Jesus Is Lord Of The Sabbath

1/31/2012 1:20:12 PM

"So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."

            Mark 2:23-28:  “23  And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain. 24  The Pharisees were saying to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’ 25  And He *said to them, ‘Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; 26  how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?’ 27  Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath. 28  ‘So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’”

            I have to admit that this section of Scripture has been something that I did not truly understand very well and it was a welcome for me to begin to study this section so that I can understand more clearly what the passage is about.  But before we get into the passage I want to do a little bit of review as it has been a while since I have posted anything on the book of Mark.  My goal is to make it through one chapter a month and I am cutting this one close as today is the last day of January.

            When we look at the very first verse in Mark’s gospel we read these words:  “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.”  Mark is declaring right from the beginning that Jesus Christ is the very Son of God and then he sets out to prove this.  We have seen in these first two chapter of Mark that Jesus has power and authority over demons, power and authority over temptation, power and authority over Satan, power and authority over disease, and even Jesus has power and authority in order to forgive sin.  Mark is showing by these truths that Jesus Christ is the very Son of God, and we will see in this section that Jesus Christ is even Lord of the Sabbath, something that will cut the religious leaders traditions to the core and will eventually drive them to crucify the Lord of Glory.

            I think that it is important to look at the first time that Jesus did something on the Sabbath that was confrontational to the religious leaders of Israel and that is found in the fifth chapter of John where we see Jesus healing a man on the Sabbath who had been sick for thirty-eight years.  The story goes as follows, “1 ¶  After these things there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2  Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. 3  In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [[waiting for the moving of the waters; 4  for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever disease with which he was afflicted.]] 5  A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6  When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He *said to him, "Do you wish to get well?" 7  The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I am coming, another steps down before me." 8  Jesus *said to him, "Get up, pick up your pallet and walk." 9  Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. 10  So the Jews were saying to the man who was cured, "It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet." 11  But he answered them, "He who made me well was the one who said to me, ’Pick up your pallet and walk.’" 12  They asked him, "Who is the man who said to you, ’Pick up your pallet and walk’?" 13  But the man who was healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had slipped away while there was a crowd in that place. 14  Afterward Jesus *found him in the temple and said to him, "Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you." 15  The man went away, and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had made him well. 16  For this reason the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because He was doing these things on the Sabbath.”  This happened in time before the incident in Mark chapter two, so we can see that the religious leaders were already upset with what Jesus did on the Sabbath. 

            One thing that is needed to understand is that the Sabbath was something that the religious leaders made as the heart of their false religion, and it was false because they were not following God but tradition and their tradition was wrong.  In the Talmud there are 24 chapters that have to do with the Sabbath according to John MacArthur.  Here is what Warren Wiersbe writes in his commentary on this section of Mark to help explain exactly what the Bible had to say about Sabbath Law:  “God gave the people of Israel the Sabbath after they came out of Egypt (Ex. 20:8-11; Neh. 9:14), and it was a special sign between Israel and Jehovah (Ex. 31:13-17).  There is no record in Scripture that God ever gave the Sabbath to any other nation.

            “Jewish tradition stated that there were thirty-nine acts that were strictly forbidden on the Sabbath.  Moses had prohibited work on the Sabbath, but he did not give many specifics (Ex. 20:10).  It was wrong to kindle a fire for cooking (Ex. 35:3), gather fuel (Numbers 15:32ff), carry burdens (Jer. 17:21ff), or transact business (Neh. 10:31; 13:15, 19).  But Jewish tradition went into great detail and even informed the people how far they could travel on the Sabbath (200 cubits, based on Josh. 3:4).  In short the Sabbath Day had become a crushing burden, a symbol of the galling religious bandage that had captured the nation.”

            I must admit that I did not know much about the Jewish Talmud, and still don’t but at least I did do a little research on it and will share a few of the things that I have found out because it is important to understand just what these religious leaders of Jesus’ day truly believed, and when we find out what they believed we will then realize that it was and still is false.  “From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Talmud (Hebrew: תַּלְמוּד talmūd "instruction, learning", from a root lmd "teach, study") is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history. The Talmud has two components: the Mishnah (c. 200 CE), the first written compendium of Judaism's Oral Law; and the Gemara (c. 500 CE), a discussion of the Mishnah and related Tannaitic writings that often ventures onto other subjects and expounds broadly on the Tanakh. The terms Talmud and Gemara are often used interchangeably. The Gemara is the basis for all codes of rabbinic law and is much quoted in other rabbinic literature. The whole Talmud is also traditionally referred to as Shas (ש"ס), a Hebrew abbreviation of shisha sedarim, the "six orders" of the Mishnah.”

