PSALM FOURTEEN

PARADISE
 
  This is a psalm of longing.  We look around and see the wicked
prosper.  Places of wordly amusement, of gambling and of lust, prosper,
whilst the House of God is neglected.  The longing expressed in this
Psalm re-occurs and expresses itself afresh; Psalm 53 is identical to
this one but fuller.  We look for paradise.  But what paradise do we
wish to see?  there are three types of paradise in this psalm. 
THE FOOL'S PARADISE. 
  The word for fool, in the Hebrew does not mean one who lacks wisdom. 
It means one who refuses to include God in his knowledge.  There is no
God...that is the fool's paradise.  He has said in his heart, "There is
no God!"  He has persuaded himself that he is in his own delectable
place, where there is no accountability, no control, no judgement.  The
fool's paradise is the place where you fool yourself and think you are
fooling everybody else, and in particular that you are fooling God. 
Even Christians can fall into the habit of regarding God as a theory. 
God is a person.   
THE PARADISE OF GOD'S PEOPLE. 
  God is in the generation of the righteous.  It is our great joy to
discover that God is in the business of living.  God is our refuge and
strength.  Earthly living can become a life of heavenly expectations,
because God is in it.  We live from day to day.  There is no other way
to live.  How many times have we said to ourselves, "If only we could
get away from it all"?  We can! by living NOW, filling the present with
the prupose of God in our lives.  God is a present help.  It is our
yesterdays and tomorrows that trouble us.  We so often destroy the
present by trying to solve the problems of tomorrow, which we are sure
will come, because of the mess we made of yesterday.  It is of no use
saying, "If only things could be as they were."  That can never be. 
But we can know that God GENERATES for the righteous...He brings to
life. God protects, God assures, He has brought the joy of living into
our lives.  We must therefore live it in the present as He has
provided.  God does not offer us an insurance, He gives us an
assurance.  Insurance is for property.  Assurance is for life.  You can
be sure that God will preserve all who trust in Him.  Many in the early
Church took joyfully the spoiling of their goods (property) knowing
that they had in heaven a far more enduring substance.  If  you  try 
to build your own paradise with goods, you will surely lose it in the
end. 

GOD'S PARADISE. 
  There is also God's paradise.  How the heart of the dying thief must
have throbbed with expectation when the saviour told him that that very
day he would be with him in paradise.  God's paradise is a place of
salvation and restoration.   The Gospel of Jesus Christ offers to all
who will believe an immediate entrance into Gods paradise.  How else
could the Lord Jesus offer the thief an entrance there that day.  The
Apostle Paul writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit speaks of
the death of the Christian believer as, "Absent from the body and
present with the Lord!" 
  Salvation is of the Lord!  This applies to all our being.  We shall
know full salvation after the resurrection, when our bodies shall
return from the elements.  There will be a restoration of all things. 
We shall in that day find full release before God...in His paradise. 



Copyright (c) 1995, Hedley Palmer. All rights reserved.



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