Seeing Jesus in the Psalms

  Psalm 140 (read the Psalm) MAIN POINT: Jesus had enemies and so will you, but you can trust that in the presence of God you are safe from your enemies. Jesus talked about loving your enemies ( burning coals on people’s heads ) and people being thrown into fire. ( Matthew 3:12, 25:41, Mark 9:43-49, Luke 16:23-24, Revelation 14:10,  19:20, 20:10, 20:14-15, 21:8 ) And Jesus definitely had enemies. There were people trying to kill Jesus, and Satan wasn’t leaving any space for his rampage of kill, steal and destroy campaign to pass Jesus by. David has his share of enemies too. It should be no surprise to you that both Jesus and David were people often on the run, aware of the danger that lurked in every location and word of their enemies' presence. Jesus uses the words of verse 3 to describe the people whom everyone assumed should be closest to God.  Have you felt like evil people and evil forces are gunning for your soul? David understood that feeling and even more, Jesus...

  Psalm 137 Wept, captors, tormentors, “Destroy it!”, “Level it to the ground!” pays you back,  takes your babies and smashes them against the rocks! I pulled out some of the emotionally charged and deeply disturbing words from Psalm 137. Somehow the slaughtering of evil kings is easier to handle than the expression of pain, remorse and justice-seeking from today’s Psalm 137. The Bible is good because it is real, gritty, true to life, holds nothing back, honest about emotions and actions. When we look at the Bible, we are looking in the mirror, we are looking at ourselves, we are looking at our society. Jesus is no stranger to being the victim of children smashed on the rocks. Crucified! The son of God was crucified and Jesus’ own people yelled “Crucify him”. And Jesus too was in exile (in Egypt) because of a baby-smashing, slashing killing spree of a Jewish king’s cruel, fear-driven power: 16 Herod was furious when he realized that the wise men had outwitted him. He sent sold...