            There are other things that I have found out about the Talmud and I will quote some of the things that John MacArthur says about it from a sermon that he gave on this section of Scripture later on.  The main point to remember is that when we look at the Scriptures we find out what God gave in the OT Law and from the time that it was given until the time that Jesus came to earth there was more tradition going on than the actual following of God’s Law.  We also know that the Law was impossible for anyone to follow perfectly and when Paul wrote about it he called it a tutor: “24  Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. 25  But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.”  The Law shows us the holiness of God, and therefore it is perfect as Psalm 19 speaks of.  Jesus kept the Law perfectly for He asked His accusers “who can convict me of any sin.” 

            We see in this story from Mark that Jesus was butting heads with the religious leaders and He was not going to budge, for He was right and they were wrong.  Is Jesus narrow? Yes He is for He said that I am the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Me.  There are some who claim that Jesus is just a good person, a good teacher but Jesus claimed to be and proved that He is God in the flesh, for Jesus told Philip that whoever has seen Me has seen the Father.

            Verse 23:  “And it happened that He was passing through the grainfields on the Sabbath, and His disciples began to make their way along while picking the heads of grain.”  Here we see the Son of God walking through the grainfields and eating the ripe grain and He was doing this because He and His disciples were hungry.  Let’s see what the Law said about this: “24  "When you enter your neighbor’s vineyard, then you may eat grapes until you are fully satisfied, but you shall not put any in your basket. 25  "When you enter your neighbor’s standing grain, then you may pluck the heads with your hand, but you shall not wield a sickle in your neighbor’s standing grain (Deu. 23:24-25).”  This law was from God to allow people who were walking along through a grain field to be able to eat, however they were not allowed to harvest the grain just to eat some because they were hungry.  According to John MacArthur this is what the Talmud said about what Jesus and His disciples were doing wrong in verse twenty-three.  “Now this is what the Talmud said.  If you roll wheat in your hands to remove the husks, it is sifting and that is forbidden.  If you rub heads of wheat, it is threshing and it is forbidden.  If you clean off the shell, it is sifting and that is forbidden.  If you throw the chaff into the air, that is winnowing, it is forbidden.  So just picking and rolling and rubbing and discarding, they had been reaping, threshing, sifting, grinding, winnowing and preparing food.  And their real question, the real underlying question is…why do You and Your disciples live in such overt, open defiance of our religion?  Why do You challenge our religion?  Why do You challenge our authority.” 

            In an earlier lesson from Mark we discussed that according to the religious leaders of Jesus’ day He was not religious enough, but if He would come today He would be too religious for most people.

            Verse 24: The Pharisees were saying to Him, ‘Look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath?’”  This was taken up from the comments on verse 23.

            Verse 25-26:  “And He *said to them, "Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions became hungry; 26  how he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the consecrated bread, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priests, and he also gave it to those who were with him?’”

            Jesus asks this question from verse 25 on different occasions to these religious leaders and it was an embarrassment to them because that is all they would do was read the Scriptures and try to figure out what they were saying.  There is a big problem here and that is these people were not believers and therefore they could not understand what the meaning of Scripture is, and still cannot today.  I heard something a long time ago that goes along with this “The Pharisees were reading someone else’s mail and therefore could not understand it.

            The story that Jesus is talking about here is from 1Samuel 21:1-6, and in that story David was on the run from Saul and had some companions with him and they were hungry and so they stopped at the town of Nod which is where the tabernacle was located and asked the priest if he had anything to eat.  The only thing available was the “showbread” or the “bread of the presence.”  According to Leviticus 24:5-9 the only ones who were to eat this bread were the priests and that was after it sat for a week on a golden table in the presence of the Lord, and it was changed every Sabbath.  This could have been a Sabbath when David received this bread.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes:  “The argument is reasonable: if a hungry king and his men were permitted to eat the holy bread from the tabernacle then it was right for the Lord of the Sabbath to permit His men to eat the grain from His fields.  David broke a definite law given by Moses, for the showbread was for the priests only but the disciples had violated only a man-made tradition.  God is surely more concerned with meeting the needs of people than He is with protecting religious tradition.  The Pharisees had their priorities confused.”  The Pharisees missed out on understanding the Grace of God because they were so blinded by their traditions. 

            Verse 27-28:  “27 Jesus said to them, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.  28 ‘So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.’”  When we look back at the book of Genesis we see that God rested on the sixth day which is the Sabbath and stopped from His work because it was complete.  We see in the first chapter of John that Jesus was the One who made all things and so for Him to be Lord even of the Sabbath is Him claiming to be the One who created the earth and all else that was created.  Now this really was upsetting to the Pharisees.  As far as the title “Son of Man” it is seen in Daniel 7:13: “"I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.”  This is the only time we see this title as a Messianic title in the OT, but that is what is was.

            I want to say that both John MacArthur and Warren Wiersbe say that there was no mistake when Jesus mentions Abiathar as the high priest, for the record states in 1Sam. 22:20 that Abimelech, was the father of Abiathar as high priest.  Dr. Wiersbe writes:  “Our lord’s words appear to be a contradiction.  They are not.  It is possible that father and son each had both names (1Chron. 18:16 and 24:6; 1Sam. 22:20 and 2Sam. 8:17).”

1/31/2012 3:21:46 PM

Psalm 36 Part-One

1/31/2012 6:36:07 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  David Worships the Lord

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Psalm 36

            Message of the verses:  “1 ¶  «For the choir director. A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD.» Transgression speaks to the ungodly within his heart; There is no fear of God before his eyes. 2  For it flatters him in his own eyes Concerning the discovery of his iniquity and the hatred of it. 3  The words of his mouth are wickedness and deceit; He has ceased to be wise and to do good. 4  He plans wickedness upon his bed; He sets himself on a path that is not good; He does not despise evil.

    “5 ¶  Your lovingkindness, O LORD, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. 6  Your righteousness is like the mountains of God; Your judgments are like a great deep. O LORD, You preserve man and beast. 7  How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. 8  They drink their fill of the abundance of Your house; And You give them to drink of the river of Your delights. 9  For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light. 10  O continue Your lovingkindness to those who know You, And Your righteousness to the upright in heart. 11  Let not the foot of pride come upon me, And let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. 12  There the doers of iniquity have fallen; They have been thrust down and cannot rise.”

            David is called the servant of the LORD in verse one and this is a title we see several other places in Scripture.  Moses is called the servant of the Lord in Deu. 34:5, and so is Joshua in Joshua 24:29.  Daniel is also called the servant of the LORD in Dan. 6:20, and James calls himself the servant of the Lord in James 1:1 and we also see Paul calling himself a bond-servant of God in Titus 1:1.

            Dr. Wiersbe divides this psalm into three categories; David ponders the reality of evil in God’s world (vv. 1-4), David praised God’s character (vv. 5-9), and David prays that God would protect him from evil and would eventually judge the world (vv. 10-12).

            Revelation:  The Corruption of the Human Heart (vv. 1-4):  “1 For the director of music. Of David the servant of the LORD. An oracle is within my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked: There is no fear of God before his eyes. 2  For in his own eyes he flatters himself too much to detect or hate his sin. 3  The words of his mouth are wicked and deceitful; he has ceased to be wise and to do good. 4  Even on his bed he plots evil; he commits himself to a sinful course and does not reject what is wrong. (NIV)”

            I have used the NIV for these verses because of what Dr. Wiersbe writes in his commentary about these verses and he uses the word “oracle” in his commentary and so does the NIV.  He writes “In Scripture, an oracle is usually an authoritative pronouncement from the Lord; but here it is sin that is speaking an oracle deep in the heart of the sinner.”  The word oracle is used in the writings of the prophets of the OT when they are writing about different nations.  I  did a search of the word oracle throughout the entire Bible using the NASB and came up with 26 times it is used all of them in the OT.

            Dr. Wiersbe goes on to say “In Psalm 10, the sinner talks to himself, but here sin speaks to the sinner.  Sin deceives us (Rom. 7:11) and flatters us (10:3; Deut. 29:18-19), giving us the false assurance that our rebellion will go unpunished (Gen 3:1-5).  ‘Listen to your heart!’ the world tells us, forgetting that ‘The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; who can understand it?’”  Jer. 17:9 NASB).

            We see in verse one that David writes “there is no fear of God” and Paul quotes this verse in Romans 3:8.  In the book of Romans Paul is like a defense attorney in the first three chapters and he is showing the world that all are sinners and in Romans 3:23 he writes “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”  We can see from this section of Romans what is called “total depravity,” and I heard a good definition of total depravity that has helped me understand what it means:  “Total depravity does not mean that we are as bad as we can be, but we are as bad off as we can be.”  Because we are as bad off as we can be God sent His Son into the world in order to take our place on the cross and He paid for our sins and then He did an amazing thing that I don’t know if I will ever understand, Jesus took my sin and gave me His righteousness so that when God sees me He sees the righteousness of His Son in me and can then accept me into His heaven.  Of course there has to come a time in each person’s life when they realize that they are as bad off as they can be and in need of the cleansing that Jesus has offered them in order to be saved.

            Solomon writes about fear, but he is writing about the fear of the Lord, “Pr 1:7 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.  Pr 9:10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”  David is writing that in the sinner’s eyes there is NO fear of God.

            In verse two we see the results of having no fear of God and that is flattery, and because of flattery the sinner cannot recognize that he is a sinner for he is flattering himself.  Next the sinner’s words deceitful, he is lying to himself and thinks that he has done nothing wrong.  It gets worse as when he is lying on his bed he is thinking about doing evil to someone.

            David is writing about the awfulness of sin and how sin affects a person, especially and unbeliever.  When one looks around at the world they will see that the biggest problem that we have in this world today is sin.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  When a person is born again they receive a new spirit from the Lord, one that always wants to do good and to follow the will of God, yet that same person has an old nature that still lives in them that wants to do wrong and never do the will of God.  There is a battle going on inside of every believer and Paul writes about this battle in Romans 7.  Paul also writes about the need to have the “spiritual armor” on at the end of his letter to the Ephesians in Ephesians 6:10-18.  As believes we are not exempt from sinning because we are in Christ, but we know how deceitful sin is and also the need to be protected by the spiritual armor so that we can walk in the Spirit.  “Ga.  5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       Gal. 5:16.

2.       Ephesians 6:10-18.

3.       Romans 12:1-2.

4.       Philippians 4:11b.

5.       Proverbs 3:5-6.

1/31/2012 7:37:23 AM

Psalm 35 Part-Two

1/30/2012 8:21:36 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Psalm 35

            Message of the verses:  Just a little reminder from the first part of the commentary on Psalm 35 I will repeat the quote from Dr. Wiersbe:  “David made three requests of God, and eventually He granted all of them.”  We will now look at the second request.

            Reward Me (vv. 11-18):  “11 ¶  Malicious witnesses rise up; They ask me of things that I do not know. 12  They repay me evil for good, To the bereavement of my soul. 13  But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth; I humbled my soul with fasting, And my prayer kept returning to my bosom. 14  I went about as though it were my friend or brother; I bowed down mourning, as one who sorrows for a mother. 15  But at my stumbling they rejoiced and gathered themselves together; The smiters whom I did not know gathered together against me, They slandered me without ceasing. 16  Like godless jesters at a feast, They gnashed at me with their teeth. 17 Lord, how long will You look on? Rescue my soul from their ravages, My only life from the lions. 18  I will give You thanks in the great congregation; I will praise You among a mighty throng.”

            We mentioned yesterday that Psalm 35 was an imprecatory psalm and in verses 4-8 we see why it is called and imprecatory psalm, and that is because in these verses we see that David asked God to; well let us just say to be unkind to the men of Saul, and for good reason.  We see in this section that David had prayed for these men in a good way, but the Lord would not answer David’s prayer for them because they were evil men.  However David would receive a blessing from the Lord for his faithful prayer even though God did not answer it.  David’s prayer would be rewarded.  These evil men would be like court jesters and talk bad about David when they were eating their meals, and all of this broke the heart of David for he cared for them, but not for the lies that they were spreading about him. 

            I know in my heart a little of what David went through by praying for someone to come to know the Lord for over thirty years and then near the end of their life tell me that they did not want to hear about this.  My wife and I wondered about all of the prayers that we sent heavenward, and what was done with them, but it seems to be answered in the commentary of Warren Wiersbe when he writes:  “David received a blessing because he prayed,”  however God did not answer our prayers and that was a painful experience. 

            Dr. Wiersbe writes at the end of this section these words, “David knew that God would eventually reward him for his faithfulness, but he didn’t know when.  His first praise to God (vv. 9-10) was personal, but the second expression of praise (v.-18) is in the congregation with the saints.”

