CHIEF CORNERSTONE

Today’s Reading: Psalms 117-118

Click scripture link to read online or HERE to listen online (then click the symbol of the audio speaker above the scripture portion).

Bedowins set up their transient homes (commonly tents) in locations best suited for their livestock. Here they are located just below Mount Nebo, the mountain in the Kingdom of Jordan from which Moses viewed the Promised Land.

GOOGLE MAPS – To see where the photo was taken, click HERE.

Key Verses: Psalm 117:1-2

Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles!

Laud Him, all you peoples!

For His merciful kindness is great toward us,

And the truth of the Lord endures forever.

Praise the Lord!

Our key verses constitute the shortest Psalm, with only sixteen words in the Hebrew language. It comes in the middle point of the Bible. Of course, we have been moving back and forth between the New Testament and the Old Testament. For those who started 100words.ca with Matthew, we’ve been reading together for 17 months now. We have seven months to go to complete reading through the Bible. Don’t give up now!

Psalm 118 encourages us to join the composer with total confidence in God alone. As we look for the Bible to interpret the Bible we may want to read about the “Chief Cornerstone” (118:22) elsewhere. Click on 1 Peter 2:4-8 and Ephesians 2:19-22. Jesus, Messiah (Hebrew), Christos (Greek), is that “Chief Cornerstone” in the construction of God’s eternal building! Jesus was rejected by the majority of Roman-appointed political and religious leaders in Judaism, but not by thousands of living stones amongst the Jewish people. As that tiny Psalm says, “Oh, praise the Lord, ALL YOU GENTILES!” We non-Jews are also living stones in God’s spiritual house.

PRAYER FOR TODAY:

O Lord God, I praise You, laud You, and give thanks to You. I pray that “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord” (118:17). “You are my God, and I will praise You! You are my God and I will exalt You” (118:28). I do this through the Person and work of “the Chief Cornerstone,” the Lord Jesus Christ! Amen!!!

100 PERSONAL WORDS:

At the wedding of our second daughter, Ellen, to Nizar Shaheen in the village of Cana of Galilee, the women from the village raised their voices in very loud high-pitched tongue shrill sounds. It’s called “ululation” (click here for a sample). I understand that this sound is what the word translated “laud” from the Hebrew implies in our worship of God. Pictured above is an Arab Bedouin tent home. I can guarantee that the people who live there at the foot of Mount Nebo know how to “laud,” or ululate.

It’s amazing to me how the Holy Spirit illuminates truth. For example, I’ve read Psalm 118:26-27 many times, but this time I saw something new. On Palm Sunday the people quoted verse 26a, “Blessed is He that comes in the Name of the Lord” (Luke 19:37-38). No doubt they had memorized this entire Psalm. These were their songs of worship. Like me they didn’t tie together verses 26 and 27. Verse 27b says, “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar.” Jesus was on His way to the cross, not an earthly throne as those who cried “Hosanna” believed.

Yours because “His mercy endures forever!”

David