Author: Christian Hile

Psalm 108

The psalms were written as songs that should be meditated on. As I read and reread this psalm, the first line keeps coming back to me. David opens the psalm with, “My heart is confident in you, O God; no wonder I can sing your praises with all my heart!” (NLT). As I meditate and fill my mind with this scripture, I keep coming back to one word: confidence. David did not find his confidence or his steadfastness in himself or his own abilities, his confidence was in God. From that confidence in God and His character, David could rightly sing with all his heart.

We can have confidence that God is the same today as He was yesterday and as He will be tomorrow. God is steady, a firm foundation your feet can stand upon. David goes on to mention a few attributes of God’s character that we can be steadfast on. First, David praises God for His mercy. David uses the Hebrew word Hesed. This word means a little more than just our common English understanding of mercy. This word has the meaning of God’s loyal, unfailing love for His people. David uses hyperbole to try and describe this love as higher than the heavens (v. 4). God has a loyal love for His people, even when He disciplines. Not only does God have a loyal love, but He is faithful and true (v. 4). God is a man of His word. He does not pull back on His promises. He has fulfilled all his past promises and will fulfill all his future promises. 2 Peter 3:9 states, “The Lord isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some people think. No, he is being patient for your sake. He does not want anyone to be destroyed, but wants everyone to repent.” Lastly, we see a final attribute of God being His holiness. God is holy, set apart, and righteous (v. 7).

You can be confident in these attributes of God because He doesn’t change. He is a good, caring God. David was confident in these truths, so he left vengeance up to the Lord. David trusted in the Lord to be a just God as he stated, “With God’s help we will do mighty things, for he will trample down our foes” (Ps. 108:13).

What do you need to trust the Lord with? Maybe you are switching jobs and need to trust God will make the decision clear. Maybe you are being tempted that God really isn’t real, and you need to come back to what you know is true about God. Maybe you have a decision to make and are trusting in your own abilities instead of finding your confidence in God. He is a trustworthy God. Find confidence in what you know about Him.

Psalm 102

This psalmist is clearly in distress. When you read the first eleven verses, you can hear the despair, and you can see the imagery of the deep emotion this person is feeling. He says that his heart is so sick that he doesn’t even have an appetite. There have been few occasions in my life where I am so distressed that I cannot even eat. The psalmist’s enemies taunt him day after day after day to the point that his tears fill his cup. The NLT has a subtitle for this psalm, and it reads, “A prayer of one overwhelmed with trouble, pouring out problems before the Lord”. This really does sum up the first eleven verses well.

This is not the only psalm out of the one hundred and fifty where we read someone in distress crying out to God for help. David, on multiple occasions, would pour his heart out to the Lord in despair and ask God these very deep questions like why the wicked prevail over the righteous. We should all take note of this. There is a time to ask God questions and to have raw emotion with Him. He wants real you, not fake you. With that said, we should not just stay in our emotion and questions. Likewise, we should not make master’s out of our feelings.

The psalmist does not only write from the emotion he is feeling, but he writes from His knowledge of who God is as well. In verse 12 he proclaims that God will sit on His throne forever and all generations will remember His name. In verse 17 he states that God will hear the prayer of the destitute. In verse 25 he remembers the power and majesty of God by recalling His creator status. Finally in verse 27 he exalts God as the eternal God whose years will have no end.

It is important for us to have raw emotion and to acknowledge it and share it with our God, but we should not sin against Him. Bring your questions during your suffering and pain, but remember Pastor Chuck Smith’s words, “Never trade what you do know for what you don’t know.” What he means is if God does not answer your questions remember the promises that He has given you in His word. That he cares for you and is preparing a place for you and if He is preparing a place for you, He will come back for you (John 14:1-3).

Psalm 97

God is King. Jesus is King. Holy Spirit is King. Does your life reflect that? Who calls the shots?

Psalm 97 is a royal psalm declaring God’s justice, sovereignty, and righteousness. The first five verses set the scene as you would in an intense thriller movie. Dark clouds are surrounding him, the base of His throne is righteousness and justice, fire spreads ahead of Him and destroys His enemies, lighting flashes, and finally mountains melt. If you don’t have a picture of the awesomeness of God after reading those verses, I’m not sure you ever will.

Verse 6 reminds me of Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s in all its fullness, the world and those who dwell therein”. God is sovereign. The heavens declare His righteousness and all the people’s see His glory!

Idolatry has always been a practice throughout all of world history. The heart of flesh that we all have is futile and exceedingly wicked (Jer. 17:9). Humanity always wants to worship something they can see and handle. We know that any idol is utterly useless (Ps. 115:4-8). This same line of thinking is what led Israel to want a king and is what led Catholicism to have a pope. We want to see our “king” with our own eyes. We want him to protect us and to speak for us. We want to be able to actually see him, not just see the evidence of Him. Don’t put your trust in the pope, in any king other than THE KING!