            Vindicate Me (vv. 19-28):  “19  Do not let those who are wrongfully my enemies rejoice over me; Nor let those who hate me without cause wink maliciously. 20  For they do not speak peace, But they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land. 21  They opened their mouth wide against me; They said, "Aha, aha, our eyes have seen it!" 22  You have seen it, O LORD, do not keep silent; O Lord, do not be far from me. 23  Stir up Yourself, and awake to my right And to my cause, my God and my Lord. 24  Judge me, O LORD my God, according to Your righteousness, And do not let them rejoice over me. 25  Do not let them say in their heart, "Aha, our desire!" Do not let them say, "We have swallowed him up!" 26  Let those be ashamed and humiliated altogether who rejoice at my distress; Let those be clothed with shame and dishonor who magnify themselves over me. 27  Let them shout for joy and rejoice, who favor my vindication; And let them say continually, "The LORD be magnified, Who delights in the prosperity of His servant." 28  And my tongue shall declare Your righteousness And Your praise all day long.”

            We know from David’s story that he was on the run from Saul for ten years and that the men whom he was friends with and fought with against Israel’s enemies were now against him and spreading lies and rumors about him that we hurtful to David.  We also know that eventually Saul was killed and for the next seven years David was king over Judah but not over all of Israel, for one of Saul’s son’s, who was really a puppet king, ruled of the Northern tribes of Israel.  David would then become king over all of Israel which would fulfill what the Lord had planned for him when he was anointed by Samuel many years earlier.  David was exercising patience in his dealings with Saul and his men and this can be seen in this 35^th Psalm, and yet David was brokenhearted over how he was being treated, but through all of this was learning more and more to lean on the Lord because David’s cause was just and it was also God’s cause (v-26).  In verse 26 we see the same prayer that David prayed in verse 4, and asked the enemy be shamefully defeated, which it would be as seen in the last chapter of 1Samuel.  The very thing that God asked Saul to do and he did not do fully was when we see that Samuel told Saul that because of his disobedience God has chosen another man to be king over Israel.  Saul was told to kill all of the Amalekites, and in the end because he disobeyed God an Amalekite would tell David that he killed Saul. 

            Dr. Wiersbe writes at the end of his commentary from this section these words:  “The word translated ‘prosperity’ (V. 27 KJV) is the familiar Hebrew word ‘shalom—peace,’ which means much more than a mere cessation of hostilities.  It carries the idea of well being in every aspect of life, including peace with God, with others, with yourself, and with the circumstances of life.

            “David’s experiences reminds us of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, who was also hated without a cause (John 15:25) and falsely accused and attacked by those for whom He had shown nothing but kindness and live.  God delivered David from his enemies, but the ‘Father’ spared not his own son’ (Rom. 8:32) but willingly gave Him to die for the sins of the world.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I know that David went through a lot of trials and tribulation from his own people during this ten year period, but I also know that God was with him and lead him all of the way.  Reading these types of psalms increases my faith and for that I am thankful.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       Continue to trust the Lord each and every day knowing that His plans are the best plans for my life.

2.       Continue to learn contentment through life’s circumstances.

1/30/2012 9:35:52 AM

David's Struggles Psalm 35 Part-One

1/29/2012 7:36:07 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus: 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Psalm 35

            Message of the verses:  The first thing that I would like to mention about Psalm 35 is that it is an imprecatory psalm.  I quoted from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on the importance of the imprecatory psalms when I did the commentary on Psalm 5 and so I am not going to go over all of that in the introduction of this psalm, but ask that those interested who have not read the commentary on Psalm 5 do so in order to have a better understanding about imprecatory psalms as there will be more of them as we go along with our study of the psalms.

            The background of this psalm is again the hounding of Saul as he goes after David because his desire is to kill David and have one of his sons be the next king in Israel, however Saul knows in his heart of hearts that God has chosen David to be king in Israel, but there were times when Saul would listen to his men who also wanted David dead.  Saul’s men would spread lies about David and this would enhance the anger in Saul for David and instead of doing the business of the kingdom he would go out after David.  Dr. Wiersbe writes at the end of the introduction of this psalm these words, “David mad three requests of God, and eventually He granted all of them.”

