Daily affirmations for peace and trust in God's plan. I will say the statement and then I will wait for you to repeat the statement and then I will read the scripture it comes from. Breathe in God's peace and exhale your worries. This day is a gift and no matter what's ahead, you can trust that God is in control. His love is steady. His plans for you are good. And His presence goes before you. Let these affirmations remind you to trust Him today. God's peace rules my heart and mind today. Isaiah 26-3, you will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are said fast because they trust in you. I cast all my worries onto Jesus as He carries them for me. First Peter 5-7, cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. I will not be anxious. I will pray and trust God. Philippians 4, 6, and 7 do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. God's plans for me are good and I trust Him. Jeremiah 29-11, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope in a future. I do not need to worry about tomorrow. God provides for me. Matthew 6-34, therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. I will rest in God's presence today. Exodus 33-14, the Lord replied, My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. God is my refuge and strength. Psalm 46-1, God is our refuge and strength and ever-present help in trouble. I will not let my heart be troubled. I trust in God. John 14-27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. The Lord directs my steps. Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your path straight. Even when I don't understand, I will trust in God's wisdom. Romans 11-33, O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how insurchable His judgments and His paths beyond tracing out. I do not have to be afraid because God is with me. Deuteronomy 31-8, the Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. God is fighting for me. Exodus 14-14, the Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. I am not alone. God walks with me. Isaiah 41-13, for I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, do not fear. I will help you. God is my rock and my salvation. I will not be shaken. Psalm 62-6, truly He is my rock and my salvation. He is my fortress. I will not be shaken. I find rest in God alone. Psalm 62-1, truly my soul finds rest in God. My salvation comes from Him. God's love never fails me. Lamentations 3, 22, and 23, because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed. For His compassion never fails. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. I have peace because I am in Christ. John 16-33, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble but take heart. I have overcome the world. I wait on the Lord and He renews my strength. Isaiah 40-31, but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint. I will trust in God even when I don't see the whole picture. 2 Corinthians 5-7, for we live by faith not by sight. God is working all things for my good. Romans 8, 28, and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. God's peace rules in my heart today. Colossians 3, 15, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body you were called to peace and be thankful. I give my burdens to the Lord and He sustains me. Psalm 55-22, cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you. He will never let the righteous be shaken. I will be still and know that He is God. Psalm 46-10, He says, Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. I trust God's timing and His ways. Ecclesiastes 3, 11, He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart, yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I will rejoice in the Lord always knowing He is my strength. Psalm 55-10, cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you. Philippians 4, 4, rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again, rejoice. Father, I surrender my worries to you. I choose to rest in your peace today trusting that you are in control. Fill my heart with faith instead of fear and let your peace guard my mind. In Jesus' name, amen. I hope these affirmations spoke to your heart today. If you want to go deeper, just keep listening. Your full Bible study episode is coming up next. As we spend time listening for God's voice, there are moments when He invites us to step out of our normal routines and to follow Him more intentionally. Bible Study Live is an in-person Bible study experience that I've built around traveling with that kind of purpose. We gather to open scripture together, to pray, to learn and walk through the Bible in community, all while being fully present in these meaningful places. We've recently added a second location and many of the spots are already filled by alumni who've gone on previous trips with me before. Because of that, space is limited. If you've been sensing that God may be inviting you into a deeper season of growth, I'd love to have you join us on one of this year's trips. You can learn more at Biblestudylive.org. Hey friends, I'm Rachel Grohl and I'm your host for the Hearing Jesus podcast, where I help you to know God and to make Him known. Vengeance is our topic for today and it's not something I would normally gravitate to except we're going through each of the Psalms. And vengeance is a topic that David talks about. And I think for me, what I get from this passage is leaning into the hope that we have in knowing that God is a just God. Because to be perfectly honest, there's wickedness and evil in this world that we just don't understand. And while we don't understand, we do know some things about God. We understand that He is just and He's faithful. And so we can have this hope of knowing that even if we can't deal with it in this lifetime, God can. And I think that gives