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Episode 507: In this episode, we shift into Psalm 1. We discussed its themes and how it fits into the life of David, particularly during a time when he was deeply committed to following God. We highlighted the binary worldview presented in the Psalm, emphasizing the contrast between the godly and the wicked. We also drew parallels to Jesus' teachings and the importance of staying connected to God, much like a tree planted by streams of water.
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You're listening to the Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in practical ways. Hey, well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening whenever you're tuning in, and welcome to the Bible Guys. I'm Jeff and that's my cue to say, I'm Chris. There you go. We got it in there. Yes, and today we are kicking off with a brand new segment for this week called Stump the. Pastor brand new segment for this week. Yeah, that's the second day of the week. I started to say brand new segment. I did not recover. Okay, it's brand new for this week, brand new for this week. We've done it forty times, but yeast. So this is a good one. This one's from Karen h. By the way, So hi Karen. Hey, what's up Karen? And she says one of the ten commandments is thou shalt not kill? Why is there so much killing in the Bible? Good question. It's a good question, by good question, very thoughtful. Yeah. Well, I mean I just watched with my family really a movie really yeah, and it was called come on, What was the Conscientious subjector? Andrew Garfield in the war, we climbs up the wall. I don't know, dude, you would love this movie. I know, I know you. This is a movie you would actually love. Hats all rich. Yeah, but anyway, it was it was sort of the same thing. It was sort of the same thing. He was a conscientious objector who joined the war World War two. This is a true story. But he wouldn't touch a gun because he said, I'm. Not supposed to kill. It's not supposed kill you. Okay, So what's the answer. Well, the answer is sin, wickedness, rebellion. Killing exists because of sin. Well, for sure it does. But the uh, I think it's because God gives an initiative to those who serve him, and it's it's warnings against you know, his his invitation. His rule is judgment when people are wicked and they serve false gods and God is passing his judgment. It's the same judgment, by the way, I think that would be given to us, except for the fact that Jesus died in our place. Yeah, so good answer. By the way, there's multiple kinds of killing in the Bible. So I think you first have to go to the law thou shalt not kill. The Roman or the Hebrew word there means murder seems to specifically mean premeditated right murder. So there's a difference between you know, hitting somebody with your car accidentally and murdering somebody because you hate them, right, planning the death of this assassination of this person. So that'd be the first thing. The word thou shalt not kill, That word kill leans towards premeditated murder, don't murder as opposed to there's a dozen times in the Old Testament where God sets up the death penalty for certain behaviors in society. So you have to remember that the Ten Commandments are not governmental laws for the government or for society. They're for individuals. You don't lie, you keep the sabbath, You don't commit adultery, right, you don't commit murder. That's it. But then God sets up within the government there are consequences for bad behaviors. If somebody does murder somebody, then God sets up the death penalties to say, an eye for an eye, tooth for truth, a life for a life right. So then the government is supposed to take the life of the person who who committed murder for instance, or whatever so God sets up this what we would say is killing to kill this person that is a horrific criminal. God says, execute them. And so in that situation, that's not premeditated murder, that's executing judgment for evil behavior. There's a difference, right, So God, God uses governments to execute judgment, and that then is and God says they represent him when they do it. So there's a difference between you committing murder and the government executing judgment. That'd be one. The other one is sometimes God used the people of Israel as tools of his justice, bringing judgment on other nations, and so he would send them in and go, hey, I want you to bring judgment on Itedom, or I want you to bring judgment on the Amalekites or on the Mobibites or whatever. Right, which is where we are right now? Right, that's right, And the other one would be then God also allows, and he says it in the law self defense, if somebody breaks into your house in the middle of the night and you struggle and the guy dies, well then you're free. Right. So when you're defending your property, when you're defending yourself, when you're defending your family, if the other person dies as a result of you trying to protect your family, then God says you're free from that, so he allows the idea that's not premeditative murder, although somebody dies, right, so he allows that. And then obviously when Cain killed Abel, that's just evil, that's just sin that