            Protect Me (vv. 1-10):  “1 ¶  «A Psalm of David.» Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me; Fight against those who fight against me. 2  Take hold of buckler and shield And rise up for my help. 3  Draw also the spear and the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, "I am your salvation." 4  Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life; Let those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me. 5  Let them be like chaff before the wind, With the angel of the LORD driving them on. 6  Let their way be dark and slippery, With the angel of the LORD pursuing them. 7  For without cause they hid their net for me; Without cause they dug a pit for my soul. 8  Let destruction come upon him unawares, And let the net which he hid catch himself; Into that very destruction let him fall. 9  And my soul shall rejoice in the LORD; It shall exult in His salvation. 10  All my bones will say, "LORD, who is like You, Who delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him, And the afflicted and the needy from him who robs him?’”

            When David was a teenager Samuel came to the house of Jessie who was David’s father looking to anoint the next king of Israel.  Samuel was mourning over the fact that Saul had not turned out the way that he hoped he would for Saul had turned against following the commands of the Lord and could no longer be trusted.  As Samuel was mourning over Saul the Lord came to him and told him to fill his flask with oil so that he could go and anoint the next king of Israel who was a son of Jesse.  Samuel was frightened of Saul and so the Lord told him to go to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem for a sacrifice.  This story is told in 1Samuel 16.  When Samuel got there he began to look at Jesse’s sons and none of them were the ones that God had chosen.  Some of his sons were very handsome and strong and this must have reminded Samuel of what the people thought about Saul, for Saul was a king that the people wanted, but David was the king that God wanted to rule over Israel for he was a man after God’s own heart.  After looking over all of Jesse’s sons and not finding who he was looking for Samuel asked Jesse if he had any other sons and he replied that he had a younger son who was tending the sheep in the pasture.  Samuel told Jesse to go and quickly get him and when Samuel saw him he knew that this was the one whom God had chosen to be Israel’s next king and he anointed him with oil.

            Now we fast forward to the time when David is writing this psalm and we wonder what is going through the mind of David as Saul’s men continue to chase him and try to kill him.  This would go on for ten years and could it be that David is beginning to doubt that God would fulfill his promise of making David king over Israel.  Remember the story of the butterfly and the struggle that it had to get out of the cocoon well we can look at David as being in that stage of struggling as he is chased by Saul and his men.  We can also look back at the life of Joseph and see the same thing as Joseph was put in a pit by his brothers and then sold in Egypt where he was falsely accused of rape and then put into prison unjustly for a few years before being elevated to the second in command of the nation of Egypt.  Years later Moses, who knew that God had chosen him to lead the people out of Egypt tried in vain to do this when he was forty years old, but had to flea for his life and tend sheep for the next forty years before God called him back to Egypt to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.  Years later David was also tending sheep as God chose him to lead the children of Israel back to the Lord by anointing him king.  Many, many years after this Peter would write in 1Peter 5 these words, “1 ¶  Therefore, I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, 2  shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; 3  nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock. 4  And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”  We see in this passage that Peter was an elder and now called his fellow elders to shepherd the flock of God, God is calling those who belong to Him sheep and Jesus Christ the Chief Shepherd and so we can see the importance in understanding how sheep act, for people are like sheep and perhaps we can now understand why two of the most prominent people of the Old Testament were shepherds, in fact we know that probably Joseph tended sheep too before sold into slavery.  When John MacArthur was preaching through the book of 1Peter he tells the story of how he and his family went to New Zealand to see how sheep were tended there.  He also read a book by the most famous shepherd who lived in New Zealand in order to understand how the Elders, Pastors, are to shepherd the flock of God and according to him learned a valuable lesson from being there and from reading the book too. 

            Isaiah writes these words in Isaiah 53:6 “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him. 7  He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.”

            I said all of this because I think that when we are in a position that we don’t like and don’t understand why we are there we may be like David, or Moses, or Joseph being prepared to do something for the Lord and as we read through psalms like Psalm 35 and see how David reacted we can learn from them as we go through these difficult times in our life that perhaps we are being prepared by God for something special.

            We can see two aspects in verse one of Psalm 35, one of a soldier and one of a judge, for David wants God to plead his case for him and also wants God to fight for David.  We see images of the soldier in verses two and three as David asks God to fight for him with a spear and a battle-ax while being clothed with buckler and shield.  David knows in his heart that God had him anointed as king and for that reason he asks God to fight against his enemies for him.

