Hebrews is an expositional and pastoral warning not to return to the shadows of Judaism now that Christ the substance has come and to look fully upon the beauty of Christ and remain faithful through trial and persecutions. The fact that it also provides us with some of the clearest theology for how the New Testament now relates to the Old Testament is gracious gift from the Holy Spirit to all of Christ’s church throughout the world and time.

Author
The author of Hebrews is anonymous, and unlike the Gospels (which are also anonymously written), there is no longstanding tradition that supports any particular figure. This has left theologians throughout church history to make their guesses. The most popular suggestion is Paul, which is why Hebrews is placed alongside Paul’s epistles, and despite what some argue regarding stylistic differences, Paul still ought to be a candidate for authorship, since the audience and intent of this letter are significantly different from Romans through Philemon. Barnabas, Apollos, and Luke are commonly presented possibilities as well. Priscilla became popular suggestion in the 19th and 20th centuries but has generally lost traction since the grammar of the letter’s personal sections suggest a male author. The simple truth is that we do not know who the human author of this letter is, but like all of Scripture, it was breathed out by God.
Theme
Jesus is better than every element of the old covenant.
Background
As with the author, the audience of this letter is unknown. From the context of the letter, we can gather a few general assumptions. The title Hebrews reflects the predominate belief that this epistle was written to Jewish Christians. Given the detailed explanations about how Christ is superior to the various elements of the old covenant, that is certainly an easy assumption to make.
Some, such as John Brown, suggest that it was written to the church in Jerusalem, but the most common theory today is that it was written to Jewish Christians in Rome. Since the author has a thorough knowledge of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), it is also assumed that these were Hellenistic Jews rather than Hebraic Jews.
Also, given the epistle’s lengthy discussions on the priesthood and sacrificial system without any mention of the destruction of the temple in AD 70, it was very likely written before that date.
Read More
Related Posts:

The task of Moses was to bring the whole nation to stand at the foot of the mountain, like a bride prepared for the coming of the bridegroom. They were to meet with this great God…Moses ascended to the top of the mountain, while God descended upon the top of the mountain. This is the meeting of heaven and earth.

In their album based on the epistle of Hebrews, Psallos has a song about the tabernacle and the old covenant that was made with Israel at Sinai. In that song, they call it a come-but-stay-away covenant, and our present text will display how true that description is. At the very heart of our passage is the reality that Israel was coming “to meet God” (v. 17); however, that is flanked by repeated warnings of the deadly consequences of coming too close. Come, but stay away.
Consecrate Them Today—Verses 9-15
Our text picks up where we previously left off. The Israelites are now encamped in the wilderness all around Mount Sinai, and God summoned Moses up to receive words for all the people. Yahweh then gave Israel a three-verse summary of the covenant that He was making with them, and all the people of Israel responded that they would be faithful to do all that God commanded them. After this, we read:
And the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am coming to you in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.”
When Moses told the words of the people to the LORD, the LORD said to Moses, “Go to the people, and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, “Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot, whether beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they shall come up to the mountain.” So Moses went down from the mountain to the people and consecrated the people; and they washed their garments. And he said to the people, “Be ready for the third day; do not go near a woman.”
Verse 9 is the context for the remainder of this chapter. Although Moses has already spoken a summary of the covenant to Israel on God’s behalf, Yahweh was going to descend upon the mountain in an especially glorious manner so that the people of Israel would hear Him speaking audibly to Moses. Of course, Moses would continue to be the mediator between them and God; the LORD was only going to pull back the veil of His glory that they may see the outward manifestations of God’s glory with their own eyes and hear God’s voice with their own ears and then believe Moses as God’s prophet forever.
The words that God would actually speak for all of Israel to hear are the Ten Commandments in 20:1-17, and after hearing the voice of Yahweh and seeing the storm of His glory, the people cried out to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen; but do not let God speak to us, lest we die” (20:19). Thus, they ended up begging for Moses to be their mediator permanently.
In preparation for the LORD’s mighty descent, He commanded Moses to consecrate the people for two days, and He was speak to them on the third day. Notice that the counting of days is like Christ’s resurrection on the third day. We would probably tend today not to include today if we made plans three days out. Our thinking would be tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that is the third day. Yet God told Moses to “consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day.” Again, the counting is like the three days that Christ spent in the grave being the very end of Friday, all of Saturday, and the beginning of Sunday.
Regarding consecration, we should remember that it means to set apart someone or something for God, to make it holy. After the Passover, God gave Israel a perpetual command to consecrate their firstborn sons to Him, which was a symbol of His possession of each household in Israel. This, however, was a special consecration of the entire nation. Indeed, just as God told them that they would be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation, these two days of consecrating themselves for that role.
The text gives three main actions that Israel needed to take: wash their garments, set a limit around the mountain, and abstain from sexual relations. The washing of their garments was a physical picture of their need to be cleansed of their sin before encountering the presence of the Holy One.
The command “do not go near a woman” does not mean that women are themselves unclean and men could not be in their presence for three days. No, this was a command to abstain from marital relations. Of course, this was not God condemning sex as sinful; it was His design, after all. Instead, this was essentially a corporate fast in which the entire nation set aside otherwise proper earthly pleasures in order to set their minds and hearts upon God.
Finally, the boundary that was to be set around the mountain was for the purpose of preventing the people from touching the mountain, in which case they would need to be put to death. Here is that come-but-stay-away element. The LORD was coming down to speak to Israel; however, they still needed to keep their distance from Him. Anyone who went past the designated limit would be guilty of trespassing against God’s holiness and would be sentenced to death. In order to distance themselves from the offender, no one would be allowed to touch the condemned man or animal; rather, the execution would need to be carried out by stoning or by bow and arrow.
If our response to all of this is to ask why such a big deal, then we reveal both the callousness of our own hearts as well as our ignorance of God. Back in 2015, President Obama came to give a speech in our town, and though our city is very solidly conservative and most of its residents fundamentally disagreed with every one of his policies, his visit was still a big deal. For a few hours surrounding his speech, main roads were blocked off and traffic of about half the city was rerouted. And that was all for a president, not a king, in a town where he had few active supporters.
Now consider the weight of coming into the presence of a king in the ancient world. One of the most suspenseful moments in the book of Esther is when she must go into the king’s presence unrequested. As she tells Mordecai:
All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s providences know that if any man or woman goes to the inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law–to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days.Esther 4:11
If entering a king’s presence was a fearful thing, how much more the presence of the King of kings, the Maker of heaven and earth? Establishing the reality of God’s awesome presence is precisely the point of the next few verses.
Read More
Related Posts:

The events and thematic devices presented in Genesis are seen throughout the rest of Scripture. Crucial doctrines begin in this text, from the attributes of God to the depravity of man. This is the primary goal of Genesis: to set up themes in the Bible, which will ultimately culminate with Jesus Christ.

Author
Since Genesis is the first book of the Pentateuch, or Torah, Jews and Christians throughout history have upheld Moses as the author. In recent years, many scholars have questioned the idea of one single author composing all of the first five books of the Bible; thus, the documentary hypothesis was born. Documentary hypothesists believe that the writings of the Pentateuch actually come from a variety of different authors that were compiled together around the time of the Exile. However, this view is exactly what its title says, a hypothesis. There is little proof to support this sort of thought. Yet in regards to Moses being the author, both the Old and New Testament give clear support to his authorship, including Jesus Himself (Mark 10:5; Luke 16:29, 24:27; John 5:46).
Theme
The overarching theme of Genesis 1-11 is to introduce humanity to the one true God through the lens of four events that shaped all of human existence: the creation of the world, the fall of humanity, the great flood, and the scattering at Babel. In addition to this primary theme of revealing the Most High, Genesis gives beginning to almost all major doctrines found throughout the Bible. It is here that the theme of redemption is first seen as God gives grace to the Adam and Eve after their blatant rebellion against Him. Also, the first explicit promise of Jesus is made in chapter three, promising salvation and a renewal of creation. Genesis is the beginning of all biblical themes.
The theme of the second part of Genesis (chapters 12-50) is to introduce humanity to the one true God who faithfully and graciously makes and maintains covenants with His chosen people. By grace, the LORD promises blessings to Abraham and his family, and Genesis shows repeatedly that God’s promises can be trusted.
Background
Moses likely wrote Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch during the Israelites forty years of wandering in the wilderness. It is not clear how exactly Moses received the information found within Genesis, especially since the final events regarding Joseph occurred around four hundred years before Moses was born.
One possibility is that the accounts were passed down from generation to generation beginning with Adam telling Seth until Moses received them from his mother. Many scoff at such a thought, citing that even the passing of a simple message today can result in a completely different message by the time it reaches its source, and since there are many varying cultural traditions of creation and the great flood, they argue that this must have happened in those instances as well. Another thought is that God directly revealed to Moses the truth of these events. Though I lean toward the second one, either demands the work of God in the preservation of truth.
Read More
Related Posts:

