Posts tagged “Psalms”

Raging desire and the Psalms

Posted on August 7th, 2012

Young people should avoid promiscuity. In order to be able to protect their chastity, they should strengthen their hearts against the raging desire of the flesh by reading and meditating on the psalms and the Word of God. If you feel the flame, take a psalm or one or two chapters of the Bible, and read. When the flame has subsided, then pray. If it is not immediately checked, you should bear it patiently and courageously for one, two, or more years and persist in prayer. But if you can no longer endure and overcome the burning desires of the flesh, ask the Lord to give you a wife with whom you may live in a pleasing manner and in true love. I myself…

Categories: Theology

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“You have kept count of my tossings” – Meditation on Psalm 56

Posted on July 6th, 2011

At long last we return to our midweek series on the Psalms. Tonight was Psalm 56. In this psalm the believer cries out to God in suffering. The believer is depressed; hurting in mind and soul and body; he is hunted like a criminal, and he is angry; because of all this, he feels alone. Numerous times the psalmist asks rhetorical questions. To us they sound amazingly confident; but I suspect that the confidence the psalmist had came through a long struggle, after many anguished hours of sleepless turmoil, as he journeyed through the dark night of the soul. How do you answer the psalmist’s question, “What can flesh do to me, what can man do to me?” Is it not a great deal?…

Categories: Sermons

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Psalm 36

Posted on February 4th, 2010

At our Wednesday evening services we have been periodically (i.e., except during Advent, Lent, or when a minor festival falls on or close to a Wednesday) working through the Psalter. I wasn’t going to publish the one from January 27 on Psalm 36, partly because I wasn’t quite finished with my manuscript, and partly because I felt my language was not as precise as it ought to be. I publish it here at the request of a reader, advising you to (as always) compare carefully what I have written with Holy Scripture and follow the Word of God, not my writing, if I have deviated from the Scriptures in any respect. LXX begins, “Planning sin, the lawless man converses within himself; there is no…

Categories: Sermons

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Psalm 33

Posted on October 14th, 2009

Psalm 33 rings out a new hope for the first time: the singing of the new song. “Sing to [the LORD] a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.” This is the first occurrence of six in the Hebrew Bible. “Sing to the LORD a new song” is not a reference to contemporary music. It’s about the newness of the Gospel, a forever new song that can only be sung by those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

Categories: Music, Sermons

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Psalm 32

Posted on October 7th, 2009

Psalm 32 Evening Prayer October 7, A+D 2009 Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA Our sins are horrible. Often done in secret, even the recesses of our mind, we fear discovery. If it becomes known what we have done, what we have thought, who we truly are, we will be exposed as frauds, hypocrites. So we hide who we are and what we have done. We hide it from others, and even ourselves. We lie. And we fool many, maybe all. But God is not fooled. He cannot be fooled. He sees. He hears. He knows. Who we are, what we have done, cannot be covered from the penetrating gaze of His all-seeing eye.

Categories: Sermons

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Psalm 31

Posted on September 10th, 2009

The actual sermon preached on Ps. 31 ended up being quite a bit different from this, but here was my manuscript for the sermon at last night’s Evening Prayer: The center of tonight’s Psalm is found in the words, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit.” In Luke’s Gospel, these are the final words of Jesus, and that helps us understand not only the Psalm but the meaning of our Lord’s death. Only the Lord JESUS could be confident in commending His spirit to God; for only He had nothing to be ashamed of. No sin could be counted against Him. No deeds done in secret to trouble His conscience; no words He needed to take back. Nothing left undone. Into the Father’s hand…

Categories: Sermons

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Psalm 29

Posted on August 31st, 2009

Tonight’s psalm exhorts us to “Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.” “Splendor” by itself in the Bible means “beauty.” It can refer to radiant things seen in nature, a handsome man, or the luxuries of wealthy people. Proverbs 31 uses it to describe the ideal wife. It often describes the majesty of the king, and is used as a verb to describe beautiful clothing. This diversity of applications has led to two traditions in English Bible translations of the phrase in Ps. 29.2, “Splendor of holiness.” That phrase occurs four times in the OT. KJV: “Beauty of holiness”; RSV: “Holy array,” a reference to the sacred vestments worn by the priests. Recent research in ancient texts [source: TWOT], however, suggests a third…

Categories: Uncategorized

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Psalm 26

Posted on July 8th, 2009

Portions of this are adapted from Patrick Henry Reardon’s phenomenal Christ in the Psalms. Except the part on forensic and infused righteousness. He’s entirely wrong on that. Tonight’s psalm is traditionally to be prayed by the Pastor as he is washing his hands to prepare for Communion, on account of the verse, “I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O LORD.” Because the only innocent man to have lived is the Son of God, our Lord JESUS Christ, we can understand this psalm, like all the preceeding, as Christological. But is it not also true that as we are in Christ because we are joined to Him in Baptism, that we also are called to innocency of life? That is…

Categories: Sermons

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Meditation on Psalm 25

Posted on July 1st, 2009

Ps. 25 is an acrostic poem, meaning the verses begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But more importantly, it is a Psalm that describes the single-minded devotion of the child of God, and beautifully states the way of salvation. David begins, “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust.” Everything that follows is a commentary on those words: what it means to have a soul lifted up towards God, placing all trust in Him.

Categories: Sermons

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