Wednesday, 11th November 2026
Last week during CG, a fellow member shared about how he and his wife recently attended the funeral wake of one of their former church members. The pastor had preached from Ps 88, which I reproduce in full below:
Psalm 88
1 O Lord, God of my salvation, I have cried out day and night before You.
2 Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry.
3 For my soul is full of troubles,And my life draws near to the grave.
4 I am counted with those who go down to the pit; I am like a man who has no strength,
5 Adrift among the dead, Like the slain who lie in the grave, Whom You remember no more, And who are cut off from Your hand.
6 You have laid me in the lowest pit, In darkness, in the depths.
7 Your wrath lies heavy upon me, And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah
8 You have put away my acquaintances far from me; You have made me an abomination to them; I am shut up, and I cannot get out;
9 My eye wastes away because of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon You; I have stretched out my hands to You.
10 Will You work wonders for the dead? Shall the dead arise and praise You? Selah
11 Shall Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or Your faithfulness in the place of destruction?
12 Shall Your wonders be known in the dark? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
13 But to You I have cried out, O Lord, And in the morning my prayer comes before You.
14 Lord, why do You cast off my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me?
15 I have been afflicted and ready to die from my youth; I suffer Your terrors; I am distraught.
16 Your fierce wrath has gone over me; Your terrors have cut me off.
17 They came around me all day long like water; They engulfed me altogether.
18 Loved one and friend You have put far from me, And my acquaintances into darkness.
He shared about how tissue paper was being passed around, and how the entire atmosphere was so sad and gloomy, very unlike other Christian wakes they had attended before.
The above is a good reminder to us that not every church in Singapore is the same. The fundamental litmus test lies in whether we are partaking of animals with cloven feet. Let me explain.
In Lev 11:3, the Israelites were told that in order for an animal to be considered edible, it must fulfil 2 conditions:
- have cloven feet (split the hoof)
- regurgitate their food (chew the cud).
Hence, cattle, sheep, goats and deer were considered kosher, whereas pigs, horses and camels were considered unclean.
In Heb 10:1, the author tells us that the Old Testament laws and rituals were a shadow of things to come, while Paul tells us in in Col 2:16-17 that the substance belongs to Jesus Christ.
In other words, the Old Testament contains types and shadows, ie. hidden truths, the substance of which are revealed in the New Testament when we look at them through the lens of the person of Christ and His finished work on the cross.
I grew up in a Methodist church and for the first 40 years of my life, we were not taught the significance of Lev 11:3. It was only after I listened to a particular sermon by Ps Prince that the substance of that passage was explained.
- Split the Hoof -- We have to rightly divide the Word (2 Tim 2:15)
- Chew the Cud -- We have to meditate on the Word of Christ (Rom 10:17)
Let us cover the subject of "splitting the hoof" first. We will talk about "chewing the cud" in the next post.
What does it mean to rightly divide the Word? Here are some examples:
(1) God's Healing is NO LONGER Conditional
I recall a sermon by Barnabas Chong when he was at Paya Lebar Methodist Church. He started singing the song, "I am the Lord that healeth thee, I am the Lord Thy healer," and then telling us "That is such a soothing song ya, but let us look at the context".
He then proceeded to show us the verse Ex 15:26:
And said, If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, and wilt do that which is right in his sight, and wilt give ear to his commandments, and keep all his statutes, I will put none of these diseases upon thee, which I have brought upon the Egyptians: for I am the Lord that healeth thee.
He warned us that there was a pre-condition for our healing, and that was to keep all of God's statutes.
It is humanly impossible for man to do so, so his sermon effectively robbed us of the truth as beneficiaries of the New Covenant.
What Barnabas Chong failed to do was to rightly divide God's Word. That passage is from the Old Testament, before Jesus came to fulfil God's laws on our behalf. This side of the cross, divine health is our portion because of Jesus' finished work.
He failed to unveil Jesus to us, which sadly is an area in which many other preachers fall short too :-(
(2) The Lord does NOT Take Away
Matt Redman has quite a number of catchy songs, including 10,000 Reasons, Better Is One Day and Our God.
But one song that New Creation Church has not and never will sing is Blessed Be Your Name, and I suspect it is because there is one part of the song that goes "You give and take away" based on Job 1:21.
