One quick lesson from this Psalm:

Remembering what God has done for us in the past strengthens and emboldens us to pray for help in the present.

We are wise to remind ourselves daily of the acts of God, particularly in Jesus Christ. For it is in remembering that our faith finds the strength to pray with confidence for help right now. Looking back enables us to look forward with confidence, no matter how difficult our present circumstances may be.

In this Psalm, the people of God count themselves rejected. It’s as if the Lord were sleeping, they say. And all of this is true even though they have not forsaken Him. Yet because they spent the first part of the Psalm looking back upon the Lord’s previous mercies, they can confidently petition the Lord to act for them once again. They can call upon Him with fervency to come to their help, to redeem them, and to show His power once again.

Which brings to mind another lesson hidden within this Psalm:

God may sometimes remove His favor in order to bring us into a humble frame of mind, so that we might look to Him for help with greater fervency and fire. The removal of His favor should stir us to seek Him all the more.

And one more:

God may sometimes remove His clear favor, so that He might reveal His power and glory all the more by working for His people in response to their pleas for help.

The last two lessons certainly go together. If the Lord does not seem near to us, we have no reason to pout or throw some sort of pity party, but instead, reason to seek Him all the more. For no doubt He is jealous to work for us and to reveal His glory and wisdom and power in the process. He knows when it is good for us to enjoy His presence and power with ease. And when it is good for us to long for Him as if we were in the desert longing for food and water.

We can trust the Lord in both circumstances. And either way, we are responsible to seek Him. For if we remain persistent in pursuing Him, we will be better for it and God’s glory will be more manifestly displayed. We just can’t go wrong in maintaining a fervent pursuit of the Lord.

Nadab and Abihu are consumed by the fire of the Lord after they offer up ‘strange fire’ in the Temple. They were being careless and were possibly under the influence of alcohol. This showed that they lacked reverence for the Lord and His commands. After they were killed, no doubt a holy reverence was upon all the people. Even Aaron feared the Lord to such an extent that he did not offer one of the following sacrifices to its perfect completion.

I can’t help but wonder whether or not the Church is weak today in large part because her vision of God does not include scenes such as the one in Leviticus 10. There is little fear of the Lord God. Little awe. Little joy-filled reverence. Because we hear so much about the mercy of God, we think it is a light thing to enter into and enjoy His presence. Maybe we take Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit for granted, failing to recognize what an awesome privilege it is to be in right relationship with the King of kings.

Scenes such as this one should wake us from our slumber, because our God is the same God that wiped out Nadab and Abihu for their disobedience. It is good for us fear the Lord. It is healthy to stand in awe of Him while keeping Jesus in view. When we pray, do we recognize, really recognize, that we are speaking to the King of kings? When we read and make petitions…or even when we complain…do we recall the God with whom we have to do? Do we remember who He really is in all His glory or are we apt to presume upon His presence and favor?

These are difficult questions that we must all answer ourselves. But we must also answer them corporately as well. We must take a hard look at ourselves to see whether or not we lack the fear of the Lord. For this fear, when rightly engaged in and enjoyed, will prove to be a sweet blessing to the people of God and to the world.

As always, much could be said about this Psalm. Here are a few things that stood out to me this morning:

1) A conscious awareness of the brevity of life helps us to live our lives to the full–provided we are thinking rightly.

I suppose it is possible for a man to contemplate the brevity of life and therefore declare, ‘Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die!’ But that man is not thinking rightly. For he is failing to consider what will take place after his brief life here is done. And he is failing to recognize that what he does here on this earth carried consequences in the land of forever.

If we are thinking about life in this fashion, then it is good to think about how short our lives are. Which is to also imply that it is good to think of the fact that we will soon die. For such things, when combined with a solid understanding of the life that awaits us, serve to give us a certain urgency to live well here and now. If we realize that what we do now matters forever, we are much more apt to do all we can to get our acts together now.

That being said, I suppose it should at least be mentioned that a proper understanding of what awaits us is necessary. That is, we must understand not only the fact that there is a Heaven and Hell, but what kind of places Heaven and Hell will be. For if we understand Heaven to be floating in the clouds, we will live a certain kind of way now. Maybe we will care only for saving souls. But if we embrace the biblical picture of Heaven as a New Earth, with the strong possibility that many of our cultural works will be carried over onto that New Earth, our perspective will change and we will no doubt live differently.

2) We need to pray consistently for this conscious awareness of the brevity of life.

It’s not enough to read it as it was said by someone else in the Psalm. We must pray it ourselves, for it is only with the Lord’s help that we will really become consciously aware of the brevity of our lives. It is only through prayer that this plain reality will sink in deep enough so as to have a dramatic impact on the way in which we live our day to day lives.

Every time I read the book of Leviticus, I cannot help but give thanks for the Person and Work of Jesus Christ–and that I live in the time period I do now. For the freedom we enjoy in Christ is unparalleled. It is, historically speaking, wonderful, unimaginable, even enviable.

Just imagine yourself as a Jewish priest in the year 1400 B.C. All the rules and regulations have recently been introduced and you must keep them to a ‘T’! Or, as we are told time and again through the book, ‘that person shall be cut off from his people.’ I simply cannot imagine it. Burn this. Don’t burn that. Eat this. Don’t eat that. No doubt I would have messed something up sooner or later. And that wouldn’t have been fun.

Sure, messing up is never fun, but in Christ, we have a much lesser chance of messing something up and a perfect chance of being forgiven if we do. We have freedom to worship in a variety of ways, so that we shouldn’t often hit a ‘rut’ or some sort. And we need not be afraid that we will be separated from the people of God if we take a wrong turn here or there. Even more than that, we need not approach the priest every time we want to come before the Lord. Because of Christ, we can walk right into His presence, into the Holy of Holies as it were, and fellowship with Him as was always intended.

Chapters 5-7 or Leviticus surely give us much greater insight that what is offered above, but at the very least, we should read them and give thanks for the Person and Work of Jesus Christ, and the fact that we live in days after Christ has come.