Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Living Like Mountains | The Writings | Psalm 125

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

What do the mountains teach us about God? Does eternity sound tiring to you? Do you trust our future hope of peace? In today's episode, Jensen shares how Psalm 125 encourages us to put our trust in the God who surrounds us. Prepare your heart this Advent with the 2024 TMBT Advent Calendar! Each day, receive a new prompt for Scripture, prayer, and reflection—designed to help you slow down and reflect on the Hope, Love, Peace, and Joy that Jesus offers. Sign up now to receive your free Advent calendar! Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Psalm 125

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. When I was in high school, I went on a school trip. We called it our summer seminar. Basically, a group of around 15 high school seniors and three teachers went out into the wilderness and backpacked a hike through the mountains. Aside from the fact that I have asthma, I like to take a shower every day and I'm a picky eater, It was one of the best weeks of my life. Hiking through the mountains in Washington and Oregon, I was constantly reminded of the glory of God. Truly, over and over again, I found myself hiking past some of the most incredible views. There were towering mountains surrounding our little

hiking group. It made you feel small. It made you feel aware of the vast creativity and power of God. the creator of all the incredible natural world that surrounded us. The mountains were so steady, so all-encompassing, so impressive. I didn't count, but I'm sure I sat back and said, wow, about a thousand times. You just can't help yourself. If you've hiked through, driven through, or been around big mountains, you probably know the feeling.

And as I read the first few verses of Psalm 125, I couldn't help but think of the mountains that I had been in awe of all those years ago. The first verse opens with this. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be shaken, but endures forever. See, when I found myself looking up at the mountains that it endured for thousands, if not millions of years, hiking up then, standing on top of them, I couldn't help but notice how small, how weak, how finite and different I was from the massive mountains beneath and around me. Seeing something so big made me realize how small I was. And yet, this psalm opens with an incredible claim. Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, they cannot be shaken, but endure forever.

Now, scientifically, this is not true of humans. If one thing is certain in this world, it's that we will all die. We do not endure forever like the mountains. In an instant, our lives can be taken away shattered by a car, a virus, a blood clot. So how can the psalmist make such a claim? Let's read the next verse and see if we can connect the dots fully. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord, surrounds his people, both now and forevermore. In the first verse, there's a distinction.

The psalmist doesn't say that every human is like Mount Zion. He says those who trust in the Lord. And here in verse two, we flush that out even more. You see, those who trust in the Lord have the Lord surrounding them. He uses the image of the mountains that surround Jerusalem. Geographically, the hills surrounding Jerusalem were bigger than those that Jerusalem was built on. So that gave it the illusion of being a city surrounded by walls, not built by human hands, but made of mountains, steady, powerful, dependable. And the psalmist encourages us to see God in this way. The Lord surrounds his people, so completely, so powerfully that mere humans become like Mount Zion. They cannot be shaken. They will endure forever, not because of their own doing or by their own might, but because the Lord

surrounds his people. He does not abandon them. He gives them life and power and strength beyond what we could ever imagine. There are those who think that enduring forever doesn't sound all that great. This is probably not going to hit the mark with 90% of you. But in the Twilight series, vampires can't die, at least not easily. So they go on for centuries. And in the final movie, one of the vampires that has endured for thousands of years is finally going to die. And as he sees his death approaching, he simply breathes out finally. Now, if you've ever watched a TV show or movie with a theme of someone not dying going on forever,

you've probably seen this sort of view on living for eternity. The people get tired. They get worn down by the darkness. in the world. Going on forever as history repeats itself. Human things become trivial. The evil in the world becomes overwhelming, the idea of being able to die peacefully and getting a break from the brokenness of our world, it seems like bliss rather than devastation. Living forever in a fallen world isn't a blessing, it's a curse, which is why we need to keep reading. See, verse three offers us some balm to this reality.

The scepter of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous, for then the righteous might use their hands to do evil. So we get an image, a doorway, into the future reality for the people of God. We live in a broken world today, a world full of devastation, of injustice, of illness, and violence and wars and grief, read, it is not a place of peace, not a place you'd want to dwell forever. What good is it to never be shaken and endure forever if the place you're stuck in is decaying and dying and full of evil? But verse three offers us a different version of our world, one of a redeemed world. We get a glimmer of the

promise of God to make all things right in these verses. We learn that in the land of God, the wicked will not remain. The land is righteous and God's people will live in it. They will live righteously in it. Verse four and five, we see the psalmist calling on the Lord to begin the work of restoring his creation, making the brokenness of their city new again. Lord, do good to those who are good, to those who are upright in heart. But those who turn to crooked ways, the Lord will banish with the evildoers. And he ends with this plea.

Peace be on Israel. So the Israelites were God's people. In the New Testament with the coming of Jesus, God's promises, his mercy, his gospel, is opened up to all people, not just the nation of Israel, and those who came to belong as one of God's people. So now the people of God come from every nation, every tribe and tongue, but the sentiment here holds.

Peace be on Israel. Peace be with God's people, those who trust in him. Now this is both a here and now request and a future hope. This psalm toes the line of the promised blessing and the reality that we live now as redeemed people of God. We know that righteousness does not reign everywhere. We know that evil has not been cast out. We know that faithful believers, those who trust in the Lord still die, still face the horrors of our world. But there is a greater reality that we also know of. One that we can read of in Revelation 21. These next verses that I'm going to read are long, but I want you to sit with this scripture. I want you to use your imagination to feel and experience the true reality that this will one day come to pass,

that if you put your trust in the Lord, you will not be shattered, you will endure forever like the mountains. If your trust is in the Lord, you are surrounded by his might, by his strength, by his love. You're welcomed into His holy city. You're a part of his people. He has prepared a place for you in his kingdom that is full of justice and righteousness, where evil has no place. You will be surrounded by your king and creator forever

with the same presence, the same awe, the same wonder, but even greater as you feel when you sit at the foot of and are surrounded by the mighty mountains. Hear the promises of God. Rest in the truth that this is your future reality. Revelation 21 1 through 5. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling places now among the people and he will dwell. with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said, I am making everything new. Then he said, write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true. Those who trust in the Lord will be like Mount Zion. They cannot be shaken, but will endure forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore.

May the peace of God be with his people until that day and forever. Amen.