I lift my eyes to the hills...

The book of Kings was written to show Israel their sin of idolatry as the reason they were headed into exile. 

2 Kings 17:10 They set up for themselves pillars and Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree.

Wherever they lifted their eyes they were confronted with the gods of the nations embraced by God's own people. Who will you choose in this buffet of helpers for success, love, security? Then in judgement the nation went through some dark years of their own choosing. They were brought to Babylon in exile to contemplate who will be their God, where will their help come from?

Psalm 121 A SONG OF ASCENTS

1. I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? 2. My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

From across the desert in Babylon they look back to the hill of the Lord and remember the promise from Isaiah 2

2. It shall come to pass in the latter days 

that the mountain of the house of the LORD

 shall be established as the highest of the mountains,

and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it.

And now we come to the section of the Psalms of Ascent, the point when the King of Psalm 2 ascends to the throne to rule and reign on his mighty mountain above all other hills.  The hope of the messiah and the renewed vow to make Yahweh their God out of the dozens of other gods of the nations.

 As Cyrus decreed in the book of Ezra:
2 “Thus says Cyrus king of Persia: The LORD, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth, and he has charged me to build him a house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. 3 Whoever is among you of all his people, may his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and rebuild the house of the LORD, the God of Israel—he is the God who is in Jerusalem.

Where will your help come from?

Psalms in the last supper

After the last supper

Matt. 26:30 And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

The hymns they sang that night would have been Psalms 113-118 and a cursory reading of those Psalms points to many of the events of the next 24 hours in the life of Jesus after they left the meal in the upper room.

Psalm 116

3 The snares of death encompassed me;

the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;

8 For you have delivered my soul from death...

      10  I believed, even when I spoke:
      “I am greatly afflicted”

Psalm 118

      17  I shall not die, but I shall live,
      and recount the deeds of the LORD.

      22  The stone that the builders rejected
      has become the cornerstone.

Jesus and his disciples sharing the Passover meal in which pointed to the sacrifice Jesus would soon offer. Then he sings the words describing the cup of salvation that he would soon offer up. As the events unfold that night I don't know how the disciples could forget those words they sang describing the exact events of which they were watching unfold. And we get the comforting truth that Jesus- 

"believed, even when I (Jesus) spoke."

My soul is very sorrowful, even to the point of death. Matt. 26:38

Jesus knowing the Psalms knew the Lord would rescue him, that he would not die but he would return to dwell in the house of the Lord forever! (Ps. 23) 

Psalms 113-118 are a poetic prophetic description of that night that Jesus was betrayed and even offer insight into what Jesus was thinking and feeling. The cup of salvation that he offers up in his own life is that much more beautiful and glorious understanding these hymns they sang that night.

A lost braclet in South Sudan

Packing for a trip to South Sudan last May my daughter Abigail brought me a bright green plastic bracelet. 

"I have two of theses daddy, you can give one to a girl in Sudan." 

I told her I would pick out a girl that reminded me of her and give her the other one. A couple days later and many thousands of miles between, we arrived at the remote village of Biong just outside of Bor, South Sudan. One water pump for 17,000 people, mud huts scattered across the landscape, and a few mud brick walls of a school being built. We were greeted by a group of beautiful, curious children, touching our skin and feeling our hair and trying to mimic the words we were saying. 


 Out of all the children, I saw a girl that was a little more shy, about the height of my daughter with beautiful eyes.  I gave her the bracelet and showed her a picture of Abigail and told her my daughter had wanted her to have it. 

If you look carefully at the girl in the blue shirt with her back to us below and far left above, you'll notice the green bracelet. I've seen that bracelet show up in several other pictures since our trip.

Days before Christmas and weeks before school was set to open, South Sudan began fighting again. Rebel troops killing and looting and forcing the children of Sudan to once more run away. That little girl's dream of the future now shattered on the floor.

So as the news reports come in of the thousands fleeing, I keep scanning the pictures for that bright green bracelet, wondering what happened to her. She could be my daughter, hiding in the bush, drinking dirty water, fearing for her life and then it hits home.

The faces seem so far removed but that bracelet connects our worlds in a very real way. I'm still praying for that little girl and thousands of others just like her and now so is Abigail.

The Beautiful Church

Ever notice no New Testament writer said anything negative about Old Testament characters, even the ones that really deserve it?

Hebrews 11

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—

33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 

What shall I say of those men? Weak, scared, obnoxious, murderers, adulterers, drunks, horrible parents ... sinners! Didn't the writer of Hebrews read the book of Judges? Oh, I could say plenty of negative things. The NT writers saw those men through the eyes of God's beautiful grace.

It's not hard to find a critic of the church from both inside and out and most of it's true. People talk about what's wrong with the church, how the church should be improved, do better, it's weaknesses and how it is failing. I get it, it's full of hypocrites.

But... ever try that approach with your spouse or friend? Let me tell you everything bad about you, how you fail and need to get better. Feeling beautiful yet? 

The church isn't beautiful because the people inside are perfect , it's full of Jepthaths, Samsons, David's and Baraks, the church is beautiful because it's the bride of Christ. The more she is seen through the eyes of the Lord's beautiful grace the more beautiful she will become.

So I ask you "what more shall you say?"

Demons and nations

After the days of Noah, the world of man seeks its own glory. Working together they begin to build a tower to reach to the heavens and declare their own glory. In gracious response, God frustrates the plans of men to save them from doing the degree of evil they were capable of together by dividing them, separating their languages. Nations were born. 

In Deuteronomy we get a behind the scenes look at what happened here. 

When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,

when he divided mankind,

he fixed the borders of the peoples

according to the number of the sons of God. (32:8)  

There are some text variances of "the sons of God" but I won't discuss that here. The sons of God is a reference to fallen angels in the book of Job. 

So God divides the nations and it seems that to each nation there is perhaps an evil or demonic force represented. It makes sense doesn't it? If you have ever been on a missions trip or to a different country you can sometimes easily feel the dark presence of some satanic force. Nations are captured in large by common temptations. What you can see as a clearly spiritual force in one country maybe completely normal to someone living in that culture. 

It seems that fallen angels have:

• personality
• strength
• uniqueness
• finiteness, they are limited

So if each country has a predominate demon(s) it seems that the personality of that evil spirit will show itself more in that culture. Those living within it may not be able to recognize those traits though, they may just seem 'normal'. 

So what might be some possible characteristics of spiritual strongholds in the States?

• Comfort
• Safety
• Materialism
• Selfishness
• Productivity  and perhaps many others.

 I feel the pull towards those and it's helpful to understand the schemes of the evil one that it talks about in Ephesians 6. We are all engaged in spiritual warfare... we just may not know it and it seems like that is part of the plan.
 

Psalms 82

God has taken his place in the divine council;

in the midst of the gods he holds judgement.