Now the problem here is that Job was under the wrong impression that God was the one who was taking away his possessions from him. In that sense, he could be excused for attributing his suffering to God. But we who are aware of the conversation that God had with the devil, should know full well that it was the devil who took away.
So to quote that verse today is not only negligence (in failing to rightly dividing the word) but doctrinally unsound because it paints a wrong picture of a good and generous God who spared not His own Son, but gives to us exceedingly, abundantly, over and above what we can ask or think.
(3) The Holy Spirit is Here to Stay for the Believer
I recall another pastor talking about the importance of repentance and confessing one's sins, and how King David had to plead with God "not take the Holy Spirit away" from him in Ps 51:11. That psalm was written by David just after the prophet Nathan had confronted him about his adultery with Bathsheba, and arranging for Uriah to be killed in battle.
For context, under the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would only come upon the anointed, ie. kings, prophets and priests. He then left once His assignment was over. In the New Covenant, however, the Holy Spirit dwells within us as believers, and will never leave nor forsake us. So to ask God not to take His Holy Spirit from us reflects ignorance and a failure to rightly divide His Word.
Going back to that wake mentioned earlier. The pastor preaching from Ps 88 was all well and good because that is part of scripture. But he should have followed it up by bringing Jesus into the picture. Because he did not rightly divide God's Word, the audience was placed under a dark and hopeless cloud, instead of being encouraged with the assurance of a blessed hope with a glorious future.
What is great about AI is that we can use it to split hooves whenever we come across a passage that appears to not line up with Jesus' finished work on the cross.
That was what I did right after that CG member's sharing, and Gemini's response is reproduced below:
In the light of Jesus’ finished work, Psalm 88 transforms from a dark, unresolved cry of despair into a profound picture of what Jesus endured on our behalf and how He permanently answered the psalmist's deepest fears. While the New Testament does not directly quote Psalm 88, Christian theology sees a striking, prophetic correspondence between the experiences of the psalmist (Heman) and the passion of Jesus Christ. [1, 2] 1. Jesus Drank the Cup of Psalm 88
Every harrowing description of suffering in Psalm 88 matches the literal reality of the cross: [1] - The Weight of Wrath: The psalmist cries, "Your wrath lies heavily on me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves" (v. 7). On the cross, Jesus took the full, heavy weight of divine judgment against sin in our place. [1, 2, 3]
- Total Abandonment: The psalmist Laments, "You have taken from me my closest friends" (v. 8) and says "darkness is my closest friend" (v. 18). In Gethsemane and on the cross, Jesus' disciples fled, and He experienced true, judicial forsakenness, crying out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?".[1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
- The Lowest Pit: The psalmist speaks of being "set apart with the dead... whom you remember no more" (v. 5). Jesus did not just fear the grave; He voluntarily stepped down into the dark "pit" of death and burial for us. [1, 2, 3]
2. Jesus Answered the "Unanswerable" Questions
At the heart of the psalm, Heman asks a series of rhetorical, despairing questions that, in his time, seemed to have no answer (verses 10–12): [1, 2] - “Do you show your wonders to the dead?”
- “Is your love declared in the grave?”
- “Are your wonders known in the place of darkness?” [1]
Through His resurrection, Jesus answered each of these with a definitive yes. Because of His finished work, God’s wonders are shown to the dead, His love is declared in the grave, and death has been swallowed up in victory. [1, 2] 3. The New Reality for the Believer
Because Jesus fully absorbed the absolute darkness of Psalm 88, the nature of suffering has changed for those who trust in Him: [1] - You are never truly forsaken: Because Jesus was forsaken in the dark on Good Friday, He can promise that He will never leave you or forsake you. Your darkness might feel deep, but it is no longer penal; God's face is never permanently hidden from you. [1, 2, 3]
- The ending has changed: Psalm 88 ends in the dark ("darkness is my closest friend"). But the overarching narrative of the Gospel ends in the light of the new creation, where there is no more death, crying, or pain. [1, 2]
This was confirmed when I opened up the Bible in the Gospel Partner app, where Ps Prince cross-references Ps 88:1 to Lk 22:66 :-)
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