Seize the Moment – Day 1172

The Deep Wound of Deception!

Psalm 64

 

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Friday, June 2.

 

As a West Pointer, then as an officer in the US Army, I learned a lot about planning military operations. One of the essential steps that goes beyond an honest assessment of your army’s capabilities, is to know the strengths and weaknesses of your enemy. In Sun Tzu’s sixth century BC work, The Art of War, he wrote, “If you know your enemy and yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”[1] It should not surprise us that centuries before Sun Tzu, the great military leader King David wrote extensively about his enemies, accurately describing them in Psalm 64:2-6:

 

Hide me from the secret counsel of evildoers, from the tumult of those who do iniquity, who have sharpened their tongue like a sword. They aimed bitter speech as their arrow, to shoot from concealment at the blameless; suddenly they shoot at him, and do not fear. They hold fast to themselves an evil purpose; they talk of laying snares secretly; they say, “Who can see them?” They devise injustices, saying, “We are ready with a well-conceived plot”; for the inward thought and the heart of a man are deep.

 

In this short passage, David provides an illuminative study of evil, specifically about its nature, weapons of choice, methodology, and attack plans. Glaringly, we find evil within our own hearts. Jeremiah 17:9 confirms this reality, “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?” Don’t be deceived; to be at peace with God, you must confront the evil that is in your own heart – the enemy within must be defeated!

 

Seize the moment and pray Psalm 64, meditating upon the victory of Jesus Christ over evil (Colossians 2:15) – “The righteous man will be glad in the Lord and will take refuge in Him; and all the upright in heart will glory” (vs 10).

 

God bless you!

 

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YOUTUBE:

If you prefer a video, Pastor Jerry reads his devotion on YouTube as well. Click HERE to visit the page.

Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.

 

 
 

FOOTNOTE:

 

[1] Sun Tzu, The Art of War, Trans. Lionel Giles (Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg, 1994, updated 2021) http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/132 (Accessed May 20, 2023).


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