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Monday, March 2, 2020

Psalm 115 - Serve GOD WHO Made Us; Do not serve Idol-gods made by your hands









Psalm 115 NIV








1Not to us, LORD, not to us
But To YOUR Name Be the Glory,
Because of YOUR Love and Faithfulness.

2Why do the nations say,
“Where Is their GOD?”

3Our GOD Is In Heaven;
HE Does whatever pleases HIM.






4But their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.

5They have mouths, but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see.

6They have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell.

7They have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk,
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.

8Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them.






9All you Israelites, trust in The LORD
HE Is their Help and Shield.

10House of Aaron, trust in The LORD
HE Is their Help and Shield.

11You who fear Him, trust in The LORD
HE Is their Help and Shield.







12The LORD Remembers us and Will Bless us:
HE Will Bless HIS people Israel,
HE Will Bless the house of Aaron,

13HE Will Bless those who fear The LORD
small and great alike.

14May The LORD Cause you to flourish,
both you and your children.






15May you be blessed by The LORD,
The Maker of heaven and earth.






16The highest heavens belong To The LORD,
but the earth HE Has Given to mankind.






17It is not the dead who praise The LORD,
those who go down to the place of silence;






18it is we who extol The LORD,
both now and forevermore.


Praise The LORD.








PSALM 115







The Psalmist prays that GOD Would Vindicate HIS Glory, which is contrasted with the vanity of idols, while the folly of their worshipers is contrasted with the trust of GOD'S people, who are encouraged to its exercise and to unite in the praise which it occasions.


Let no opinion of our own merits have any place in our prayers or in our praises. All the good we do, is done by the Power of HIS Grace; and all the good we have, is the Gift of HIS Mercy, and HE Must Have all the Praise. 




Amen.









Psalm 114 - Out of Egypt Have I Called MY SON








Psalm 114 NIV









1When Israel came out of Egypt,
Jacob from a people of foreign tongue,

2Judah became GOD’S Sanctuary,
Israel HIS Dominion.

3The sea looked and fled,







the Jordan turned back;

4the mountains leaped like rams,
the hills like lambs.

5Why was it, sea, that you fled?
Why, Jordan, did you turn back?

6Why, mountains, did you leap like rams,
you hills, like lambs?






7Tremble, earth, at The Presence of The LORD,
at The Presence of The GOD of Jacob,







8WHO Turned the rock Into a pool,
the hard rock Into springs of water.













PSALM 114








The deliverance of Israel out of Egypt gave birth to their nation, which were then founded, then formed; that work of wonder ought therefore to be had in everlasting remembrance. GOD Gloried in it, in the preface to the Ten Commandments, and Hosea 11:1, 


"Out of Egypt Have I Called MY SON." 



In this psalm it is celebrated in lively strains of praise; it was fitly therefore made a part of the great Hallelujah, or song of praise, which the Jews were to sing at the close of the Passover Supper. 







Out of Egypt I Called My Son

 


Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of The LORD appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take The Child and HIS mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for The Child, to destroy HIM.” 
And he rose and took The Child and HIS mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what The LORD Had Spoken by the prophet, 
“Out of Egypt I Called MY SON.” (Matthew 2:13-15)
That last verse has caused lots of consternation.  The Holy Family goes to Egypt, and this somehow fulfills Hosea’s reference to Israel’s exodus? As I mentioned last week, at first glance it looks like Matthew is connecting the dots by the slimmest of connections.
Here’s what we read in Hosea 11:1-4:
When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.
Clearly, Hosea, speaking for the Lord, is harkening back to the Exodus. He is remembering when Israel was just a little toddler of a nation and God delivered them out of bondage in Egypt. “Many years ago, by Moses and the plagues and all that, I called my son Israel out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery”–that’s what Hosea 11 is about.
But look again at Matthew. “Out of Egypt I called my son” here refers to God hiding Jesus away in Egypt to avoid Herod’s decree and then calling him back from Egypt when Herod is dead. This seems to be unrelated to anything Hosea was talking about. How can Matthew say this flight to Egypt fulfilled the words of the prophet Hosea when the two events seem connected by no more than the word Egypt? How can this possibly be a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy?

