Today's Reading August 06

Happy Monday to all. Just after 0600 here
Today's Old Testament reading takes up Psalms 78
This was composed by Asaph, and his Psalms are liturgical in style. This one is a remembrance, a record of some of the things that the Lord had done for his people. It is good to do this, to keep the recollection fresh. There is a saying that ,''men need more often to be reminded than to be taught''. We too soon forget our blessings, we need to rehearse them. Asaph's psalm here provides some outline for this.

1 Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:
Mt 13:35
3 Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.
4 We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done.
5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children:
6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:
7 That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:

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This evening we turn to the letter to the Romans chapter 7
Paul is speaking about the Law and its effects, its relationship to the sin that it reveals, to the sin nature even within him, and ends with these words,

24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

Who among us does not know this conflict, a conflict with only one hope.