Know that God still reigns and is still sovereign. The political climate may lead us to think that there can’t be a God who is directing all authority, but there is. His name is Jesus. Obey His commandments for He is King. You can’t call Him King if you don’t obey Him. Someday, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess. Don’t wait until that day, for it will be too late. Trust in Jesus today and obey Him.

2^nd Thess. 1

Both Paul’s first letter and his second letter deal heavily with eschatology, or the study of end times. Paul is trying to clarify some misunderstandings that the believers in Thessalonica had about the rapture and Jesus’ second coming to the earth. The emphasis of this first chapter of Paul’s second letter is to provide some comfort and hope for this church which is suffering some intense persecution. Despite the hardship, persecution, and suffering this church was facing, Paul commends them for their growing faith and love for one another. A common theme throughout the church in history is that when persecution runs rampant, faith grows. When persecution is nonexistent, faith is weakened. It is because persecution refines the faith of the church the same way that fire refines and purifies gold. It makes you worthy of the kingdom of God in the sense of sanctification, not justification (v.6).

Sometimes it is hard to trust that God is just when you are suffering persecution and you don’t see immediate vengeance. Passages like this help us to cling to the truth that God will make every wrong right when He returns. Sin requires a punishment. Either you pay that punishment or you let Jesus pay that punishment on the cross by surrendering your life to Him. God promises that those who do evil and don’t obey the gospel will suffer a painful punishment from Jesus’ presence and from the glory of His power. What does this passage encourage the believer who is suffering persecution to do?

1. Cling to the hope of eventual rest (v.7)
2. Consider your persecutions an opportunity to witness (v.4)
3. Count your persecutions as a purifier of your faith (v.5)

God will take vengeance. He is a just God. Be patient in your tribulation. He has overcome the world (John 16:33).

1 Thessalonians 4

Today we are reading and studying the fourth chapter of Paul’s first letter to the church at Thessalonica. This is where the theme of this letter shifts to the topic of eschatology, or the study of end times. I would be remiss to not talk about the first 8 verses because I think it sets a context that we all can learn from.

In the first eight verses Paul is calling the Thessalonians to purity. Jesus has made us pure by washing, cleansing, justifying, and sanctifying us. We ought to walk in that truth to honor and glorify our father in heaven. We live sexually pure lives not by striving, trying, and attempting, but by dying to ourselves and putting on Christ. God is not keeping you from something by demanding your sexual purity, rather He is giving you more freedom by calling you to live in the parameters He has created for you. God is more concerned about your sanctification than your satisfaction. He did not call you to passions of lust and uncleanness, but to holiness. You are to be set apart. This is important to remember as we move to the next topic in this chapter: the rapture of the Church.

The rapture is the removal of the Church from this earth, before the 7-year tribulation, which will occur in the end-times. Jesus’ return comes in two phases: the first phase is to collect His Church in the air (1 Thess. 4:15-17, 1 Cor. 15:51-54, 2 Thess. 2:6-7) and the second is to wage war at the battle of Armageddon (Rev. 19:17-21). There are three different approaches to when the rapture will occur. The three stances are pre-tribulation, mid-tribulation, and post-tribulation. God does not appoint us to wrath (1^st Thess. 5:9), therefore I see it hard to imagine any other time for the rapture instead of a pretribulation stance. Additionally, we have OT examples of God sparing the righteous out of the unrighteous like in the story of Lot in Sodom & Gomorrah and Noah with his family on the ark. Additionally, the church is not spoken of from Revelation 4 until chapter 19 when Jesus comes back with the saints (the NT Church). Lastly, God uses other means to spread the Gospel during the tribulation (the two witnesses; 144,000 Jewish people; and an angel in the air). If the church were still around, why would God need these other people/beings to spread His word when He has used the church for over 2,000 years? End times prophecy is all about God waking up Israel along with the rest of the world. The time is near. Get right with God so you are ready for His return. Be wise.

It is His grace that He is still waiting for the fullness of the gentiles to come. There will be a final person who gets saved and then God will rapture His church. Come to Jesus. Be soberminded. Be alert. Be ready for the return.

Psalm 75

The title of this psalm in the NKJV is Thanksgiving for God’s Righteous Judgment. In the subtitle we see it’s a song written by Asaph. This is a psalm where not only are Asaph’s words dictated, but the Father’s words are dictated as well in verses 2-5 and 10.

The psalm starts with the people thanking God for His nearness to them. That is so important for us to realize that God is always near to His people. Sometimes we feel like He is far from us and there are two main reasons for this. The first is that He wants your faith to be in Him and His Word, not in your feelings or experiences. The second reason is because you have unrepentant sin in your life that is breaking your fellowship with God, and therefore you don’t feel His presence. Always remember that God is near and is drawing you closer to Him with chords of kindness (Hosea 11:4).

