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Psalm 124 - Chaos Waters Are Back Again · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

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  Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
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  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
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  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
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  you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
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  others. Let's dive right in.
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  Welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Today we are in Psalm 124, Psalm
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  124, and this is another one of the song of a sense, one of 15
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  And these are the songs that the children of Israel would sing as
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  they were on their way. 3 * A year up to Jerusalem to
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  celebrate the feast that God had outlined for them to observe.
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  And so this particular Psalm 124 was written by David and I love,
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  I got to look a little bit at this one because I, I read
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  through the Psalm and I went, what in the world is that about?
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  So I, I think there is some great stuff in here for us to
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  learn even today. The Psalm is only 8 verses.
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  Let's read through it together and see what the Lord has for
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  us. Verse #1 If Yahweh had not been
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  on our side, let Israel say if Yahweh had not been on our side
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  when people attacked us, then they would have swallowed us
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  alive in their burning anger against us.
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  Then the water would have engulfed us.
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  The torrent would have swept over us.
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  The raging water would have swept over us.
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  Blessed be Yahweh, who is not let us be ripped apart by their
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  teeth. We've escaped like a bird from
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  the Hunter's net. The net is torn and we have
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  escaped. Our help is in the name of
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  Yahweh, the maker of heaven and earth.
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  All right, so I love. You can think, if I'm on a road
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  trip, I don't know that I would be singing songs about danger,
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  like actual eminent danger to me.
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  But that's kind of what this Psalm is.
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  It's God. You have kept us safe.
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  You have been on our side against the battles that we have
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  been facing, literal battles against other peoples.
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  So you can think this is written in David's time.
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  So at that point you had the Philistines in a bunch of
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  different cities. Certainly Gaza would be a big
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  one of those that there would have been battles against.
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  You have the Syrians to the north were often causing
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  difficulties and if I remember correctly, Syria, Amin and
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  possibly the Moabites as well. Oh, and the Edomites were all
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  those nations surrounding Israel.
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  I think if I remember correctly, they didn't have a bunch of
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  trouble from the Egyptians to the South for a while.
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  It it just was mainly the Canaanites that were to their
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  SW, Syrians to the north. And then you have Ammon and Moab
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  to the kind of northeast and then Edom to the southeast were
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  the nations that surrounded Israel and often would send in
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  raiding parties. Sometimes a couple of those
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  nations would align together. That was the case when David did
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  not go to the battles when he everything went down with
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  Bathsheba and Second Samuel 11. But Second Samuel, I think it's
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  9 and 10. It might just be Second Samuel
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  10 detail one of those coalitions taking place where
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  there are these people groups that are coming and they are
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  attacking Israel. And so David here writes this
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  Psalm for the people of Israel to sing of.
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  We would have had no hope if it were not for God.
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  God is the reason that we are standing.
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  I want you to think for your life even today.
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  Do you recognize that the reason that you are breathing, the
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  reason that you have ears to be able to hear this podcast or you
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  have eyes to be able to perhaps read the captions or you know
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  the transcript or something for this, if you can't hear the
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  reason for all of it is God, God and his goodness to you.
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  The facts not just like God's malevolent or not malevolence,
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  not just God's benevolence towards you.
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  They goes, yeah, I guess I'll let you have this from verses
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  one and two. It's not just that God allowed
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  like gave the Israel some strength, but you know, wasn't
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  really didn't have any big thoughts one way or the other.
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  No, he says God was on our side. Think about that, that the Lord
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  is not just giving you trinkets of goodwill sometimes when he
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  feels like it. No, he's actually on your side.
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  I think of what Paul says in Romans 8 that God is, and I
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  quote here for us. I need that reminder in my life
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  again and again and again because as I'm walking through
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  my days, I can feel sometimes like God is against me or I can
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  feel like with the struggles that I need God to, you know,
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  chip in that I say, OK, God, you know, it would be too much to
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  ask you to, to fight all of this for me.
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  But I need you to give me some strength so that I can get
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  through it. And I don't think about the fact
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  that God is right there with me, that he is on my side.
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  He is battling Satan from what Romans 16 says, that he is
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  crushing Satan under my feet, that he is using me to
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  accomplish his will. It's not just me doing it, It is
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  God doing it and he's using me as his instrument.
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  That's what Paul tells us in Galatians 2 where he says I am
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  crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I,
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  but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the
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  flesh. I live by the faith of the Son
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  of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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  So God is on our side. Now, I don't want you to think
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  that in a God is on your side against other people.
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  Other people are not your enemy. Satan and his cronies and death
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  and hell, that is your enemy and that is who God is on your side
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  against. It's not, you know, I, I know we
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  have people in a variety of situations, but for some of you,
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  you might think God is on my side and that means God is
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  against this family member that I'm really at odds with right
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  now. I really dislike them.
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  No, no, no, no, my friend, my my friend Shelley Porter let me
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  know the other day that that was a kind of Brian ISM of doing
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  that. No, no, no, I didn't even
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  realize that was a thing. But Shelley, if you're watching,
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  I, I've now noticed it. I I do do that.
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  So God is not on your side against fellow humans.
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  He is actually on their side too, and He wants their benefit.
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  He wants their good. Now, sometimes what is good for
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  them here, as in the Psalm, may be that they are foiled in their
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  plots to do evil. That part of God's being for
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  them is that He does not allow them to carry out here is in
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  this time period, murder, theft, that kind of stuff.
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  And that might be the way that God is for them.
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  But as God is for us today, God being for us means you can have
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  grace to deal with people. You can have wisdom to be able
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  to say what is good or to not say when.
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  When God has that for you, it could mean that God has you to
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  win other people to Christ through your testimony that as
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  you talk about what God's doing in and through and for you, they
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  would go, I want that kind of walk and relationship.
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  And before you go, well, no, that could never happen with me.
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  I could tell you story after story.
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  I could take you to person after person who found that to be true
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  within their own life. And I've seen it enough times
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  that I know it doesn't matter what kind of person you are.
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  I have family members that for decades of their lives, they
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  were just a mean, cantankerous person and they were not kind or
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  pleasant to be around. And you would never go.
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  Yeah, that's definitely someone that can be 1 to Christ.
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  And yet they were through the lives of God's people that they
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  went, yeah, you know what, I do need to follow Jesus.
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  And so because I've seen that within my own family with people
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  that I never would have anticipated it happening to, I
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  can tell you there's no one off limits.
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  There's no one that God cannot save and so just keep being
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  faithful and realize God is on your side.
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  He's on your team. He's not fighting against you,
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  he's fighting for you. The question is, are you working
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  in your best interests or are you working against your own
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  best interests. If God is for you and you feel
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  like God is against you, it might be that you are working
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  against your own self-interest because God is working for your
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  for your good and for his glory. And so if you feel like God's
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  against you, it could be that you are trying to take actions
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  or say words or go a direction that God would not have you to
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  go that would end up in your bad and in cause disc glory.
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  And so allow God to guide you and be thankful for when he
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  redirects you because when he redirects you, it is for your
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  good and for the glory of God. And so you can be confident that
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  God is for you. He is on your side.
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  All right, that was way too long on just those that that one
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  thought if the Lord had not been on our side.
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  But then I want to look at this thing next because right after
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  that David says, or he describes the enemies of Israel in two
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  ways #1 as the chaos waters, and then secondly, as hunters
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  hunting Israel, who's kind of likened to a bird of sorts.
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  So #1 the chaos waters. If you remember Genesis 1,
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  what's the very first thing that God, if you will, tames, or I'll
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  say the second thing, 'cause I'd say the darkness.
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  Yeah, he, he relegates it to its own realm where there's the
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  light and then there's the dark. You have day and night.
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  But then he deals with the chaos waters.
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  Now I've mentioned this many times before.
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  I think I dealt, I cannot remember which Psalm it was.
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  I want to say it was in Book 3 of Psalms that we looked at this
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  multiple times. Psalm 93 I think also dealt with
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  this. So you can look back like if you
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  search Tabernacle talk and then put in like chaos waters or
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  dragon or sea monsters, you'll come across these a couple of
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  times. I, I loved learning about this.
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  So in the ancient Near East, how that group of people thought
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  about the origin of the world was that life emerged from the
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  ocean, not unlike how many scientists today kind of think
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  about the world. So they thought life emerged
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  from the ocean, but the ocean was always trying to end life.
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  The ocean was always trying to get back everything that came
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  out of the ocean. And so they would kind of mesh a
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  thought of the ocean is always trying to destroy the land.
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  And then to make it even like cooler scarier, they would have
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  a oceanic sea monster water dragon thing.
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  So think a a little bit more like how Chinese Dragons look.
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  Think a gigantic sea serpent or sea snake.
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  The chaos water monster. The illustration I'd used before
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  was think Jaws, the Meg or Godzilla are kind of the ways
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  that even in our cultural zeitgeist, we still kind of have
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  this thought of chaos creature from the water that will destroy
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  life. I think it's so cool that we
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  still kind of have some of those same types of things in our
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  culture today. So that's how they thought about
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  the waters. So then in Genesis 1, God gives
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  the story not that the waters are trying to destroy all of
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  this life that God has made, but God's in control of the waters.
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  And so even there in Genesis 1, God says that he created the
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  Tanin. It is the in some translations
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  have it as whales, which is not a great choice.
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  The sea monsters is how anyone during that time would have
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  understood what the Bible was claiming, that it claimed that
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  God had authority over the chaos waters.
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  And I just think that's such a cool thought.
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  So here David is writing and he is comparing the nations around
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  Israel to the chaos waters. He says they are Godzilla, you
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  know, coming up trying to destroy and engulf and destroy
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  Israel. He says they would have
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  swallowed us alive in their burning anger against us.
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  Then the water would have engulfed us.
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  The torrent would have swept over us.
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  The raging water would have swept over us.
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  I've also mentioned when this has come up before in Tabernacle
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  talk that this is how especially the Old Testament prophets
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  talked about the nations of the world, that the rulers and the
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  demonic rulers of this world system, this is how God
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  describes them. He says they are working
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  together for the destruction of life and order and everything
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  that God has made. And so when you look at nations
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  and they demolish cities and they destroy things, I want you
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  to think about this. I want you to think, Oh yeah,
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  that's exactly what Satan and the demons want.
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  They don't want there to be the life and order and joy and human
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  flourishing that God made. They want there to be death and
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  devastation and disorder and chaos and anarchy.
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  It is exactly what Satan wants. And so David says, I'm so
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  thankful God was on our side because there's all of this
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  craziness happening and it's like the chaos waters were
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  coming against Israel, but God was in control and he restrained
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  the waters. Then verse 6, the second
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  example, so he says all of the nations were like the chaos
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  waters that we're going to destroy us, but God was on our
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  side. And then verse 6, blessed be
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  Yahweh, who has not let us be ripped apart by their teeth.
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  We have escaped like a bird from the Hunter's net.
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  The net is torn and we have escaped.
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  Our help is in the name of Yahweh, the maker of heaven and
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  earth. So then he says we were like,
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  you know, birds that hunters laid a trap for the children of
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  the Israel because they wanted to entrap and kill us.
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  But God released us and we have been saved as a result.
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  And So what is our help? It's not the great armies of
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  Israel. It's not their stellar king who
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  has killed his 10s of thousands. David says our help is in the
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  name of Yahweh. It's in what God has pledged
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  himself to do. His strength, his ability are
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  why we exist, why we are safe. And so for you and I today, we
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  can know that whatever Satan tries to do, our souls are safe
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  because of the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth who came
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  down. And if you will let himself be
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  crushed and washed over by the chaos waters that the nations of
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  this world, particularly during his time, the nation of Israel
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  and the nation of Rome, they killed him.
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  And as Jesus was destroyed by the chaos waters, he walked out
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  the other side and he was fine. And so it doesn't matter if the
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  chaos waters destroy us. It doesn't matter what the
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  nations of this world do. We will be fine because we are
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  walking through death into life everlasting, just like our
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  Savior did. And it doesn't matter what the
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  hunter Satan tries to do. We are safe because of what
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  Jesus has accomplished and He made it so that the great enemy
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  of our soul, death, is faint, is fangless, and we are safe.
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  We are delivered from the net and the trap that has been set
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  for us as a result of Jesus. I love this song.
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  This is so cool. I love the Bible.
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  I love the word pictures that it has for us.
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  And if you have any more questions in particular as I'm
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  talking about like the chaos waters and stuff, look at the
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  Bible Project video, Chaos Dragon, Chaos Dragon.
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  Look at that video. It will explain lots of things.
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  If you have more questions, they had like a 10 or 13 episode, a
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  podcast series on the chaos waters and the chaos dragon.
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  It will be such an encouragement and joy to you.
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  It will help you to see our world in the way that the Bible
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  describes it and in particular nations and kings and their work
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  as God has described it for us. I could not recommend it more
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  heartily. Thanks for tuning in today.
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  Next episode is Psalm 125.