Just as God predicted, Habakkuk could not believe his ears. Yes, Israel was sinful, but they were still God’s people. How could God use such wicked tools to punish His people, the very people that He redeemed out of Egypt? This revelation from God must have hit Habakkuk like a battering ram to the chest. Habakkuk looked out from his point of view and could not imagine how God would use such a destructive plan for His glory; however, the beauty of retrospective viewing is that now we can see the glories of God being displayed through Israel’s Babylonian captivity.

Look among the nations, and see;wonder and be astounded.For I am doing a work in your daysthat you would not believe if told.
Habakkuk 1:5 ESV

We must carefully observe this verse within its context because many have taken it to mean something entirely different then what it originally meant. The thought that God is going to do something that is completely unbelievable is an appealing concept. When we find ourselves pleading along with Isaiah for God to rend open the heavens and come down, this verse seems to appear as an answer: God will do something incredible.
However, while prosperity preachers may proclaim this text joyfully from the conference stage, Habakkuk received this word with fear and trembling. This verse is the beginning of God’s answer to Habakkuk’s question of why God was allowing the Israelites to be so sinful. Habakkuk was looking for justice, and God answered. His answer came in the form of the Babylonians, a powerful and ruthless empire. God would soon use the wicked Babylonians to punish the backslidden Israel.
Read More
Related Posts:

We are two thousand years removed from being eye-witnesses to the crucifixion of Christ, to the breaking of His body and spilling of His blood to wash away our sins. Yet we still come each week to this spiritual manna as a means of tasting and seeing the goodness of God in the sacrifice of His only Son. Even as it sets our eyes upon Christ’s once for all sacrifice, it also gives us the opportunity to present ourselves as living sacrifices, laying down ourselves and taking up Christ as take of the bread and cup.

Exodus 18 is a positive unfolding of chapter 17. Exodus 17 began with Israel quarreling with Moses, placing God on trial, and God Himself taking Israel’s rightful judgment. It then ended with a nation of Gentiles attacking the weak and weary Israel. Exodus 18 is the reverse. In this first half, we begin with Jethro, an upright Gentile, hearing the good news of Yahweh’s deliverance of Israel and believing. The chapter will then conclude with the LORD using Jethro to instruct Moses in how to properly judge the people.
As for our present text, this family reunion of Moses and Jethro is filled to the brim with implications for how we ought to proclaim the gospel and what a proper response to the gospel looks like.
Reunited // Verses 1-7
Our text opens with the reintroduction Jethro, whom the text makes abundantly clear was Moses’ father-in-law. Verse 1 states that Jethro “heard of all that God had done for Moses and for Israel his people, how the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt.” Jethro probably heard of these things through the merchants and travelers coming from Egypt. We must, of course, remember that the ten plagues likely took place over a span of several months rather than the couple of weeks that we subconsciously tend to imagine. Thus, Jethro was likely learning about everything that was happening only a week or so after each event.
Furthermore, verse 2 tells us that Moses had sent Zipporah and his two sons back to Jethro’s house at some point. The majority of commentators seem to think that Moses sent his family away before actually arriving in Egypt or perhaps after Pharaoh’s first refusal in chapter 5. Some even believe that Moses had divorced Zipporah by sending his family away to Jethro’s house, but the arguments for such a thought are not at all compelling. While the text simply does not tell us when or why Moses sent his wife and sons back to Jethro, I tend to think alongside Calvin that he did so whenever Israel came into the wilderness. Perhaps Moses even sent them with the intent of Jethro coming to see him, since Moses clearly had a great respect for his father-in-law.
Verses 3-4 interestingly repeat to us the names of Moses’ two sons and their meanings, though previously only Gershom was named back in chapter 2. Gershom, which sounds like the Hebrew word for sojourner, was named during Moses’ new life in the wilderness of Midian, where he was separated from both Israel and Egypt, the peoples which were his home. Eliezer means God is my help, for Moses said, “The God of my father was my help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh.” Eliezer’s name was a testimony from Moses that God had delivered him from Pharaoh’s desire to have him put to death for murdering the Egyptian. Indeed, even after living in Midian for forty years, Moses still clearly feared the sword of Pharaoh since God specifically told him in 4:19 that “all the men who were seeking your life are dead.”
But while Moses named his sons as a testament of God’s providence over his own life, I believe they are repeated here to help us see God’s providence over all of Israel through his servant Moses. Israel as a nation sojourned in Egypt for more than four hundred years, and they were brought out by the unilateral help of the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Jethro’s coming to Moses at the mountain of God likely means that Israel was still camped at Rephidim, which was evidently near Horeb/Sinai but not yet at the base of the mountain. It is possible that Jethro sent word to Moses of his coming in order to give proper homage to Moses, for as Stuart notes:
Indeed, it can be argued that Jethro was actually using the presence of Zipporah and the boys to ensure his own acceptance by Moses, whom he now encountered not as an escaped Egyptian alone but as the leader of a great nation of people that had just distinguished itself by beating the Amalekites in war, something Jethro and his Midianites could not expect to do.[1]
This is not so difficult to imagine, especially if Jethro was in fact scraping for every report he could find of Moses and his doings in Egypt. Recall that 12:3 said that after the first nine plagues, “the man Moses was very great in the land of Egypt, in the sight of Pharaoh’s servants and in the sight of the people.” So, before the night of the exodus, Moses was more respected by the Egyptians than Pharaoh himself, making Moses more popular than the most powerful man in the world. Such status can easily change a person for the worse. Thus, Jethro would not be a fool to wonder if Moses was still the meek sojourner that shepherded his flock for four decades.
Thankfully, Jethro had nothing to fear. In Numbers 12:3, Moses himself tells us, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all the people who were on the face of the earth.” Since the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to write those words, we gladly affirm that they are true, and indeed they must be. To be able to write about how meek you are without taking pride in your meekness is meek indeed! Though Moses was the quite literally the most powerful man in the world, most significantly because he was the instrument of the Almighty Creator but from a worldly vision also because he overthrew Pharaoh, he “went out to meet his father-in-law and bowed down and kissed him.” Moses did not send servants out to greet Jethro and then aim to impress him with his power and prestige. No, Moses went out himself and gave great respect to his father-in-law.
Such genuine display of humility and love is what made Moses the great man of God and leader of Israel that he was. Indeed, it is the same sort of meekness and humility that Jesus continuously and perfectly displayed. Moses was displaying the mindset of Christ, which Paul described in Philippians 2:3: “Do nothing from selfish ambition, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
Proclaiming the Gospel // Verse 8
After Moses and Jethro asked each other about their welfare, they entered Moses’ tent and began to talk. What did they talk about? Then Moses told his father-in-law all that the LORD had done to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians for Israel’s sake, all the hardship that had come upon them in the way, and how the LORD had delivered them. Although Jethro had already heard the news about the exodus and the plagues, now he heard it from the horse’s mouth. Now Moses himself recounted everything that God had done. He shared his testimony with Jethro, that is, he told him the good news of how the LORD rescued Israel.
Take note of the three parts to this verse. First, Moses told Jethro of all that the LORD did to Pharaoh and to the Egyptians. This meant that Moses told his father-in-law the account of the plagues and Israel’s exodus from Egypt. Second, he told Jethro about their hardships along the way.
Read More
Related Posts:

If we make peace with our sin, no matter how insignificant it appears, we fall into the same corruption that Israel did. Christ summons us to fight a holy war against our own sinful flesh. While the decisive battle of this war was won upon the cross, making our victory secure, the conflict will not end until Christ returns or summons us to Him via death. So, put on the whole armor of God, call upon the strength of the Lord, and stand firm against your sin.

