Wisdom Truck 25

 

The truck rolls into Psalm 49, a story of perceptions with 2 wisdom references.  This is from the Sons of Korah.  Who were they?  Well, Korah was one of the men who rebelled against Moses in the desert, and for their trouble God turned them into an "Earth's crust" sandwich.  We aren't directly told if any of his sons also died in the rebellion, but out of Assir ('prisoner'), Elkanah ('God has obtained'), and Abiasaph ('Father of a gathering'), I'm guessing that at least 2 of the 3 survived.  They were Levites, and became part of the singing ministry at the Tabernacle and later on, the Temple.  Anyway, they wrote this song in much the same way as the last one we looked at- to help discern between the fate of the faithful from the fate of the wicked:

Psa 49:3  My mouth shall speak wisdom; the meditation of my heart shall be understanding. 

Psa 49:4  I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre. 

Psa 49:5  Why should I fear in times of trouble, when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me, 

Psa 49:6  those who trust in their wealth and boast of the abundance of their riches? 

And the theme is this: If you have no faith in God, you only see what is physically before you.  That changes your actions...

Psa 49:10  For he sees that even the wise die; the fool and the stupid alike must perish and leave their wealth to others. 

Psa 49:11  Their graves are their homes forever, their dwelling places to all generations, though they called lands by their own names. 

Psa 49:12  Man in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish. 

Psa 49:13  This is the path of those who have foolish confidence; yet after them people approve of their boasts. Selah 

Kind of like Paul condemning the unwise in his day:

Rom 1:32  Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. 

(Which of course lends itself well to the society of today...)

But they do more than point out the physical difference, they hit the spiritual difference as well:

Psa 49:7  Truly no man can ransom another, or give to God the price of his life, 

Psa 49:8  for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, 

Psa 49:9  that he should live on forever and never see the pit. 

Which is why we needed Jesus all along; HE could pay the ransom for all of us.  But these who don't know God, they can see no further than the grave.  The sons of Korah, however, could- and so can we:

Psa 49:14  Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; death shall be their shepherd, and the upright shall rule over them in the morning. Their form shall be consumed in Sheol, with no place to dwell. 

Psa 49:15  But God will ransom my soul from the power of Sheol, for he will receive me. Selah 

Those that think Jesus isn't shown in the Old Testament, explain how, right there, the sons of Korah perfectly explain the Gospel in 2 verses!

No I do want to point out here the big difference between these sons and their "father".  Let me post up Korah's declaration of his rebellion:

Num 16:3  They assembled themselves together against Moses and against Aaron and said to them, “You have gone too far! For all in the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?” 

Mind you this is AFTER God called Moses to the mountain, and everyone else was DOUBLE warned to stay off the mountain when God spoke to Moses (Exodus 19:21-25).  Clearly GOD had appointed Moses as special; but Korah, with no true belief in God, accused Moses as setting himself up as king.  And even after Korah, Dathan, et al, were swallowed up, the people were still just as stupid:

Num 16:41  But on the next day all the congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and against Aaron, saying, “You have killed the people of the LORD.” 

And God killed another 14,700 of them with plague.  Interesting to me here is the "iceberg effect": 250 leaders (with their families) were killed the first day, because they spoke out; 99% more who hadn't spoke out but remained unchaged died the next day for the SAME CRIME.  You had to be supernaturally stubborn to not at least acknowledge God after the first day- which brings us back to Paul again:

Rom 1:21  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 

Think on that.  Knowing intellectually that there is a god does NOT equal saving faith; Only honoring Him ("Kiss the Son", from our first stop in Psalms) does.

Pictures

 Well, we took a walk Sunday (and with the heat dome incoming, it might be our last for a while), and though there was almost nobody out, man nor beast, here's how it went:

Mostly cloudy, warm, muggy

No socceristas, except a dad and his son

Only beast until we were almost home

We're naming our new discovery, "birdpoop mold"

We scared Mama and ducklings under the bridge

One disc golfer (who thought he hit us) was all we saw until we got to the river.  There an older gentleman was fishing.  I asked him if he was having any luck, he said, "I jus' got set up, had to catch some beers first, ha ha!" The trip back home was uneventful until...

Misty finds a turtle crossing the sidewalk!

We usually see these at the side of our building...

Now, some notes about Squirrel...

"And it's about time!"

When Laurie revamped the stand over her case, I came up with the idea of crafting the plain out.  This is my, now finished side...