rose up. And God's just telling the story without blinking. He's letting us know, Hey, this is the reality humanity. So there's there's multiple kinds of killing in the Bible. Some of it is justice, some of it is self defense. And but what God forbids you and me is for us to just willfully go and commit murder. Right, that'd be the difference between those things. That's great. Yeah, yeah, and that's a great question. And thank you. What's your name, Karen, right, Yeah, Karen's the one that wrote in. Yeah, thank you Karen for writing in. So that's a hard one. That is a really tough one. I agree. So, Karen, you as as a citizen, a private citizen, there is no real situation other than self defense. There is no situations justifiable in the Bible for you to kill somebody. If you became the governor and your state permitted the death penalty, it's not a sin for you to execute judgment on somebody who did evil and qualifies for the death penalty. That does make sense. So as a tool of the government, as a tool of the people, that's different than the individual choosing murder, and that it's really really hard to separate the two. But if you can, then that's why the Bible allows it in some instances, but forbids it for individuals, right. And it's also the reason why we witness both ends. Right. We witnessed that shot and not kill, and then we also witnessed, you know, battling and killing Philistines left and right, right, right, So. It's self defense for one, because the Philistines were raiders. And two it was of God from are using the people of Israel to do that and God to do that. Which is how I initially responded, Yep, that's great, good job. All right. Well, hey, Psalm chapter one is where we are today, which we're like, how crazy is that that we're in the middle of this David and Goliath story, in the middle of Samuel, the Book of Samuel, and all of a sudden we're just taking a break and we're jumping to Psalm one. Why is that, Jeff. So we don't know when the book when Psalm one was written, but we do know lots of Psalms were written in the early part of David's life, and so we just we're going to grab this one and say, hey, here's a theme from a time in David's life when he was really walking with God, when he had a great desire to serve God. And so we just want to introduce the psalms. And then now throughout the stories of David and the Kings, we're going to pepper several of the Psalms into the stories of David, and then you know, eventually we get the Salomon will pepper in some of the proverbs as well in spots where they kind of naturally. So Psalm one, because we're doing this chronologically. That's correct. So someone, you know, we don't know at what point this would land, but it's a good one to start with. Yeah, and it's only six verses. Yeah, so we get to talk for ten minutes perverse. That's nice. No, spoken like a true preacher. Okay, So here's Psalm chapter one and says, Oh the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. But they delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They're like trees planted along the river bank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do. But not the wicked. They're like worthless chaffs scattered by the wind. They'll be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly, for the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction. Well, yeah, this is really consistent with what he just did in this victory he had. He saw that battle as being very black and white, either your for good or against God. And hey, the ones for God are going to win. The one against God's going to lose. Right. You know what I love about God's creation is that it represents life. And well, I mean, it doesn't represent life, it is life, but it represents our lives. Right, It's it's the it's the same. This reminds me of the same thing where Jesus said, Okay, I'm the vine, you're the branch, and literally they're walking through a vineyard when he teaches that that was actually the last lesson that he gave before he went to the garden Againstemine and uh and Jesus, you know, is literally pointing to a vine and he's saying, do you see the way this vine grows? And do you see that this branch right here? And see how the branch is thriving and how it has fruit on it. You know, I am the vine, I'm the source of life, and you're the branch. But guess what, there's a branch on the ground. Everybody look at it. That's the same kind of branch. But guess what, it's not connected to the vine, and there's no fruit on it. That's you, if you're disconnected to me. And people are like, oh, why, Well, because everybody grew grapes. Everybody understood, they planted trees, They understood agriculture way more than the average person in the western world today. And so here's David, you know, and I could even imagine, uh, you know, maybe perhaps him writing this psalm underneath a tree right planted by the rivers of water. You know, think about a field. You know, you know, you've seen old movies, right Westerns and such where you know, they're traveling through the desert and you know, they're parts and looking for a well or something like this, and they finally come across a stream. And then what grows right next to all the streams, all the trees. You know, they're lush and they're green because water is life and and that's you know, I could just picture, you know, in the old dusty, you know sections of Israel where David is, you know, taking his sheep and he's wandering from field to field, and you know, and he has to plan those things. And sometimes when shepherds would take their sheep, sometimes they would go on to pilgrimage because because there, you know, the grass was so scarce, they'd have to take their sheep. Yes, I remember reading one shepherd's book that talked about how sometimes in the really uh you know, barren parts of Israel, they would have to go on a journey that took a year, and they were they they have to. They had they couldn't overgraze a field because if they overgrazed it, it would die and it would be gone for years. And so every shepherd had an understanding that you don't overgraze so you have to move on. You have to move quickly with sheep because sheep reached out, so cows clip off the tops of the grass, so to horses. Donkeys clip the tops of the grass. But sheep will pull the roots up and then the grass won't go back, so they have to move quickly. With sheep. You can't stay in the same place for months at a time. They'll go right down and they'll start pulling the dirt up right Whereas the cows and the horses, you just move them from field to field and back again, because they're not tearing up the roots, but the sheep do. And we see that by the way. Big Ben National Park in the boot heel of Texas. Yeah, used to have a lot of natural grasses, but it's a desert environment, so the natural grasses don't come back quickly. And when they brought cattle through it would be fine, but a bunch of sheep herders back in the early twentieth century came in and totally obliterated the grass has never come back. See isn't it crazy? It's crazy enough to where it just that story. That explanation is a reminder how we don't necessarily understand all the nuances of the salts. We don't understand the word pictures, right, and so here it is. I think it's not just oh, you know, if we're near God, God's the source of life. God's like the river, then we're gonna like a tree, We're gonna be prosperous. Well, those are great conclusions. It's pretty evident that's what he means. But what we don't understand are perhaps the implications of what it means not to be by the rivers, right, like like just this just a picture. God creates his beautiful creation, and then he points to it and says, this is how we are. This, this lesson, this object lesson represents your life. I just think it's an incredible thing. So I pictured David as a shepherd, perhaps sitting underneath a tree, you know, thinking about man, this oasis is is just like what it you know, what it is to love God. We we we we go to God and it's like and it's like we are equipped to produce fruit. We have we're strong, we're nourished where you know, there's there's water for our roots, right, all those things. So he often writes with this very binary worldview. Either you're serving God you're not though those are the only two options. There's no middle ground. There's I'm trying to serve God. I'm kind of you know, I want to be a good Christian. But whatever, right he sees it. Either you're choosing to walk with God or you're not walking with God. Those are the two things. Partial obedience is disobedience, and that's how he views it. So there's the joys of those who follow who do not follow the advice of the wicked, the ones who don't stand around with sinners, the ones who don't join in their mockery, which the mockery a lot of times, it doesn't have to be overt it can just be a total indifference to God's way, right if you look at that original word. But instead they're delighting in God's laws and they're meditating on it day and night. This is one of the reasons why we, hey, we always commend our listeners. You're choosing to spend a little bit of time contemplating God's word every day, and it's that kind of thing. It's in your mind now. Now the Holy Spirit has something to bring up and to keep it, and that's what he's talking about you're meditating on it, you're thinking about it, you're taking more of God's word in on a regular basis. So he says, there's delight for those that choose to look into God's ways. And then the next one he says, but that's not the way it is for the wicked. So the ones who who spend time in God's word and then choose to live God's way, you're gonna thrive. Blessing comes from that. And then he says the other side, that's not that way for the wicked. He says, they're like worthless chaff scattered by the wind. Do you ever sometimes when you're done with the popcorn, do you ever just grab a couple of seeds and chew on the seeds or whatever. I don't chill on them, but I do sort of mess with them when you're done with popcorn? Do you ever have like some of that that the outer skin of the seeds stuck in your teeth all the time, to the point where I get obsessed with it, Like it's almost I can't think anything else if I've got to, especially if it's up near the gum line. You can feel your gums starting to swell a little bit. It's uncomfortable. It's all you can think about. You're right, you got this. So that's the chaff of the of the the corn. The corn sit kernel is that outer skin, and it's absolutely useless. So for them, again, like you were saying, you know, with regard to shepherds, with regard to vineyards or whatever, they understood that maybe even better than us, because we don't. That outer skin is the chaff of wheat. And if they would plant a whole field of wheat, and they would spend days and days and days just getting the chaff, beating the chaff off of the kernels of wheat in order to because it was totally useless in their minds, there was no benefit. You couldn't get the nutritional value of the wheat unless you got rid of the chaff. And then it's just an irritant. It's just a problem. It would make a mess, and so it would just be blown away in the wind. And God says, listen, it's the same way. The wicked are like that. They're an irritant, they're useless, they have no real value apart from so our value is in God. And then he causes us to thrive when we choose to put our roots down into His word. But if you don't do that, then there's a uselessness to it. And then he said, ultimately there's judgment that comes as a result of that. And so David is very binary. Either you're for God or against the And the proof is what are you doing with God's word? Are you taking it in, meditating on and applying it or are you just you know, standing around with sinners, living living like everybody else lives. Right? You know, have you ever? Have you ever? I know you have? This is just sort of you know, what do you call it? Like a lobbing a softball? Right? Have you ever been in a situation where immediately God, it's almost like the Holy Spirit recalls a verse that you know that applies to that situation. Like I remember just first becoming a Christian. Right. So we worked at the Canfield Fair, you know there's a big fair at home and me my best buddy Jeff. We were working at a couple of different booths and we had a walkie talkie back and forth. We're working for some lady who hired us and I was selling ho giz, he was selling French fries. Well, back then there was no cash register. It was just a wooden drawer. We'd open up, we'd deal with cash. Well, that's very tempting for a teenager who you know, is around a bunch of cash and doesn't have a lot of money growing up poor, and you're around hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Well, come to find out, this lady later on told me that she expected teenagers to steal from them because they always did. So here am I. You know, I'm tempted with all this cash. Well, Jeff's over there too, and we're all by ourselves. Well, he gets on the walkie talkie and he he and he says to me, He's like, you know, granted, I'm not kidding. We just started going to church, right, we just became Christians. I bet you he was a Christian like a month and I was a Christian a couple months before that. And you know, he gets on the walkie talkie and he goes and he goes, God is tempting me. God is tempting me. He goes, I know this is a test from God. This is what God's doing. He's tempting me because all this money. And I said, wait a minute, I said, I literally just read because I was in my booth and I had a pocket New Testament, and I said, I just read somewhere. I don't even know where it is, but it was in. The Book of James where it says, don't say that God tempt you, because God does not tempt any man. But when a man is tempted, he is enticed and drawn away from sin, right. And then sin, when it is produced, it brings death, you know, and all these kinds of things. And so I just remember going, wait, wait, I know, I know that I know something here. I'm like, don't blame God for your temptation. Your temptation is coming from from from your own lust and from your own sin. I'm like, God isn't doing this, but here's what he says. He says, if you give an a temptation, it's going to lead to bad things. And so we agreed not to steal because God brought to mind something that I had read, right, And so that's really what you're saying. You're saying, if you re if you put yourself around God's verses, God's words, that he's going. To recall and and you're going to be able. To meditate, especially in the times when it, you know, will help you choose the right paths. I was just in the Middle East, Jordan, in Egypt, and you're driving across open desert. At one point we drove for about four hours across the Sahara Desert and it's just, honestly, I have so much, so many minutes of just brown. It's just tan as far as you can see. And then all of a sudden there'd be, you know, and you see all these little valleys, all these little spots across the desert, and all of a sudden there'd be like a whole bunch of trees in this one spot, and you knew there was a probably a some kind of a well or a river or something there and all that. And so for them, they would have had this very strong sense that most of the world is desolate. That's what they and then on occasion, where the water is, that's where life is. And so God is saying, listen, my words are the water for your life. And the rest of the world is desolate. The world has nothing to offer you. And this is the binary kind of view that he has. Either you're standing around with the world's view right, the wicked, sinners, mockers, or you're in the oasis of God's water in your life. And isn't it weird how we tend to think life is really out there with all this and the mockers in the wicked. That's where we think life is. That's where the party is. We think that's where the fun is. And David is saying real life is in those valleys, those little nooks where the water is, and the God's water will bring life to you. And he ends the whole thing with So the Lord watches over the path of the godly. But the path of the wicked leads to destruction. It's interesting, it's not the circumstances, it's the path. The path really implies, always implies a choice. The choices the wicked make lead to destruction. That's a path, the choices that the godly make. God watches over that path. God's providing protection and safety and provision for them in that path, and so we have to choose. We spend so much more time, quite honestly, in the presence of the wicked, listening to their advice on news channels, scrolling through social media. We get tons of the Wicked's advice. We get tons of the opinions of sinners in our life, and we have to work really, really, really really hard to tap into the water of God's word right for real life. Don't listen to the voice of Goliath, right, listen to the promises of God. And then when you and I memorized this and read read through it as as kids, it was always the King James. Version, right, the old English type version. And I remember the words that they used were walking in the way of sinners, standing in the what is the seat of the scornful or something like this, or sitting in the seat of the scornful. And anyway it was. I just remember it was walking, standing, sitting, That's what it was. And I remember preaching a sermon to our kids, you know, the youth group at the time, where it just it seemed like a progression, like you know, the first picture is you're walking by them, and then the second picture is now you've stopped and you're sort of standing among. Them, you know, where you're not walking by them completely. And then the third picture is now you're sitting and joining them, you know, And so it's it's it's this idea of like. Walk away, keep walking right, walk by. So it's really it's really great how there's so many truth in here that can point to you know, our lives. So the question is, ultimately, whose voice do you listen to at the end of the day. Do you listen to the voices of the world, the voices of the wicked, the voices of the ungodly, the advice of those who probably have good advice, just not the right advice, right, you know, they don't have godly advice. Advice that's you know, grounded and the promises of God and the truths of God and the reality of what is versus you know what we think. Yeah, is the way, and we need to be judicious about where we get our advice from. Right, Maybe, just if you're talking about, hey, what's the best catch up? Social media is going to be fine. Hey I'm looking for a deviled egg recipe? Right, social media is fine. If you're trying to say, how do I rescue my marriage? Yeah, maybe you need the most godly husband and wife you know, right, don't don't just do Because if you're trying to figure out how to raise your children, if you're trying to figure out how to overcome some hurt or a habit or a hang up in your life. You need godly counselors that are out ahead of you. I was just talking with somebody here recently, a young woman that was having some struggles, and almost all of her counselors are her peers, who also aren't living a godly life. And I said, really, what you need because she doesn't really have this in her life right now. I said, what you need is to go find a godly mother within the church, right because you don't have a god and mother in your life. She doesn't have a mom at all right now. And so what you need is you need to go find a godly mother. And I said, I know that's weird because it's like two generations from you. You feel like, right, you're a young woman, and I'm saying, hey, go find some fifty year old woman that has some experience. It's been walking with God for a while. It's just this anchor of godliness, right. She knows what it takes to get from where you are to where she is, and that's what you need. But instead you're back out there with your friends looking for advice. And if you do what your friends do, you're only going to get what they get. So go find that godly leader, that god godly influencer, that godly person like you want to be, and you need to get advice from them. And I promise you what's going to happen is that Godly Mother is going to take your right to God's word. Here's what God's word tells me. Here's what God's word tells me. Here's what God's word tells me. Right, that's what's going to happen, as opposed to your friends going. Just follow your heart right right right. There's a big guess between those two things. I just think that you should be happy. Yes, that's what God would want. Right, Yeah, that's anyway. Hey listen, that is our time. So we're going to continue, probably jumping back into first show. We're getting back into for Samuel eighteen. Yep tomorrow, so hopefully we'll see you then. I'm the Bible Gus