They did not destroy the peoples,as the LORD commanded them,but they mixed with the nationsand learned to do as they did.They served their idols,which became a snare to them.They sacrificed their sonsand their daughters to the demons;they poured out innocent blood,the blood of their sons and daughters,whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,and the land was polluted with blood.Thus they became unclean by their acts,and played the whore in their deeds.
Psalm 106:34-39 ESV

The majority of this psalm is a recounting of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God, especially in the wilderness, but ultimately leading to the exile. These verses particularly recall Israel’s refusal to utterly destroy the Canaanites as the LORD commanded them to do. Instead, they mingled with the Canaanites, marrying them and becoming like them. The likeness continued to the point of the Israelites sacrificing their children to false gods as the peoples of Canaan did.
While so many today are repelled by the conquest of Canaan and by the genocide that God commanded, this was one of the ultimate reasons why it was necessary. The Canaanites were thoroughly wicked and deserved to be annihilated. These were corrupt and barbaric nations that deserved every ounce of judgment that was to come upon them. The prevalence of child sacrifice was the supreme and only necessary evidence of that fact.
Read More
Related Posts:

Persecution does not need to be purely physical in nature; rather, much persecution comes by way of slander and false witness. Even so, we must follow the pattern of the psalmist and ultimately of our Lord Himself. Regardless of the lies that are hurled upon us, we must commit ourselves to faithfully keep God’s precepts with our whole heart. 

The insolent smear me with lies,but with my whole heart I keep your precepts;
Psalm 119:69 ESV

The insolent in this verse are those who lord themselves over God’s Word. Like scoffers, they mock and belittle the testimonies of the Most High, rejecting His authority over them as their Creator. Indeed, like the fools that they are, they have likely convinced themselves that there is no God. We should not be surprised that those who lie to themselves also smear God’s people with lies. Rightly did Jesus speak of them, saying,
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
John 8:44
This played out vividly during Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin.
Read More
Related Posts:

The exodus is the narrative heart of the Old Testament. It is the central act of redemption upon which the rest of Scripture depends. The exodus is the foundation of Israel’s identity as a people. They are fundamentally a nation of slaves that God redeemed to be His own people and to fulfill the promises that He long ago gave to their ancestor Abraham. The crossing of the Red Sea, therefore, was Israel’s chief moment of salvation. And throughout Scripture, singing is repeatedly shown to be the proper response to God’s salvation. 