Swing and a Miss

That’s a tough question and one that has generated a lot of bad answers. Some, with good intentions, have said “Look, Matthew says Jesus fulfilled this prophecy, so it must be that Hosea is a direct prophecy about the Messiah and only about the Messiah. Hosea knew he was predicting something about the Christ.” That does try to make sense of Matthew’s language, but you really have to get creative with Hosea to make it look like he was knowingly predicting a Messianic flight to Egypt.
Others have suggested that Matthew was just making a loose connection between two events that had to do with Egypt. He’s just playing free association with Biblical prophecy. “Jesus came out of Egypt. Here’s something in the prophets about Egypt. So let’s put the two together.” Not only does this make Matthew look a bit silly and throw into question some basic beliefs about biblical inspiration, this sort of loosey-goosey prophetic fulfillment simply doesn’t fit with the rest of Matthew’s gospel.
Matthew, more than any gospel writer, goes to great lengths to show that Jesus’ birth, life, and death, are rooted firmly in the Old Testament. Jesus was born of a virgin (fulfilling Isaiah 7:14). He was born in Bethlehem (fulfilling Micah 5:1-2). He was sought out to be killed by Herod (fulfilling Jeremiah 31:15). He was preceded by John preparing the way (fulfilling Isaiah 40:3). He healed diseases (fulfilling Isaiah 53:4). He spoke through parables (fulfilling Psalm 78:2). He came to Jerusalem riding on a donkey (fulfilling Zechariah 9:9). Matthew is very deliberate with his use of the Old Testament. So his citing of Hosea 11 must be more than just a connection with the word Egypt.

Jesus as the True Israel

So how do we make sense of this prophecy in Hosea and fulfillment in Matthew? The first step toward understanding Matthew’s purpose is to look more carefully at the word “fulfill.” The Greek word is pleroō. And it simply means to fill up. That’s what Matthew is at pains to demonstrate–that Jesus was filling up the Old Testament. Sometimes this meant very specifically that the Old Testament predicted the Messiah’s birthplace would be in Bethlehem and Jesus was, in fact, born in Bethlehem. There you go. That’s fulfillment. But fulfillment can be broader than that. It can refer to the filling up of the Old Testament; that is, the bringing to light what previously had been in shadows.
Take Mark 1:14-15, for example. “Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” When Jesus said “the time is fulfilled,” he did not mean “right now a specific prediction of Scripture is coming to pass.” He meant, “with my preaching of the gospel, the time has been filled up and the kingdom is here. The Old Testament is reaching its climax.” Likewise, I don’t believe Matthew thought Jesus’ flight to Egypt was predicted in Hosea 11:1. But I do believe that Matthew thought Jesus’ flight to and return from Egypt was filling up Hosea 11:1.
So what exactly is Jesus fulfilling, or filling up in Matthew 2:15? Jesus, as Matthew correctly understands the situation, is filling up the redemptive historical purposes of the nation. In other words, Matthew can claim that this Hosea passage, which talks about the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt, is fulfilled in Jesus, because Jesus is the embodiment of Israel.
Matthew looked back and saw an analogical correspondence between the history of the nation Israel and the history of the Messiah…the Hosea 11:1 quotation by Matthew is not an example of arbitrary exegesis on the part of a New Testament writer. On the contrary Matthew looked back and carefully drew analogies between the events of the nation’s history and the historical incidents in the life of Jesus (Biliotheca Sacra143:325).
In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus is cast as the true and faithful Israel. Matthew is retelling Israel’s well known story, but he’s putting Jesus right in the middle as the main character in the story. Jesus is the new Israel.
  • Chapter one starts with the genealogy of Jesus. The very first words, in Greek, are “biblos geneseos Iesou Christou”–a book of the beginning of Jesus Christ. Now why is that significant? Well, because that word geneseos is a form of the word genesis, as in the first book the Bible. I don’t think Matthew is trying to be tricky here, but surely he knew the first book of the Bible and realized that when he begins his gospel with “a book of the genesis of Jesus” he is, at least, strongly suggesting that this story of Jesus Christ marks a new beginning for the people of God. The story is starting over. This suggestion is supported by another parallel with the first book of the Bible. Genesis is broken up into ten toledoth sections. Ten times in the book of Genesis, we read “these are the generations (toledoth) of…” Interestingly enough, these toledothsections are, in a couple of places, translated into the Greek Septuagint with biblos geneseos (Gen. 2:45:1), which further points in the direction that Matthew understood Jesus to be a new generation, a new genealogy, a new beginning for the nation of Israel.
  • Not only is Jesus the new Genesis, his life embodies the new Exodus. Shortly after Jesus birth, he was rushed away to safety to avoid the wrath of a jealous king who had ordered all the young boys to be killed. Where else does this happen in the Bible? Exodus 1. Pharaoh fears the Hebrews and so he orders that every baby boy be thrown into the Nile. But Moses was spared because his mother hid him in a basket in the river. Likewise, Jesus was spared Herod’s decree because his mother hid him in Egypt.
  • Following right on the heels of Jesus’ exodus out of Egypt, we come to his baptism in the Jordan in Matthew 3. Again, I don’t think Matthew is trying to be speak in secret code, and he certainly isn’t making the stories up, but he has arranged the material in such a way as to retell Israel’s story, with Jesus now as the true Israel. So just like the Israelites left Egypt and then passed through the Red Sea (baptized into the sea according 1 Cor. 10:2), Jesus too leaves Egypt and passes through the waters in his baptism.
  • Just to point out one more parallel, think what happens to the Israelites after they pass through the Red Sea. They wind up in the desert where they wander for forty years. And where is Jesus in Matthew 4 after his baptism? He is in the desert about to be tempted after having fasted for forty days and forty nights.
Matthew clearly wants to portray Jesus as fulfilling Israel’s history and bringing it to a climax. Matthew didn’t think Hosea 11:1 was a direct prophecy about Jesus and his family going to Egypt. And Hosea certainly didn’t mean it as such. The passage is about Israel’s Exodus out of Egypt and about her subsequent idolatries and adulteries. Matthew understood that. He wasn’t trying to give Hosea 11 a new meaning. But he did see something Messianic in Hosea’s words. Jesus would be the faithful Son called out of Egypt, filling up what was lacking in the first faithless son, Israel. From his genesis to his exodus to his baptism in the Jordan to his forty days in the wilderness, Jesus was identifying himself with the covenant people. He was the embodiment of Israel.

