Some Housekeeping:

• Matthew Part 2 begins on Monday! Books arrive this weekend; get your book Sunday at Asbury, or email Sandie and get one in the mail.

• I preached on the testing in the wilderness these past 3 weeks. The sermons are here.

• Our next churchwide Bible study is NEXT WEDNESDAY, 9/13. 6:30-8:00 PM. It will only have been 2 weeks since the August study, but don’t miss this one. We only have 1 per month. The remaining dates are:

  • October 11

  • November 8

Here’s the video from last week’s Bible study. I offer it here in case any of you are having trouble sleeping.

Matthew 4:5-7

5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and set him on the pinnacle of the temple 6 and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written,
“ ‘He will command his angels concerning you,’ and “ ‘On their hands they
will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’ ”
7 Jesus said to him, “Again it is written, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ ”

In the second temptation, the devil quotes part of Psalm 91, and I think it’s fair to assume that the devil’s interpretation is wrong!

Psalm 91 is a beautiful psalm of protection and peace, but the devil wants Jesus to believe that what the psalm means is that God’s Servant will face no problems or difficulties. The devil wants Jesus to see the psalm as a magic formula—if you say it, then God will be forced to do what you want; praying Psalm 91 will call God to send his angels to save you, like, like a divine Bat Signal in the sky.

Jesus again replies with a verse from Deuteronomy when he says that testing God in an attempt to force God’s hand is wrong.

God’s promises are true, but we don’t control God—he’s not a cosmic vending machine that we manipulate. He works on his own timeline.

Where do you need to make a conscious choice to trust God’s timing today?

NOTE: It’s been 150 days since Easter, and today we wrap our our journey through the psalms with Psalm 150. But, I’ve been reading one psalm a day, every day, for years, so tomorrow I’m starting over again with Psalm 1. Join me?

Psalm 150

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise God in his sanctuary;
    praise him in his mighty heavens![a]
2 Praise him for his mighty deeds;
    praise him according to his excellent greatness!
3 Praise him with trumpet sound;
    praise him with lute and harp!
4 Praise him with tambourine and dance;
    praise him with strings and pipe!
5 Praise him with sounding cymbals;
    praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
6 Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

Just Praise - Psalm 150

Today we come to the last psalm, and it’s a simple psalm of praise.

We began reading the psalms with Psalm 1 on April 10—it’s a psalm of wisdom.  Now, we conclude 150 days later with a psalm of praise.

The psalter moves from wisdom to praise.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!