Bad Leaders Produce Unacceptable Worship (Isaiah 29)

Isaiah 29 (1-8, 9-14, 15-24)

"The Lord says: 'These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is based on merely human rules they have been taught'" (Isa 29:13, NIV).

Isaiah 28-33 continues the discourse (which begun in Isaiah 7) of the foolishness of trusting the nations instead of the Lord, by dealing particularly with the specific political situation in Judah: Would Judah trust God or not? The same approach was seen in ch. 13-27 where particular nations were addressed (13-23) before addressing the world as a whole (24-27).

God's King Rules (Psalm 2)

Psalm 2:1-12; 6a

"I have installed my king..." (Ps 2:6, NIV). For the Lord declares, "I have placed my chosen king on the throne...." (Ps 2:6, NLT).

From Psalm 1, we learn the "secret" of happiness, which is really no secret at all, since it is self-evident and freely accessible to anyone and everyone. For anyone to be happy, we simply need to be prayerful and watchful about how we live (Ps 1:1)--who we hang out with (including on the internet), and what we entertain and desire in our hearts (Ps 1:2)--what we delight in and meditate on, which God sees and knows (1 Sam 16:7).

In Psalm 2, the psalmist declares, "God's King Rules!" God's king will rule, regardless if the kings and nations of the world oppose and rebel against Him. A longer title would be "The world rebels, yet God's King still rules." The four natural parts of Psalm 2, each with three verses, are: