#DailyDevotion Blessed Is The People Whose God Is The Lord Jesus Christ

Psalm 144 ⁵O LORD, bend Your heaven low, and come down; touch the mountains so they’ll smoke, ⁶hurl lightning and scatter them, shoot Your arrows and confuse them, ⁷stretch out your hands from above, snatch me and rescue me from a great flood, from a foreign people.

Images from The Exodus continue throughout Hebrew literature as they do here. Certainly it was the Lord’s coming down upon Mount Sinai as David is remembering here. He wants that act of salvation for God’s people can now be manifested again for himself. What foreign peoples must he be talking about here? Perhaps it was to Philistines among whom David hid from Saul. Certainly we’ve all had those days where we wish God would simply come down and take care or get rid of all the people that are causing us trouble. We may not wish them dead, But we do desire for them just to leave us alone. Perhaps we can pray for this and let God decide the best way to deal with it.

⁸They tell lies and with their right hands they pledge to lies. ⁹O God, I will sing You a new song and play music to You on a lute with ten strings. ¹⁰You give victory to kings and rescue Your servant David from a murderous sword. ¹¹You snatch me and rescue me from a foreign people. They tell lies and with their right hands they pledge to lies.

So I find it interesting here that in verse 7 he asked the Lord to snatch him and rescue him from a great foreign people and they tell lies and the right hands pledged alive and then in verse 11 it appears the Lord has done this as he says you snatched me and rescued me from a foreign people they tell lies and with the right hands pledged to lies. You will see this often in the Salter where the psalmist prays for one thing and then says how the Lord has done it. We are not certain if you prayed it and then later came back to it or you simply composed if afterwards is grabbing what has happened. Another interesting thing in a section is that David refers to himself by name. This is another parallel it has with Psalm 18. In the middle of this evolves to sing a new song and play music to the Lord. It’s a shame perhaps that Christians do not kee phymnals in their houses anymore. I highly recommend it. Oftentimes in our homes we are feeling down and out. It is our refuge away from the world. There we should be able to open up our hymnals and sing some familiar hymns that give praise and honor to God. We would no doubt have much better attitudes in our homes if we did this.

¹²May our sons be like plants nurtured from their youth. May our daughters be like corner pillars, carved in a shape to fit a palace. ¹³Our full granaries provide us with one good thing after another. Our sheep are producing thousands and tens of thousands in our fields. ¹⁴Our oxen are loaded down. No one is breaking into our cities or going out to war or crying loud in our streets. ¹⁵Blessed are the people with whom this is so; happy are the people whose God is the LORD!

Verse 12 calls a blessing upon our sons and our daughters. Indeed, we should ask God to bless them. The fruit of our loins is truly a blessing from God. From there David proceeds to declare the blessings the Lord has bestowed upon Israel having delivered them from all their enemies. Having bestowed peace upon Israel through David, The fields are able to produce one good thing after another. The flocks and herds are able to reproduce abundantly. And there is peace all around and no one is crying war. At least in the country in which I live, This is more or less true, As we have not been invaded by enemies for a number of years. We should give thanks and praise and honor to God for blessing us and this manner. David says that blessed are the people with whom this is so. Indeed we are blessed though unfortunately many of our country no longer recognize the LORD as being our God who has bestowed these blessings upon us. The enemies of the church are doing their best to remove our Lord Jesus Christ from the public square.

Gracious God and Father, give us faith that always recognizes all good gifts come from you. Deliver us from our enemies so we may live our days in peace. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.