I wanted to go with "geckos in ancient cultures".  The top is the Egyptian hieroglyph for a gecko; the second has a story.  The lady is a demigoddess named Hi'iaka, and she's on a mission for her boss, the goddess Pele.  Along the way, she stops at a place called Makua, where the home folks celebrate the visit by jumping off a cliff into a pool.  One girl missed and hit a rock, and Hi'iaka resurrected her as a gecko-spirit, or Mo'o.

Third is a Portuguese good luck ('Boa Sorte') gecko in ceramic; the bottom symbol, your guess is as good as mine.

Laurie's not quite finished side:

The only explanation here:  Stormy is her official, picked by the grandkids, name ( trying to match her up with Misty in a meteorlogical sense); Squirrel is what most of us actually call her, a trick I used to do with my dwarf hamsters back in the day.  I'll get y'all a better shot of it when it's finished.

Wisdom Truck 24

 

Our next stop is in Psalm 37... but this one takes us a lot of places, and the bedrock place to start is in Matthew 12...

Mat 12:35 (Jesus speaking)... The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 

Mat 12:36  I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 

Mat 12:37  for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” 

Good treasure and bad treasure... and as I studied the footnotes to this Psalm, I saw that it had a dark reflection.  But first, our verse...

Psa 37:30  The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. 

Psa 37:31  The Law of his God is in his heart; none of his steps shall slide. 

This Psalm is a back and forth between the blessings for the righteous and the fate of the wicked.  For the righteous, it mentions the ways to achieve this status:

-Trust in the LORD (v3)

-Delight yourself in the LORD (v4)

-Commit your way to the LORD (vv 5, 34)

- Be still and wait for the Lord (vv 7, 34)

But it also marks down that, in the end, the wicked will not win:

Psa 37:9  For the evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait for the LORD shall inherit the land. 

Psa 37:10  In just a little while, the wicked will be no more; though you look carefully at his place, he will not be there. 

So the good treasure from the mouth of the good man is wisdom; but what of the mouth of the wicked?  For that, we turn to that dark reflection, in Psalm 17:

Psa 17:10  They are enclosed in their own fat; with their mouth they speak proudly...

See the difference? The heart of the good man contains the Word (Law) of God; the heart of the wicked is "enclosed in his own fat".  The word for fat translates to 'the best part' (Because the fat was ALWAYS to be burned to God); the wicked wraps himself in his own 'best parts', rather than giving his best to God.  And what I love about this is that, while the LORD blesses those who have His word in their hearts, what does He do about the evil?

Psa 37:12  The wicked plots against the righteous and gnashes his teeth at him, 

Psa 37:13  but the Lord laughs at the wicked, for he sees that his day is coming. 

Like the Parable of the wheat and the tares (Matthew 13:24-30), God allows the wicked to flourish "for a little while", because "He knows that His day is coming".  And our assurance of that is found in our last stop, in 2 Peter...

2Pe 2:7  ...and if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked 

2Pe 2:8  (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard); 

2Pe 2:9  then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment, 

2Pe 2:10  and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. 

I want to bring out some points from this, beyond just, "The LORD knows how".

I am Lot.

Not that I am righteous, but in that I 'torment my righteous soul' every day by falling for the same old temptations over and over.  My soul is righteous- it is indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  My flesh is not, and it seeks after the lawlessness it gets bombarded with every day. 

And the hope is that, the LORD knows how to rescue me.

Misty hits the big oh-8

 

Well, Misty Bug turned 8 today!  So how did this day go?

Get some rest...

Have some fun with the boys...

And little sis Squirrel...

And we're ready for the big day!

First, doggie apple and cheddar cheese "newtons"

Ready, set...

"YUM!"

Of course a new toy- in this case a giant moose

"A what?"

"I'm bushed!"

Now, it's time for the big treat...

"YAY!  Let's go!"

"Here's the car..."

"Now, where we going?"

Culvers, of course!

For ice cream...

...and a cheeseburger!

But lest ye think little sister isn't making out from it all, Laurie's re-designed Table shelf over the cage...

Designed by me- The top frame is an Egyptian Hieroglyph of a gecko; next comes the Hawai'ian  demigoddess Hi'iaka and the Mo'o (gecko spirit) of Makua; below it is a Portuguese ceramic good luck gecko; and that bottom thing, I'm not quite sure what it is.

"Well, don't look at me, I'm a doggie, not a froggy!"