After studying through a genealogy, a psalm that was also a parable, and a proverb about oxen, we at last moved back into a larger text. Particularly, we return to the book of Exodus, which we previously studied last year. We concluded with chapter 14 and then went on to conclude the Gospel of Mark. My reasoning for breaking larger books like Mark and Exodus into multiple series is twofold. First, I enjoy moving between different biblical genres, so I prefer to parse larger texts out over the span of a couple of years, studying other passages in between.
Second, I enjoy organizing sermons each year so that they loosely all build together upon a similar theme. Most often I try to do this with first an Old Testament text followed by parallel New Testament text. I have done this with pairing Ecclesiastes and Philippians under the theme of joy, with Haggai and Ephesians, Daniel and Mark 1-8, and Exodus 1-14 and Mark 9-16 all under the theme of God’s kingdom.
This year we depart from that overarching theme and come under the theme of God as our shepherd. Here in Exodus 15-19, we will see very clearly how the LORD shepherded Israel like a flock through the wilderness and to the foot of Sinai, and later the book of Hebrews will urge us to consider Jesus, “the great shepherd of the sheep” (13:20). For now, we begin our second part of Exodus with the Song of Moses.
Then Moses and the People of Israel Sang
The very first word of our text is then, which ought to immediately make us pause because it means that an effect is about to be given. Thus, we ought to pause to consider the cause. In the first fourteen chapters of Exodus, God redeemed His people from their four-hundred-year captivity in Egypt. By His sovereign hand, God preserved Moses’ life through the slaughter of Israel’s newborn males, established him in Pharaoh’s own palace to receive the highest quality education of his day (something that would undoubtedly be valuable as the Holy Spirit led him in the writing of Scripture), sent him into the wilderness for forty years as a shepherd, and then sent him back to Egypt to lead the Israelites out of their slavery. Through Moses, the LORD worked the wonders that we now commonly call the ten plagues, which left Egypt in ruin. Nevertheless, even after Pharaoh demanded Israel’s departure, God baited Pharaoh into riding out against Israel with all of his chariots, thinking that they had foolishly wandered to the edge of the Red Sea. God, however, miraculously parted the sea so that Israel went across on dry land. With his heart thoroughly hardened, Pharaoh actually had the hubris to chase after Israel into the midst of the sea, which was when the LORD released the walls of water, drowning Pharaoh and all his horses and riders.
That is the cause of verse 1’s effect: Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the LORD… On the opposite shore of the sea, with their four-hundred-year sojourn in Egypt on the other side and with the bodies of men and horses washing upon the shore, Israel sang to their God, the true and living God.
This song, most often called the Song of Moses but also called the Song of the Sea, is the first psalm of the Bible, and there is a very good possibility that it was the very first portion of the Bible to have been written down by Moses. Indeed, we can easily envision Moses writing down these words before Israel sets out from the sea in verse 22. There have been many scholars who see this musical interjection into the narrative of Exodus as being out of place. Yet they fail to see both the theological and artistic composition of this book of Scripture. This musical interlude is a feature rather than a bug, and it is a feature both theologically and artistically.
It is an artistic feature of Exodus because Moses knew what many ivory-tower academics can easily forget: music is as woven into the foundations of the cosmos as much as wisdom is. Job 38:7 tells us that the stars and angels sang and shouted for joy during creation, and Revelation shows us repeatedly that our life everlasting will be marked by songs of praise. And there are songs everywhere in-between. Martin Luther is often noted for calling music the greatest gift that God has given humanity, second only to the Scriptures.
Theologically, this song is necessary. As I repeatedly have said, the exodus is the narrative heart of the Old Testament. It is the central act of redemption upon which the rest of Scripture depends. The exodus is the foundation of Israel’s identity as a people. They are fundamentally a nation of slaves that God redeemed to be His own people and to fulfill the promises that He long ago gave to their ancestor Abraham. The crossing of the Red Sea, therefore, was Israel’s chief moment of salvation. And throughout Scripture, singing is repeatedly shown to be the proper response to God’s salvation. Indeed, Philip Ryken writes, “The history of salvation is sometimes described as a drama–the drama of redemption. However, this drama is actually a musical. It is impossible even to conceive of Biblical Christianity without songs of praise.”[1]
This is why we so often link singing and worship together. Of course, we know that worship itself is far more than just singing, yet even so, singing is intimately bound to our worship of God. Worship is most simply our act of giving to God the worth that He deserves. Thus, being created and redeemed by God, we owe Him nothing less than our very selves. Therefore, Romans 12:1 is perhaps the most succinct biblical description of our worship in Christ: “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”
Worship is nothing less than giving ourselves entirely to God, and this certainly encompasses our singing. To both the Colossians and the Ephesians, Paul clearly expected singing to play a regular role in communicating the truths of Scripture to one another. Indeed, throughout our sojourning through this life, we ought to say with the psalmist to the LORD: “Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojourning” (Psalm 119:54).
Indeed, nothing will sink the truths of Scripture more deeply into our hearts than songs. That is why I generally give more serious consideration to adding a particular song to our Sunday morning singing than I do to choosing which texts of Scripture to preach. When it comes to choosing a book or passage to preach, I certainly want to be sensitive to what would best fit our congregation’s particular season, yet in the end, God’s Word will never return void. The songs we sing, however, are compliments to Scripture rather than Scripture itself. They must, then, undergo a far greater degree of scrutiny. This becomes doubly important whenever we consider that songs are far more memorable than words alone. Thus, whenever I select songs for us to sing congregationally, I am actively looking for songs that are worthy of being the soundtrack to our earthly pilgrimage.
Indeed, there is no question that we will sing and make music; that is part of being made in God’s image. The question is what kind of songs will we sing. Particularly, will our heart’s theme song be: I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously?
The Song of Moses
As we move into the actual contents of this psalm, rather than moving verse-by-verse through it, we will focus upon its three broad themes: what God has done, what God will do, and who God is.
The whole occasion of the psalm is an exultation in what God had just done. Verses 4-10 and 12 largely give a poetic retelling of Pharaoh’s destruction in the waters of the sea. Ryken calls us to consider a point that many would rather pass over: “Realize that in this song he did not praise God for the exodus in general, but specifically for the death of the Egyptians as a demonstration of divine wrath.”[2]
If that sounds harsh and even unjust, we need to recalibrate our notion of justice so that it accords with Scripture. God’s triumph in the exodus was certainly in bringing His people out of slavery, yet it was also about beheading Pharaoh as an offspring of the serpent. The plagues upon Egypt were judgment, and the Red Sea was an execution. Indeed, God made certain that the execution fit the crime. This Pharaoh drowned just as the Pharaoh before him had drowned so many infants in the Nile. It was right for Moses and the Israelites to celebrate, for as Proverbs 11:10 says, “When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices, and when the wicked perish there are shouts of gladness.”
Today, we sing similar songs of Christ’s triumph over the serpent himself. In the hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, we sing:
And though this world with devils filled should threaten to undo usWe will not fear for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us.The prince of darkness grim, we tremble not for him,His rage we can endure, for lo his doom is sure,One little word shall fell him.
Working the greater exodus upon the cross, Jesus triumphed over the powers of darkness and put them to open shame. Even so, the greatest enemy that Jesus defeated is our own sin.
Read More
Related Posts:

