It’s been a while since our last blog on Psalms so after a nice hiatus let’s get back into the wonderful books of Psalms, picking up where we left off in Psalm 12.
This Psalm starts with a cry for help:
“Help, LORD, for the godly man
ceases!
For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men.”
The Psalmist speaks about the variableness of men but of the constancy of God. Though the wicked are proud and don’t believe that they will have an end; though they think they can continue unabated, God sees their actions and He will bring it to an end, in fact, He promises this in other texts. It says,
5 “‘For the oppression of the poor, for
the sighing of the needy,
Now I will arise,’ says the LORD;
‘I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.’
6 The words of the LORD are pure
words,
Like silver tried in a furnace of earth,
Purified seven times.
7 You shall keep them, O LORD, You shall preserve them from this
generation forever.”
God has heard our cries and He will arise. He will set us in the safety that we yearn for. He will keep what He promised. His promises are true. “He is not a man, that He should lie…Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?” Numbers 23:19).
He is faithful to keep His word. It reminds me of some of the words to the hymn, “Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.” In the refrain, Louisa Stead writes, “Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him; How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er!
God’s word is tried and true. From the first promise of the Messiah to Adam and Eve; to the promised covenant made with Noah; the promise -or promises- made to Abraham, and to the children of Israel, wherever God has made a promise, He has kept it.
In the same way, as His word has been preserved, so will He preserve us. He knows the peace you seek. He knows the safety you desire. He has promised to give that to us. In fact, He’s waiting on us to make a move. Jesus is the peace and rest and He simply invites us to come to Him and He will give us rest. To accept His yoke, which is easy and light, and to learn the peace and rest that He gives from His Father. He found rest in God’s word, in the commandments. Which, a little side note, in Hebrew the 10 commandments are not called commandments but “The 10 Words.” In Hebrew, the verb structure was in the form of a promise. God’s word is a promise. A promise we can rest in. No matter how varied humans are, we know that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” (Hebrews 13:8), and that “every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of light, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
God will always be there for us. He will always give us the safety for which we yearn.