Then immediately in verse 2 God starts to speak. If you want to hear God audibly, read this verse out loud and boom you have heard him audibly. But His message is more important. His message is about his impending judgment of the proud and the wicked. God always chooses the “proper time” for his upright and fair judgment. Sometimes in our minds we think God takes too long to bring justice. Other times we think He is too quick. But God is sovereign, and He always picks the proper time for His judgment. The danger for us humans is we don’t know His timetable. It is dangerous because we often think, “I’m still young, I will deal with my sin later because it’s still fun right now. I will get right with God when I need to raise kids.”  Don’t delay. Humble yourself before God casts His judgment on you.

When God says in verse 5, “Do not lift up your horn on high; Do not speak with a stiff neck”, He is using the imagery of a stubborn ox who doesn’t want to be yoked. God is saying don’t be stubborn with me and resist me. Humble yourself and take my yoke upon you because it is easy and light. The reason Jesus’ yoke is easy is because He is the one on the other side! I love you enough to tell you that there is a final judgment on those who don’t put their faith and trust in Jesus. The result of the Great White Throne Judgment is that all unbelievers are thrown into the lake of fire for eternal judgment which includes separation from God’s goodness (Revelation 20:11-15).

The beauty of verse 10, in this psalm, is that there is hope in the midst of impending judgment. It reads, “All the horns of the wicked I will also cut off, But the horns of the righteous shall be exalted.” God exalts those who are righteous. How can we be righteous? By accepting the gift of salvation. When you repent of your sins and put your trust in Jesus (Eph. 2:8-9; Rom. 10:9-10, 13), Christ’s righteousness is accounted to you. You are then exalted as a Child of God with a future reward waiting for you in heaven (2 Cor. 5: 9-11). The first step is humility. You need to humble yourself and recognize your sinfulness, and therefore your need for a savior. Jesus is near. Repent of your sins and turn to Him and He will wash you as white as snow.

Psalm 68

This psalm was clearly a song that would have been sung in worship of God during David’s reign. We see in the title that the word “song” was added. In verses 7-10 of this psalm David highlights that God was ever present with Israel in the wilderness of Sinai. In other areas of this psalm we see that God is a father to the fatherless, a defender of the widow, a provider for his people, but most of all he is a fighter for His nation Israel.

Kings flee from YAHWEH because of His greatness and because of what He has done. God is a just God that hates wickedness. He went before His people in battle and was given the name Jehovah Nissi “The LORD is my banner”. Verses 20-21 read, “Our God is the God of salvation; And to God the Lord belong escapes from death. But God will wound the head of His enemies, The hairy scalp of the one who still goes on in his trespasses.” This verse is dripping with Truth that we can cling to. YAHWEH is a God who delivers his people; He delivers them not only from the physical enemy, but also the spiritual enemy Satan.

In Genesis 3:15, God spoke to the serpent in the garden of Eden after he deceived Eve and stated, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel.” God told Satan how his end would come. He gave the entire plot to His redemption story in a single verse in the first book of the Bible. Satan bruised Jesus’ heal on the cross, but Jesus crushed Satan’s head on the third day when He rose from the dead.

Although this psalm is David pleading with God to eliminate Israel’s oppressors, we can now look back and see Jesus all through this psalm. Jesus brought a final victory for mankind against their oppression. We now fight through this life from a stance of victory, not from a stance of defeat. David was still looking for the Messiah, but now the gentiles have access to the promises of God including Salvation because of the battle Jesus won. The Church today does not replace Israel, and God surely has a plan for Israel in the end times, but He has grafted the gentile into His family tree. We know that the God of the Bible fights for both of His beloved, Israel and the Church.

 

Ephesians 1

Paul wrote this letter to the church at Ephesus. Not only did he write this letter to the church at Ephesus, but he discipled their first pastor, Timothy. Paul had a dear relationship with this church as well. He stayed in Ephesus for three years, the longest amount of time that Paul stayed anywhere on his missionary journeys. He is now writing this letter to them during his imprisonment in Rome.

As we read chapter 1 of Ephesians, we see it is dripping with foundational truths of Jesus’ love for you and for me. It is rich in theology and is the cause of much debate in the church today. Some topics we see are eternal security (v. 14), predestination (v. 5,11), and Jesus’ atonement (v. 7). The Bible teaches both predestination and man’s responsibility of free will by putting his/her trust in Christ for salvation. If we simply read verses 11-14 (NLT), we see the tension between God’s adoption of us (before the foundation of the world) and our responsibility to receive the free gift of salvation that he offers us:

“Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan. God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.”

