I hope all of you are following the Legacy Reading Plan. If you are we’re right now in Hebrew poetry, reading Job, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon.

 

Of course, today is day 15, which means you’re in Proverbs chapter 15. A proverb a day keeps the Devil away (i.e. a chapter from the proverbs).

 

If you’re on the track of meditating on the ancient Israeli Psalmistry, then you’re in Psalm 31, 32, and 33. I was meditating on the Psalms this morning, particularly the words:

 

I am forgotten by them as though I were dead;

     I have become like broken pottery.

 

For I hear the slander of many;

     there is terror on every side;

     they conspire against me

     and plot to take my life.

 

But I trust in you, O LORD;

     I say, “You are my God.”

 

My times are in your hands;

     deliver me from my enemies

     and from those who pursue me.

 

Let your face shine on your servant;

      save me in your unfailing love (vv. 12-16).

 

And then the words in Psalm 32:

 

You are my hiding place.

     You protect me from trouble,

      and surround me with songs of deliverance” (v. 7).

 

In Psalm 33,

 

No king is saved by the size of his army;

     no warrior escapes by his great strength.

A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;

     despite all its great strength it cannot save.

But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,

     on those whose hope is in his unfailing love (vv. 16-18).

 

I’m reminded of what Solomon said in Proverbs 21,

 

There is no wisdom, no insight, no plan

     that can succeed against the LORD.

The horse is made ready for the day of battle,

     but victory rests with the LORD (vv. 30-31).

 

Or at the beginning of the chapter, where he says:

 

The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD;

       he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases (v. 1).

 

God is sovereign! Our trust ultimately—if it is well-placed faith and trust—is in Almighty God, who delivers us from all evil. That does not mean that we do not suffer. It means that ultimately He has established a new heaven and a new earth where indwells righteousness, and in the meantime, He walks with us, even through our deepest and darkest of all travails.