us a little bit of freedom over some of those situations. So I pray that this is a blessing for you this episode. Today we are reading through Psalm 58. However skillful the enchanter may be, Break the teeth in their mouths, O God, Tear out, O Lord, the fangs of the lions, Let them vanish like water that flows away, When they draw the bow, Let their arrows be blunted, Like a slug melting away as it moves along, Like a siltmourne child, may they not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, Whether they be green or dry, The wicked will be swept away, The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, When they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked, The men will say surely the righteous still are rewarded, Surely there is a God who judges the earth. Now this Psalm can sound pretty harsh, especially if we're looking at it solo. Hopefully you've been studying along with us throughout the Psalms up until this point. This is a Psalm of David. And the notation that we have on this Psalm is that it is sung to the tune of Do not destroy, which is interesting because it is a song that's looking forward to when the righteous will be avenged. And so the Do not destroy is talking about the righteous, the plea for the righteous not to be destroyed, which may seem kind of contrary to some of the verbiage, but it's with this understanding of looking forward to the day that God avenges his people. And so it does sound harsh, but remember David was a warrior. David has been in battle for quite some time, or he has been fleeing Saul who wants to kill him. And so there is an intensity about David that we see here in the scriptures. But when it's talking throughout this Psalm about the righteous being glad when they're avenged, we have to understand that this is more than just David's situation. This is talking about the joy and the satisfaction that God's people as believers, us, that we're going to experience when evil itself is defeated. And so at that point, God will judge and make everything right. And so followers of Christ, of Jesus, really should be praying for and looking forward to this time when all evil will be removed from the earth and God's kingdom and the new heaven and the earth will be established. Now, if you don't know what I'm talking about, that's referring to some passages and revelations, which we will eventually get to. But I want to kind of just pause here at Psalm 58 and point out a couple things. There's a lot of metaphor language that might be lost on us just because we're removed from that culture. So the first is verse four, it says their venom is like the venom of a snake, like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears. Now remember, these are people that are literally out to kill David, that's who he's referring to when he's talking about the wicked. And so this metaphor about the cobra with the stopped ears, well, what does that mean? It's an attempt to equate the wicked person or the fool or the people that are pursuing him who essentially will not listen to God with a cobra. And that is language that's very common to the ancient Near Eastern world. That was something just like the lions, the cobras were something that was very familiar to them. And so the original audience, the hearers of this, this Psalm would have understood what exactly we're saying. Basically, it's talking about a cobra who would pay no attention to a snake charmer. And you know, this by the snake charmers, you know, you see on TV where they're playing the little pipe or flute or whatever it is. And as they're playing that, it draws in the the cobra and it's charmed by that music. And so he's talking about how the wicked are kind of like a snake who's not paying attention to the snake charmer. And it's this idea of causing pain and suffering by unreasonable behavior. It's talking about the unreasonable behavior, the cobra, it's almost powerless to not listen to the snake charmer. But yet he's equating these people that are not listening to God being in this stubborn wickedness. And although snakes don't have hands to cover their ears, they have an internal organ, the issue here is talking about unnatural or even perverse actions. It's an unnatural action for the cobra not to listen to the snake charmer, just like it's an unnatural action for these people not to listen to God, despite everything that he has done to show himself faithful and the God above all gods. And so it's kind of going along the lines of some other ancient Near Eastern practices or ideas or metaphors that talks about the instruction of a fool who just won't listen anytime you attempt to teach him something. And so there's a lot of that kind of teaching in the ancient Near Eastern. That's essentially what David is pointing towards in this verse. And then again in verse five, it says that will not heed the tune of the charmer however skillful the enchanter may be. Again, it's talking about the snake charmer, the profession of the snake charmer would have involved an intimate knowledge of how the cobra or the serpent's behavior pattern was. And so there's an admonition there that could have found its way in from other metaphors from that time. But essentially basically what it's saying, and I think David is taking from some other common knowledge or common sayings that they had. Like I feel like for us we have common sayings that we say in our culture. That's pretty much what we see David talking about. It's a common verbage that he's referring to about stubbornness really. And just the unnatural unreasonable refusal outright refusal to listen to God. And so in the ancient Mesopotamian world, in the Egyptian world, they would have recognized that the snake charmer would have been really, really skilled at knowing