Guy does this thing with lists

I have enough of a job getting sermons into more than three parts but the exiled preacher has started a bit of a fashion for lists of ten things.

SNAP! 12

Psalm 24

From river-borne silt and from sea's wave-tossed sand
God fashions the earth and lays down the land.
He lays it all out for his people to have:
the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof.

So who shall ascend upon God's holy hill
with clean hands and hearts, obeying his will;
who will not, no, cannot deceitfully swear
but stand without falsehood to worship him there?

While seeking the face of Israel's God
and blessing receiving from salvation's Lord
our justification through faith we will claim;
the new generation that calls on his name.

Lift your heads up, you gates,
open up, ancient doors
that the King may come in
who's the greatest of lords.
Strong and mighty is he
bearing victory rewards.
Lift your heads up, you gates,
open up, ancient doors.

tune: Light up the Fire

SNAP! 11

Psalm 21

Lord, in your strength how the King rejoices,
you grant requests made with kingly voices.
In your salvation his heart is leaping;
his exultation safe in your keeping.

In this encounter rich blessings giving,
he asks for life and you grant the living.
Of crowning mercies you are the giver,
of length of days and of life forever.

Great is his glory through your salvation;
majestic splendour in celebration,
for you make him the most blessed forever,
glad in the union that none can sever.

All buried hatred your hand exhuming,
its burning wrath in your fire consuming
and from your arrows its children flying;
its plans frustrated, its mischief dying.

The Lord is faithful, the King believing;
God's love is steadfast, his King unmoving.
In heaven exalted with praises ringing;
on earth, your strength, Lord, your people singing.

Tune: An t-Eilean Muileach (The Isle of Mull)

SNAP! 10

An Echo for Psalm 20
for Callum Hall

I called in the day of my trouble,
I called on his Holy Name,
got answering help from his temple
for God-my-deliverer came.
The torchlight I held was engulfed by
the Spirit who answers with fire,
my wrong way gave way to the high road,
he gave me my heart's own desire.

With banners and shouts of 'Salvation,'
rejoicing in answers to prayer —
God's saving might reaches from heaven,
he saves his Anointed from there —
we trust in the triumph of Jesus,
before him all kingdoms shall fall,
we'll rise and stand upright to bless him
'Salvation' shall echo our call.

Tune: Crugybar

Selah 8

Psalm 9:20
Put them in fear, O LORD!
Let the nations know that they are but men!
Selah.

"With our firstborn sons our honour
and our strength set in our horses
it was double our disaster then
to find ourselves with none;
sons slain of a night's fever
and the cavalry all gone
to perdition in the space of just one hour
and our king reduced to merely-human curses."

"Who'd have thought that when we'd won
the battle that we'd live to rue it?
Their 'god-box' toppled Dagon
when we took it to his house,
then (a toss-up for the worse thing)
plagues of haemorrhoid and mouse.
Now the new cart's trip is done,
they've got it back and welcome to it."

"The instruction was, as always, pretty clear,
'Make sure he's really dead!' — I tell it from the blood,
it's the living ones are bleeders
for it don't flow when they're dead —
This one looked dead already
so I had them spear his side
and I saw the sun go dark and I heard the curtain tear
and I knew this dead man was the son of God."

Selah 50

Psalm 76:9
when God arose to establish judgment,
to save all the humble of the earth.
Selah.

We made a night-raid of it.
When dawn broke we were on our way
back, with victory in the bag,
the hostages in tow and all the booty.
The plunderers slept as we robbed them of their prey;
we're long gone and they're still feeling for their hands.

It was the arrogance of it;
secure in their lair, no sentry
stood. They, supine as a log,
for all their early start failed in their duty,
sunk in death's sleep as we freed our families.
Oppression ends as we reunify our band.

They made a meal out of it.
Light swallowed. Darkness in the day
time joined them. Hidden in the fog,
the tables overturned, the Victor, muted,
binds the strong man in his house with his own keys.
Resurgent, Just Deliverer occupies the stand.

Selah 49

Psalm 76:3
There he broke the flashing arrows,
the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war.
Selah.

Melchizedek brought bread and wine
and stopped the triumph in its track;
'Shalom' (for now) extends to Sodom's plain;
divinely blessed, Abram refuses gain;
the garland hangs on Mamre's Oak;
sons are not cursed near Eshcol's Vine.

When David's pride was overcome
and God's wrath halted on the height,
an altar built upon the threshing floor
— Moriah's Mound the testing place once more;
the oxen paid for, as was right —
sufficed to cancel out the sum.

When God's Anointed left his throne
and incognito came to Zion
at him were shot the arrows of the bow,
he, bleeding, broke them, broken, overthrew,
— Lamb's silence of a roaring lion —
for thus in Judah God is known.