Daily Devotional – May 7, 2020

8th day of lockdown. That is lockdown unless you're essential or you're doing something essential like maybe going out and getting groceries or, I don't know, taking the dog to get a pedicure, whatever, you know, these essential things of life.

Well, I hope your day is going well. You're enjoying the northwest Illinois sunshine and a little bit warmer temperatures for today. Looks like a pretty nice day outside. Well, to get a break from this panic-demic stuff, Chris and I were sitting down for a few minutes and watching that game show Family Feud the other night, and one of the questions was this.

What does it take to have a healthy marriage? What does it take to have a healthy marriage? So, if you were standing there at the buzzer, you married couples, if you were standing there at the buzzer, what would you say?

You had to bang the buzzer and give an answer. What would be your answer? Well, what wasn't on the board for those of you who are married to a fitful sleeper, by the way, was a king-size bed. That didn't even make it on the board.

But the family that won the buzzer round got the number two answer, and it was love. Love. Maybe that surprises you, but actually, the number one answer was actually the better answer. It was a good answer.

The number one answer was trust. It was trust. Well, along those lines, a friend of mine on Facebook who, she's probably in her late 70s, maybe even 80 years of age, she shared her two golden rules of a happy, successful marriage.

Rule number one, the wife is always right. Rule number two, when you think she's wrong, slap yourself and read new rule number one again. Of course, again, this was posted by the wife. Well, okay. Husbands and wives, I trust that all the stresses and strains of this panacdemic are revealing the strengths of your marriage and making it even better, even stronger.

Fear the Lord in a Time of Crisis

Well, I'd like to share a few thoughts from Psalm 112. I hope these will be a blessing and encouragement to you. The 112th Psalm was for his writing of this Psalm. It's certainly, whatever the occasion was, it's certainly not identical to our current crisis.

Nonetheless, it was written during a time of significant cultural crisis that that the author is facing. He does refer to it as a time of darkness. We read that in verse four. Well, nevertheless, this Psalm offers the promise of blessing in this panacdemic.

But those who are blessed, those who can claim the blessings are actually limited. Not everyone can claim the blessings of this Psalm. The Psalm says, blessed is the man who fears the Lord. Blessed is the person who fears the Lord.

So not everyone can expect or claim the blessings of this Psalm, but those who fear the Lord can. Remember the exhortation that Jesus gave in Matthew 10, verse 28. He said, do not fear those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul.

Rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. And that of course would be God. He's the only one who can destroy both soul and body. Well, you know, the longer we go into this panacdemic, it seems like there are more things to fear, right?

I mean, when all this started, it was like the only thing really to fear was the virus itself, getting COVID -19. But as time has gone on, there are all kinds of things that have cropped up that are calling for us to fear.

A neighbor who may have the virus and give it to me, or encountering someone who is not wearing a mask, they may give me the virus. We can fear government overreach. We may be fearing a permanent loss of our freedoms.

We may be fearing constant surveillance. We're talking about having this automatic application put in your phone so that no matter where you go, you're tracked and you're traced. Have a fear of a one-world government.

We can have a fear of mandated vaccines and vaccines mandated that have a microchip injected into our bodies so that, again, we can be tracked everywhere. We can scan that microchip everywhere. You know, it can be used.

I mean, they're even talking about it being used to link to our bank accounts and all that kind of stuff. Sounds like Mark of the Beast stuff. Well, my point is that there have just been a plethora of things that have cropped up in these last six, seven weeks that are calling for fear.

And every one of those things may or may not be legitimate concerns. But what does Jesus say? Fear not the one or that which can kill the body, but fear him who can kill both body and soul in hell. And to whom do the blessings of Psalm 112 apply?

They apply to the one who fears the Lord. So those who fear the Lord can count on the blessedness of this Psalm. But that verse, verse goes on to say, Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.

Now, those two ideas, fearing the Lord and delighting in his commandments, they go together like a hand and a glove. The two things are inseparable. You can't say you fear the Lord and then have no interest or delight in his word.

And you're not really going to have any interest or delight in his word if you don't fear the Lord. So the two things go together. You show your fear of the Lord by delighting in his word. And what that simply means is that you want to know what he's like, what God is like.

And where do you go to find out what God is like? You go to his word. And you want to find out what he is like so that you can love him deeply and you can be like him too. So you want to know what God is like.

And you delight in God's word also because you want to know what he likes. What does God like? What does he want of me? What does he want to see in me? What kind of life does he want to see me live? What kind of attitudes does he want to see me display?

What kind of thoughts does he want to see in my mind? Well, what does that kind of life look like? This psalm helps us out. Verses four and five, the last part of verse four says that the one who delights in God's word, who is upright, is one who is gracious, merciful, or compassionate, and righteous.

It is well with the man who deals graciously and lends, who conducts his affairs with justice. You see some qualities there that come out of the person who fears the Lord and delights in his commandments.

Light Dawns in the Darkness for the Upright

Okay. So the person that is blessed in this panacdemic is one who fears the Lord and delights in his word. Well, what then are the blessings? Well, the first blessing I want to mention, there are three of them that come out in this psalm.

And I think we'll only talk about one of them today, but the first one is seen in verse four. Verse four says, light dawns in darkness for the upright. One of the blessings to the upright in this panacdemic is that light dawns in the darkness.

Light dawns. There's an awful lot of darkness going on right now, isn't there? There's information darkness. We're seeing contradictory, quote-unquote, truths. You know, one side presents something, says, this is the truth about something.

And then you look a little further and you see another side that says, no, this is the truth about something. That's not right. And you're left scratching your head. You're seeing contradictory truths and you're left in the dark about what is really true.

We're getting the darkness of misinformation. We're getting the darkness of propaganda. A lot of what's going on, I think, in our pandemic crisis is similar to the products that Joseph Goebbels put out in Nazi Germany.

He was the minister of propaganda and he made all kinds of great efforts to spin things that were happening so that they either looked far better than they were or they looked far worse, depending on who he was spinning information about.

If he was spinning information about some attack on Germany or whatever, he would spin things and promote propaganda. There's information darkness in this day. There's political darkness. You know, just in the last 24 or 48 hours, we're starting to learn of the evils of the Mueller investigation a couple of years ago.

And we got to wonder how much of the panacdemic response that's going on today is politically driven, with a focus not so much on the health of American citizens, but on the winning of an election in November.

We just have to wonder, don't we? Political darkness. And then there's biological darkness. Where did this virus really come from? How did it spread and why? Is it really as simple as some are making it out to be?

Or is it far more sinister? There's so much darkness going on right now. Nevertheless, there is the promise of light. Light dawns in the darkness for the upright. Let me remind you what Jesus said just prior to Matthew 10, 28.

Okay, Matthew 10, 28, he said, do not fear him who is able to kill the body, but is not able to destroy the soul. Rather, fear him who's able to destroy both soul and body in hell. So just prior to that, in the earlier verses, Jesus encourages you and me, his followers, to be like him.

He says in verses 24 and five, a disciple is not above his teacher. He's the master. He's the teacher. We're the disciples. We're the servants. We're to be like him. But then he warns us to be prepared for trouble.

In verse 25, the last part of Matthew 10, 25, he says this, if they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household? Okay, be prepared for trouble.

And then in verse 26, he promises that the light will go on. He says, so have no fear of them for nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. I want to encourage you with that today.

You who are, you who fear the Lord and delight in his word, you who are endeavoring to live for Christ and follow him. We're walking in a time of darkness and it's all around us, but we have the promise of Psalm 112, the promise of blessing that the light will dawn on the darkness.

Nothing is covered that will not be revealed or hidden that will not be known. Give it time. Be patient. Give trust in your Lord. Well, there are two more huge blessings in this Psalm. We'll save those for tomorrow.

They're blessings for the upright in this panacdemic and we'll look at them tomorrow. But for now, for now, determining your heart that by the grace of God, you will fear him. You will delight in his word and come what may, you will be upright.

And one of the blessings you can count on is that the light will dawn. So let's ask God's blessing on the remainder of our day. And may he give us patience and faith to trust him, to fear him, to delight in his word in dark days.

Prayer for Trust, Fear of the Lord, and Delight in His Word

So our Father and our God, we do thank you for the promise of the light that will dawn. And we must trust you. Grant us grace to fear you, to delight in your word, to be upright, to trust you in the pandemic.

This we pray in Jesus name and for his sake. Amen. All right. Well, on this Thursday afternoon, the sun is shining. Please get outside, get some fresh air and enjoy that today. All right. God bless you.

Have a good day.