- Joined
- Apr 25, 2006
- Messages
- 17,518
25 May 2007
Psalm 68:21-27
God will crush his enemies' heads, the hairy skulls of those who continue to sin.
The Lord said, "I will bring the enemy back from Bashan; I will bring them back from the depths of the sea.
Then you can stick your feet in their blood, and your dogs can lick their share."
God, people have seen your victory march; God my King marched into the holy place.
The singers are in front and the instruments are behind. In the middle are the girls with the tambourines.
Praise God in the meeting place; praise the LORD in the gathering of Israel.
There is the smallest tribe, Benjamin, leading them. And there are the leaders of Judah with their group. There also are the leaders of Zebulun and of Naphtali.
When we handle the bible in a smart cover and translated into our own language, or read it like this via the internet it's easy to forget we are handling ancient documents from an ancient civilization. That's dangerous.
It's important to read each book of the Holy Library (Bible) in the context of the time it was written. Today's reading is NOT encouraging us to relish sticking our feet in our enemies' blood!
The bible tells the story of God's patient, long-suffering relationship with us, and all this gory, venomous revelling in the victory over enemies is part of the human struggle to understand God's way of doing things. To love God completely, the thinking went, meant that we should hate God's enemies with a perfect hatred.
You can see how, sadly, that set people expecting Jesus, as the promised Saviour, to obliterate the Roman occupying army, and many could not get their heads round Jesus' talk of peace and enemy loving and forgiveness.
Of course the real enemies of God are all those things which block us off from God's love, and prevent his kingdom of peace and joy from taking shape in us. And yes, we do need to stamp under our feet things like prejudice and hypocrisy, addictive habits, selfishness and seething resentment.
The procession of praise and thanksgiving comes with the joy of being freed up from those things which hold us captive. Let God work on whatever it is in you that fights against God's goodness. He does have the power to break the power it has over you and set you gloriously and wonderfully free!
Lord God, I want to let you in to deal with these enemies of yours in me. I need you to set me free from the stuff that chokes the growth of your kingdom in me. Presumably it won't be easy. But even to get to this point is a bit of a miracle. I'm going to praise and thank you, Lord God, and celebrate your victory in style!
Written by Susan Sayers
Psalm 68:21-27
God will crush his enemies' heads, the hairy skulls of those who continue to sin.
The Lord said, "I will bring the enemy back from Bashan; I will bring them back from the depths of the sea.
Then you can stick your feet in their blood, and your dogs can lick their share."
God, people have seen your victory march; God my King marched into the holy place.
The singers are in front and the instruments are behind. In the middle are the girls with the tambourines.
Praise God in the meeting place; praise the LORD in the gathering of Israel.
There is the smallest tribe, Benjamin, leading them. And there are the leaders of Judah with their group. There also are the leaders of Zebulun and of Naphtali.
When we handle the bible in a smart cover and translated into our own language, or read it like this via the internet it's easy to forget we are handling ancient documents from an ancient civilization. That's dangerous.
It's important to read each book of the Holy Library (Bible) in the context of the time it was written. Today's reading is NOT encouraging us to relish sticking our feet in our enemies' blood!
The bible tells the story of God's patient, long-suffering relationship with us, and all this gory, venomous revelling in the victory over enemies is part of the human struggle to understand God's way of doing things. To love God completely, the thinking went, meant that we should hate God's enemies with a perfect hatred.
You can see how, sadly, that set people expecting Jesus, as the promised Saviour, to obliterate the Roman occupying army, and many could not get their heads round Jesus' talk of peace and enemy loving and forgiveness.
Of course the real enemies of God are all those things which block us off from God's love, and prevent his kingdom of peace and joy from taking shape in us. And yes, we do need to stamp under our feet things like prejudice and hypocrisy, addictive habits, selfishness and seething resentment.
The procession of praise and thanksgiving comes with the joy of being freed up from those things which hold us captive. Let God work on whatever it is in you that fights against God's goodness. He does have the power to break the power it has over you and set you gloriously and wonderfully free!
Lord God, I want to let you in to deal with these enemies of yours in me. I need you to set me free from the stuff that chokes the growth of your kingdom in me. Presumably it won't be easy. But even to get to this point is a bit of a miracle. I'm going to praise and thank you, Lord God, and celebrate your victory in style!
Written by Susan Sayers