how to get the serpent's attention. And it's not like the cartoonish thing you might be thinking of that you've seen on TV as a kid. This was a role in that culture that was really important because snakes were very, very feared. They were known to cause death and bring harm to people. And so bringing in the snake charmer was a way to deal with an extreme danger. And the fact that he's equating these wicked people to not even listening to as a snake not even listening to a snake charmer, he's basically saying like, they're not listening to anybody. And there's a danger here. There's a danger not just for me, but as our culture, there's a danger here when these guys are not listening to even God. Because of that concept, this is seen as a community lament, a community complaint to God about the wickedness of man. And there's an illusion back to Genesis 3 when it's talking about the snake. And what does the snake represent? Well, the snake represents evil. It represents the fall. It represents sin. It represents the enemy's work within the world. And what David is doing is he's calling forth this imagery reminding us of the wickedness of man and pointing us forward to the day that God will extinguish evil from the earth. And I think sometimes we don't put two and two together because Genesis is kind of far away from Psalms in your Bible. But you have to remember the context with which David was saying this, it was with this understanding of the serpent representing evil. Also, what we'll see in this Psalm, and we're not going to get into all of them because it's pretty lengthy to do that. But there are several curses that we see in this Psalm. And this is known as one of the imprecatory Psalms. We talked about this during Book One of the Psalms, imprecatory meaning curse. And so this Psalm contains seven curses, it's kind of a condensed form of them, that are providing a window into the ancient world. So the first is basically that the cobra cannot be charmed because it has stopped up its ears. The second is that the wicked are compared to the teeth of lions. And David is praying that God will break their teeth in their mouths. So that's another one, another part of that. Third is that the wicked are like the water that flows away. And fourth, they are the wicked that are warriors who are drawing their bow. And David's prayers that the arrows will fall short of the target. Fifth, there's a prayer to the effect of that, like a slug melts away as it moves along. It's talking about a snail leaving its shell and making this tiny trail as it seems to kind of just disappear. The sixth one is a sad picture of a silver child that never, you know, sees the light of day. And then it's this move of these metaphors into the category of humanity. And then the seventh one is another picture of humanity as the wind sweeps away the thorns that are intended to go up in flames, the flames of the pots of people that are trying to cook, and it ends up leaving them hungry and unsatisfied. And so these are all different curses that are snapshots of the life of Israel or the world of Israel. And so the sevenfold curse might imply that it will be effective because seven was the number of completion in that world. And so what we see is not necessarily, yes, it's called a curse psalm and precatory psalm. It's not necessarily curses, but it is prayers against the evil people that are pursuing him. And I'll tell you that I think is a connection to the ancient Near Eastern world that we can maybe even identify with. There are things and curses of our world that we are very easily able to recognize, you know, even just things like, okay, somebody having a lot of money praying that they lose it all, or praying that the truth is found out when somebody is being dishonest, or when somebody has built their platform on lies, praying that the truth comes out. It's called a curse, but it's not necessarily like cursing that you would think of like in magic or anything like that. It's essentially just prayers for justice to be done. The main difference is that these imprecatory psalms, these cursed psalms are leaving vengeance to God. It's not like David is saying he's going and he's going to do all these things, but he is praying, God, would you intervene? Would you do these things? But he is leaving vengeance to God. And so even with one of the most harsh, harsh verses in the psalm, what it says is verse 10, the righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the bath of the wicked. Notice that that sounds harsh, but the righteous are not doing anything in this situation. They are standing and they are experiencing the tragedy that becomes the people that are wicked that don't turn towards God, but they're not aggressively the ones going after them. They are the recipients of that situation. And then of course, he wraps it up with verse 11. He says, then men will say, surely the righteous still are rewarded. Surely there is a God who judges the earth. He's talking about this final judgment. Eventually all evil will be extinguished and there will be a judgment by God who judges the earth. And not only is God rewarding the righteous, but he's judging the wicked. And that's pointing forward to what's eventually going to happen. So you kind of have to look at this on a parallel track. On one hand, you have David, the psalmist, who is personally under attack by his enemies, but then you also have this long view of human history, the wickedness that plagues Christians, that plagues humanity, and the fact that God is eventually going to deal with that wickedness and that evil. So when he's talking about wickedness, he's not just talking about wickedness of his generation. He's talking about the wickedness of our generation and the wickedness of the