How could we not long to know more of our God’s good Word, especially when it is through His Scriptures that we come to know Him? Indeed, being captivated by God’s goodness will never fail to drive us ever deeper into His Word, for in them we are able to “taste and see that the LORD is good” (Psalm 34:8)!

You are good and do good;teach me your statutes.
Psalm 119:68 ESV

This is a marvelous verse and a mighty confession for all of God’s people to make alongside the psalmist. First, he confesses a deep truth regarding God’s nature: God is good. As with all of God’s attributes, we must take care not to think simply that God possesses goodness, as if goodness were an ethereal force outside of God Himself. Instead, God is good. The source and standard of goodness are found within His very nature. He does not merely meet the specifications of what it means to be good; He is good. Everything else is judged to be good based upon His person and evaluation.
Second, God does good. We often remember God’s passing by Moses in Exodus 34 as the revealing of His glory to the prophet, and so it was. Yet it was also the revealing of God’s goodness, for God told Moses “I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name” (Exodus 33:19).
Read More
Related Posts:

As Paul makes clear in Romans 1, our sinful nature makes excusing and even justifying our sins all too easy. Each person’s conscience is certainly a common grace from God that restrains much evil, yet the conscience may be easily seared by continual sin, making good judgment and proper knowledge unavailable. That is why the psalmist roots good judgment and knowledge in believing God’s commandments. 

Teach me good judgment and knowledge,for I believe in your commandments.
Psalm 119:66 ESV

Having begun stanza teth by rejoicing in God’s good dealing with him, the psalmist now continues his prayer by making a petition: teach me good judgment and knowledge. This is a petition that all of God’s people ought to make alongside the psalmist, for we should all desire good judgment and knowledge.
Of course, we tend to first think of the life-altering judgments to be made that need to be informed by the knowledge and wisdom of God. Do I go to school A or school B? Is this the person that I should marry? Should we homeschool our children?
Yet the ability to make a proper judgment is also of use to us each day. We must decide from the moment that we awake whether we will reach for the Bible or for the phone.
Read More
Related Posts: