This morning, I turned to open my Psalms for today, June 3.   Psalm 3, 33, 63, 93 and 123.   Here are the verses that jumped out at me:

Psalm 3:6 I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people
Who have set themselves against me all around.

Key thought:  Thousands against me

Psalm 33:10 The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect.
vs 11 The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The plans of His heart to all generations.
vs 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.

Key thought: The counsel of nations have no effect; the counsel of the Lord stands forever. (more than advice? is “counsel” the law of nations of the earth?)

Psalm 63:1 O God, You are my God;
Early will I seek You;
My soul thirsts for You;
My flesh longs for You
In a dry and thirsty land
Where there is no water.
vs 2 So I have looked for You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory. 

Key thought: I am desperate for You!

Psalm 93:3 The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
The floods have lifted up their voice;
The floods lift up their waves.
vs 4 The Lord on high is mightier
Than the noise of many waters,
Than the mighty waves of the sea.

Key thought: The floods are loud and mighty, but the Lord is louder and mightier.

Psalm 123:3 Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us!
For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.
vs 4 Our soul is exceedingly filled
With the scorn of those who are at ease,
With the contempt of the proud.

Key thought: Lord, we are filled with the same thing as our enemies; contempt.

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
vs 6 In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct your paths.

Key thought: Trust the Lord.  His ways do not look like ours.

Last night, I asked my husband “What would it take to bring respectful conversation back to humanity?”  I watch the news and my Twitter feed, and I see and hear the anguished and rebellious, lawless voices getting louder like the lifting of the floods.  When I don’t participate, I stand 10,000 feet above to get perspective.

I see righteousness being restored and I also see that as it is, evil is becoming bolder in the hearts of men against it.  EVEN IN THOSE WHO WANT RIGHTEOUSNESS.  Why is that happening?  Those who want righteousness are participating in the lawless and vile conversation, thus, like the psalmist says “we re exceedingly filled with contempt and scorn of those who are at ease (who do as they please) and the proud (self-righteous proud, not proud as to accomplishment).

So what would it take?  As righteousness is being restored in the earth (the rule of law and integrity in our systems and government), is righteousness also being restored in our hearts?  Or are we becoming just as smug and proud and contemptible?

We cannot make a law that silences the contemptible voices.  That would go against our 1st amendment of free speech. It isn’t about the speech but what is fueling the speech.  What is fueling the hearts? We don’t just blurt something out, whether with our mouths or our fingers, unless their is anger, lawlessness, contempt and scorn in our hearts that fuel it.  We cannot make a law that takes care of that.

It is up to Jesus alone.  Only He has solved the problem of sin.

I’m not going to leave that there.  The world has been hearing that for too long but has dismissed it.  Partly due to their rejection of Christ; partly due to the Church for our own self-righteousness in presenting the Good News.

The psalmist says there is only one thing that can be done. To cry out for mercy.  “Have mercy on us Lord!”  Trust the Lord.

But is this message a little too late?   Have the floods’ risen so high that they cannot be tamed?  The word says the Lord is mightier than even that.

Trust the Lord.   Lean not to your own understanding.

So, as I was meditating on all this this morning, knowing that absolutely nothing that can be done to bring peace to this earth right now, save the Lord’s return in the hearts of men, I heard this in my heart:

“Who comes before Me?”

And then the song “These are the Days of Elijah”

Elijah.

Malachi 4:5 Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.
vs 6 And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse.”

The first Elijah was Elijah the Tishbite.  The second “Elijah” was John the Baptist.

Is the third Elijah here, in this earth today?  His nickname was “the troubler of Israel”  because he disrupted the status quo.

hmmmmm….