Lord’s battle, and He will give you to us!”