With Him He Was Well Pleased

And so when Jesus fled Herod and went to Egypt, it brought to a climax the work of deliverance that began in the Exodus of Israel and was now coming to completion in the Exodus of Jesus. That’s why Matthew can say “this was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet.” But whereas the first Israel, God’s son, broke the covenant and deserved God’s wrath, when God beholds his only begotten Son Jesus Christ, he says in Matthew 3:17, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Far from being a barely connected prophetic fulfillment, this word from Hosea 11 filled up in Matthew 2, is a robust piece of New Testament theology. This text says something weighty about the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the one who came to complete all that Israel was designed to perform. All the adulteries and idolatries and rebellion and waywardness that characterized Israel would be recast in the true Israel Jesus Christ. God sent his Son to do himself what his people could not do for themselves. This is the meaning of fulfillment of Hosea 11 and the true meaning of Immanuel, God with us.



https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/3133/





Psalm 113 - Praise The LORD JESUS!







Psalm 113 NIV









1Praise The LORD.a




PraiseThe LORD, you HIS servants;
Praise The Name of The LORD.








2Let The Name of The LORD Be Praised,
both now and forevermore.

3From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets,
The Name of The LORD Is To Be Praised.
4The LORD Is Exalted over all the nations,
HIS Glory above the heavens.

5Who is like The LORD our GOD,
The ONE WHO Sits Enthroned on high,

6WHO Stoops Down To Look
on the heavens and the earth?
7HE Raises the poor from the dust
and Lifts the needy from the ash heap;

8HE Seats them with princes,
with the princes of HIS people.

9HE Settles the childless woman in her home
as a happy mother of children.


Praise The LORD.











Psalm 112 - JESUS Teaches Us "The Art Of The Skillful Living"








Psalm 112 NIV








1Praise The LORD.

Blessed are those who fear The LORD,
who find great delight in HIS Commands.






2Their children will be mighty in the land;
the generation of the upright will be blessed.

3Wealth and riches are in their houses,
and their righteousness endures forever.

4Even in darkness light dawns for the upright,
for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.






5Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely,
who conduct their affairs with justice.

6Surely the righteous will never be shaken;
they will be remembered forever.

7They will have no fear of bad news;
their hearts are steadfast, trusting In The LORD.







8Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;
in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.

9They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor,
their righteousness endures forever;
their horn will be lifted high in honor.






10The wicked will see and be vexed,
they will gnash their teeth and waste away;
the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.










PSALM 112








This Psalm may be regarded as an exposition of Psalm 111:10, presenting the happiness of those who fear and obey GOD, and contrasting the fate of the ungodly.   This psalm is an acrostic poem, the lines of which begin with the successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet.


We must praise The LORD as HIS people. This can be done by both our lips and life. Verse 9 says to us how we can honor and praise JEHOVAH in the act of giving to the poor,


“They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever; their horn will be lifted high in honor.”


We also read in, James 1:27;


“Religion that GOD our FATHER accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.