Psalm 116:1-11 is a beautiful testimony and a tribute to the faithfulness of our God. In the first verse, it tells us that He “heard my voice and my cry for mercy.” To know that the sovereign Creator of all the universe should “hear” us – that He has any interest whatsoever in acknowledging us – is such a wonderful truth and beyond all our comprehension. “Because He turned His ear to me, I will call on Him as long as I live” (verse 2). This fact is worthy of our everlasting response, love, and gratitude to Him. Possibly, from the belly of the great fish, Jonah may have made reference to or quoted part of this Psalm … “the cords of death entangled me; the anguish of the grave came upon me” (cf., Jonah 2). Truly, it is encouraging to read that “the LORD is gracious, righteous, and full of compassion” (verse 5). But our God does much more. “He saves, protects, and delivers us” (verses 5, 6, and 8).
In Jeremiah 4:10-5:31, we see that Jeremiah, who lived under king Josiah at a time of peace and great revival in Judah, may have experienced some consternation about the message that God required him to deliver to the nation (verse 10). At that time, God told Jeremiah to preach that a great judgment was coming. “Disaster follows disaster; the whole land lies in ruins. In an instant my tents are destroyed … I looked at the earth, and it was formless and empty … the mountains were quaking, all the hills were swaying, and there were no people … the fruitful land was a desert; all its towns lay in ruins” (verses 20-26). This must have been difficult and disheartening for Jeremiah at a time when Judah seemed so prosperous. God told Jeremiah, “Go up and down the streets of Jerusalem; look around and consider; search through her squares. If you can find but one person who deals honestly and seeks the truth, I will forgive this city” (Jeremiah 5:1). We need to remember that God sees what we do not see (cf., 1 Samuel 16:7). When we see people whom we think are commendable, He is able to look deep-down through all the fluff to see people who are actually contemptible. Generally, during my own lifetime, our country has enjoyed a time of peace and prosperity similar to that during Josiah’s reign, but today many people appear good on the outside but have become corrupt in their hearts. As in Jeremiah’s day, we are also under God’s judgment. We should be saying, “Woe to us!” (verse 13), for we have forsaken God. Chapter 5 reads almost like a contemporary American newspaper.
In Philippians 3:1-4:1, Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord” (verse 3:1), and no wonder – we have every reason to rejoice, for we have a God Who “hears us, saves us, protects us, and delivers us” (cf., Psalm 116:5-8). And, according to Paul, our God does much more than all that; He provides for us the “righteousness of Christ that is by faith” (verse 9). For this reason – twice – Paul calls us to “press on toward the goal” (verses 12 and 14), and "to live up to what we have already attained” (verses 12-16). “Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there Who will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body” (verse 21). We have this promise of a glorious resurrection, so “we should stand firm in the Lord” (verse 4:1). Indeed, God does much more!
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