Sunday, October 28, 2012

Express to God Your Joyful Worship (Psalm 132:6-9)


SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/28/2012 7:28:10 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  Psalm 132 PT-2

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Psalm 132:6-9

 

            Message of the verses:  We will continue to look at Psalm 132 in Today’s SD.  Dr. Wiersbe wrote the following at the end of his introductory commentary, “The completion of the temple was no assurance of God’s blessing on Israel, for the important thing was that the people fulfill their responsibilities toward the Lord.”  We looked at the first responsibility in yesterdays SD. 

 

Express to God Your Joyful Worship (vv. 6-9)

“6  Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah, We found it in the field of Jaar. 7  Let us go into His dwelling place; Let us worship at His footstool. 8  Arise, O LORD, to Your resting place, You and the ark of Your strength. 9  Let Your priests be clothed with righteousness, And let Your godly ones sing for joy.”

I wrote in yesterday’s SD a limited history of the Ark of the Covenant, but it has always been a mystery to me as to what happen to the Tabernacle itself, for it seems the last time we saw it in Shiloh where the wicked sons of Eli “ministered”  until they decided to take it out to be a good luck charm in a battle with the Philistines and then the Ark was lost for a short time.  At any rate when the temple was built by Solomon we read that there were new articles built to go with it that were like the ones that were in the tabernacle that was built in the wilderness.  Things like the lampstands, the brazen altar, and things like that. 

It seems like the children of Israel had almost forgotten about the Ark while it was at the house of Abinadad who lived just eight miles from Jerusalem at Kirjath Jearim (city of woods).  It may have been that the people of Bethlehem encouraged David to go and bring the Ark to Jerusalem, where it also seems that David was very much a desire to do so as he had prepared a tent for it in Jerusalem where he would go to worship the Lord.  We also know that once Solomon built the temple that the Glory of the Lord moved into the temple in a similar way that He had done in the tabernacle in the wilderness once it was completed and this must have been some kind of a sight to see.  However we as believers have the Spirit of God living in our hearts and so that makes us the temple of the Holy Spirit so we do not have to go to Jerusalem and be in a temple in order to worship the Lord.

Charles H. Spurgeon writes the following about “His footstool,”  The Lord’s  "footstool" here mentioned was either the Ark of the Testimony itself, or the place at least where it stood, called Debir, or the Holy of Holies, towards which the Jews in their temple used to worship. The very next words argue so much: "Arise, O LORD, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength"; and it is plain out of #1Ch 28:2, where David saith concerning his purpose to have built God an house, "I had in mine heart to build an house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God," where the conjunction and is exegetical, and the same with that is. According to this expression the prophet Jeremy also, in the beginning of the second of his Lamentations, bewailed that "the Lord had cast down the beauty of Israel" (that is, his glorious Temple), "and remembered not his footstool" (that is, the Ark of the Covenant), "in the day of his wrath"; as #Isa 60:7 64:11 Ps 96:6.”

Dr. Wiersbe points out “That the statement in verse eight is taken from Numbers 10:33-36 and reminded the worshipers of God guidance and power exhibited in the days of Moses. 

As we look at the prayer in verse nine we see the answer in verse 16, “"Her priests also I will clothe with salvation, And her godly ones will sing aloud for joy.’”

After many years of wondering around the wilderness and the nation of Israel the Lord could now rest in a temple built for Him in Jerusalem.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I read Psalms 120-134, the psalms of ascent, I realize how much time and effort that it took the Jews to worship the Lord at His temple.  I am happy that I do not have to go through this in order to worship the Lord, but I am also at times disappointed in myself to think that far too many times that I don’t take advantage of the fact that the Holy Spirit lives in me and that I can worship the Lord at any time in any place.  D. L. Moody wrote after hearing a preacher state “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through and in and by the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.”  Moody then thought to himself, “He said ‘a man.’  He did not say a great man, nor a learned man, nor a rich man, nor a wise man, nor an eloquent man, nor a smart man, but simply ‘a man.’  I am a man, and it lies with the man himself whether he will or will not make that entire and full consecration.  I will try my uttermost to be that man.”  Well we know the history of what Moody did as he was a great man of God, and to this very day there are people working around the entire world that are still affected by D. L. Moody because he answered the call of God, and because he chose to be “that man.”

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  It is my desire to be “TRANSFORMED” by the Lord from the inside out by the renewing of my mind through the Word of God.

 

Memory verses for the week:  Psalm 130:1-2

 

            1 Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord.  2 Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.       10/28/2012 8:28:55 AM

 

 

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