generations to come. And I think there's a hope there. There's a hope to know that eventually God is going to deal with it. Now sometimes it gets dealt with now, but eventually God is going to deal with it. And what we see is eventually with the new heaven and the new earth, God judging and dealing with all of humanity. This psalm is definitely heavy. It's heavy because there's this graphic picture that is a picture of vengeance. And I think it's important for us to study, though, where we understand that there is a graveness to evil and there's an urgency to turn back from evil ways and to turn back and turn towards righteousness because there's an element of God's character. Yes, we serve a God that is loving and draws us in and pursues us, but he is a just God. God is a just God and he will deal with the evil that's in this world. And so I don't, while I always want to communicate that we have a God who pursues us and longs for us to be in relationship with him, I don't want to neglect the fact that God is a just God and he will deal with evil and wickedness because he is a God of justice. And I think for me, that's a place of hope when I see things in the world or even in my own life, people I know of things that are happening where there's an injustice done. I sometimes feel powerless against that because I am a justice warrior. It's why I work in orphan care. It's why I do evangelism. It's part of the reason that I serve in the capacities I serve in because I want to speak for those that have had injustices done to them. And yet there's so much work to do. There's so much more than I could ever even accomplish in a lifetime, even if we had all the money in the world, because there's this undercurrent of injustice throughout humanity. But the hope there is that we see a God or we serve a God that sees it and he's going to deal with it. I think that is a way to look forward or look through some of the things that we experience and we don't understand why or why something isn't being done. It will eventually be dealt with. And I think that's a hope that we can kind of rest on. So given that insight, I'm going to go back to verse one. Do you rulers indeed speak justly? Do you judge uprightly among men? No, in your heart you devise injustice and your hands meet out violence on the earth. Even from birth the wicked go astray. From the womb they are wayward and speak lies. Their venom is like the venom of a snake, like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears, that will not heed the tune of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be. Break the teeth in their mouths, oh God. Tear out, oh Lord, the fangs of the lions. Let them vanish like water that flows away. When they draw the bow, let their arrows be blunted, like a slug melting away as it moves along, like a silver child. May they not see the sun. Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns, whether they be green or dry, the wicked will be swept away. The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked. Then men will say, surely the righteous still are rewarded, surely there's a God who judges the earth. God, as hard as it is to read these words sometimes, we can take hope and comfort in knowing that you are a God that sees injustices that are done to us and that are done to innocent and to the righteous around the world. Lord God, thank you for the fact that you are a just God and that you will seek justice on our behalf. Lord, even in the midst of being pursued by our enemies, like David, help us to remember that you will not let some of these things go, even if we are forced to deal with them in this lifetime. And that is such a hard place to be, that tension of wanting justice, but also living in this season where we are waiting for you to deal with the evil in this world. Lord, help us to have hope in you. Help us to continue to pursue righteousness and help us to leave vengeance to you. That can be so hard, Lord God, when we are facing something that is bigger than ourselves, that feels so hard or so wrong, or we even just see things on the news that just feels so unjust. God, help us to rest in knowing that you will be the one to deal out vengeance. Lord, help us to just settle into that place as we maybe struggle through some of those concepts. God, reveal yourself to us through those situations. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. The Hearing Jesus podcast is so excited to partner with Compassion International. We believe in Compassion's mission to release children from poverty in Jesus' name. I've seen the impact myself through the letters and the updates that I've received as a sponsor. It's not just changing the lives of children, it's changing entire families, whole communities, always through the local church and always in Jesus' name. When you sponsor a child, you ensure access to quality education, medical checkups, healthy food, clean water, and most importantly, the love of Jesus, delivered through a church in their community because of a generous, caring sponsor like you. And you can speak life, love, and hope to your sponsored child through personal letters that you'll exchange. I hope you'll join me in sponsoring a child through Compassion today. All you have to do is pull out your phone, open up a text, and text Hearing Jesus to 83393. You'll get back a text with a picture of a child who is waiting for a sponsor and a link to sponsor that child. You can also go to compassion.com forward slash hearing Jesus to choose a boy or a girl to sponsor. When you sponsor a child, we will send you a copy of She Hears Learning to Listen to Jesus, My Bible Study, as a token of our thanks for investing in the life of a child. Thank you for joining me in sponsoring a child through Compassion today.