By reading this text, we see that God both predestined us and gave us the ability to choose him or not. The evidence of our choice is that the Holy Spirit indwells us when we surrender our lives and trust in Chirst. So how do we reconcile these truths? Peter calls believers the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father” (1 Peter 1:2). God the Father is omniscient, and He predestined those who would believe based on His knowing who would put their faith in Him. Now you may ask, how do I know if God predestined me? I heard Pastor Chuck Smith answer this question in a sermon saying something of this sort, “repent of your sins and turn to Christ and boom you were predestined!” God does not call us to reconcile every theological tension in the Bible; He calls us to believe and trust in Him.

I wanted to leave you with three ways God displays His love for you in this one chapter.

1. He Chose You (v. 4-5)
2. He Shed His Blood for You (v. 7)
3. He Sealed you With the Holy Spirit (v. 13-14)

Believer, rest in these three foundational truths that God chose you before the foundation of the world, He hung on a cross so you might be saved, and He sealed you with the Holy Spirit which is the guarantee of your inheritance. Rest in His love.

Galatians 4

The book of Galatians is a letter. When we keep that in mind, we should not be stumbled by the chapters and verses that were placed into this letter. It is a fluid writing and when we go from chapter 3 to chapter 4 and then on to chapter 5, Paul continues speaking about a main point and that is Grace v. the Law.
In chapter 3 Paul is sure to point out that the Law brings a curse on individuals and that we are justified by faith and not by the law. He also states that the Spirit of God came to men not by the law, but by faith. Paul is combatting an issue he has seen crop up in the Galatian church and that is that they are falling back into their old ways.

In chapter 4 Paul makes two declarative statements about the believer in Jesus Christ. First, he states, “we are not children of the bondwoman but of the free” (verse 31). He also states that we are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (verse 7). The only reason one could be called this is by faith, not by following the law because we can never be perfect. James, in his letter, mentions that if we break one part of the law, we are guilty of breaking the whole thing. The reason the Galatians are children of God is because they were given grace on account of their faith.

Paul’s fear is that the Galatians are “turning again to the weak and beggarly elements, to which you desire to be in bondage?” (verse 9). The Galatians had been known by God, experienced His grace and were in danger of referring back to their old ways. I am not one to point fingers at them because how often do we fall back into trusting in our traditions? How often do we forget that our Salvation hangs on what Jesus did on the cross? How often do we want to say that Jesus + something = salvation? Paul could very well be writing the same thing to our church here in the United States.

So, what is the takeaway? The most important thing, when it comes to our Christian doctrine, is that our salvation is by grace alone in faith alone. Jesus + nothing = everything. We don’t add good deeds to our salvation. We don’t add baptism to our salvation. We don’t add confession or penance to our salvation. We stick to Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

Now I will add that good works play a role in the believer’s life by means of sanctification, but that is a completely different doctrine. The believer should be baptized and should confess and repent of their sins individually or with another believer. But we must remember that our salvation is by our turning from sin and submission to Jesus.

Psalm 42

Psalm 42 is a classic psalm that has no doubt encouraged believers for thousands of years. This is a psalm people put on their fridge, hang on their walls, or even put on their church bulletins. The beautiful imagery and metaphor of the psalmist’s soul longing for God as a deer longs for water helps us understand foundational truths about God.

The Psalmist was far north of Jerusalem near Mount Hermon (v. 6) and the distance from God was making his soul downcast. To put christianese to these verses, the psalmist was feeling spiritually depressed. To further explain, he may have been feeling like he was in a spiritual dry spell. Not only is the distance causing the psalmist to feel downcast, but he has mockers and scoffers urging him to doubt the presence of his God saying, “Where is this God of yours?” (v. 3, 10). Lastly, in his sorrow he has a memory of how magnificent it was being in close proximity to the Lord and leading people in worship to the very temple where God inhabited.

How does the psalmist respond to his spiritual depression?

First, he questions himself. He searches himself and asks, “Why am I downcast, o my soul?”. Notice he doesn’t just roll over, cave and say, “Oh well. I am downcast and that’s all I’ll ever be”. Sometimes when we search ourselves, we can find the root of what’s causing this spiritual rut. But, this takes effort and a lot of us, myself included, have had times where we don’t want to have to deal with our own thoughts and put the work in to better ourselves. Second, he establishes his hope in the Lord (v. 5,11). This hope is not wishful thinking that things will get better. This hope is a confidence that things will get better because this hope is in a God who is a rock that is immovable. Lastly, the hope he has is evidenced by his action. He will praise the Lord even when he really doesn’t feel like it.

So how do you get out of a spiritual rut when it feels like you’re longing for God but can’t even get a drop of His presence? Crack open your Bible. It’s the same concept as when there is a person who is on a strict workout plan and they still go to the gym even when they are tired and don’t feel like it. The most important time to read your Bible is when you really don’t feel like it. Find your hope in a God who is immovable. Lift your hands in worship when you feel the resistance pulling them down. Please God.