           

            David wanted his enemies to fall into the traps that they had set for him, and these traps were probably holes in the ground covered by sticks and leaves that were used to catch animals, but the animals were the ones who were setting the traps for David.

            We will see in each section of this psalm that David will end the three sections with a song of praise to the Lord (vv. 9-10, 17-18, and 27-28).     

            We will continue with Psalm 25 tomorrow, Lord willing.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  David had to have a lot of contentment and trust in the Lord as he faced the troubles of being hunted by Saul for ten years, and my prayer is that I will learn from how David lived his life while he, like the butterfly, was being strengthened by his struggling.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       Proverbs 3:5-6.

2.       Romans 12:1-2.

3.       Romans 8:28.

4.       Philippians 4:11b.

5.       Ephesians 6:10-18.

1/29/2012 8:47:54 AM

Psalm 34 Part-Three

1/28/2012 9:42:24 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  Psalm 34 Part-3

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Psalm 34:17:22

            Message of the verses:  In today’s SD we will look at the last section of Psalm 34 which are the last six verses.  I am going to quote again the words of Dr. Wiersbe that he wrote at the end of his opening comments on Psalm 34:  “Out of his experience in Gath, David shared in this psalm four instructions for his own followers (1Sam. 22:1-2), as well as for us today, to help us keep out of tight situations and live a life that pleases God.”  The last instruction he entitles trust the Lord.

            Trust the Lord (vv. 17-22):  “17  The righteous cry, and the LORD hears And delivers them out of all their troubles. 18  The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in spirit. 19  Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him out of them all. 20  He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken. 21  Evil shall slay the wicked, And those who hate the righteous will be condemned. 22  The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who take refuge in Him will be condemned.”

            I mentioned in yesterday’s SD that I thought that the verses in Psalm 34 reminded me of what is in the book of Proverbs in that they seem to be short bits of wisdom in each of the verses like what is found in the book of Proverbs and I can see that in these six verses too.

            In this last section we see a contrast of what will happen to the “righteous” and what will happen to the “wicked.”  Verse 17 we see the righteous cry and then the Lord answers.  In verse 21 we see what will happen to the wicked and what happens to them is seen in the first part of verse 21 where David writes “Evil shall slay the wicked.”  Dr. Wiersbe writes “The Lord is able to keep our enemies in check, and their evil deeds will destroy them, for sin is its own executioner.”  “His own iniquities will capture the wicked, And he will be held with the cords of his sin Proverbs 5:22.” 

            The Bible never assures us that when we become believers that are lives will then be without troubles, but we see verses in this section of Scripture that tell us that the Lord will be with us through all of the troubled times.  Verses 17-20 gives us this promises and we can see that even though at times we don’t feel like the Lord is with us and helping us He is doing this.  We must remember what we said about feelings in an earlier SD and that is they cannot always be trusted.  These verses say what I wrote in an earlier SD and that is that God will heal us every time but the last time and at that time we can be assured that our work on earth will be done.

            It makes me sad and also it makes me angry when I see on TV from time to time that a “preacher” will come on and say that if you send me some money then I will pray over your letter and the Lord will heal you.  I have also hear them say that once you become a believer that your life will be wonderful and that you will not have any more problems.  These are lies that come from the enemy.  To illustrate what I am talking about I want to tell a story about a butterfly and the struggle that it takes for a butterfly to get out of the cocoon.  This story begins with a worm and the worm will begin its life eating and will continue to eat and then it will be time for the worm to make a cocoon for itself.  We can see in this story something that pictures a person who is born into this world and then is transformed into a new life once they realize that they are a sinner and believe in their heart that Christ died for their sins and we see in 2Cor 5:17 “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.”  Now back to the butterfly and we mentioned that it is a struggle for the butterfly to get out of the cocoon and this is a good thing for the struggle will make it strong in order for it to accomplish the things that butterflies do.  If someone would see the butterfly struggling and decide that it would be better for them to help it out of the cocoon then the butterfly would probably die because it would not have the strength to live because it did not build up its strength by getting out of the cocoon on its own.  Now what can we learn from this story that is actually seen in this section of Psalm 34?  We can see that God allows us to go through difficult times, we have seen this when we looked at the book of Job, and we know that God has a plan for our lives and will see us through the difficult times so that we can bring glory to Him, and also so we can help others who will go through perhaps the same trouble that we are going through.  Paul writes about this in 2Cor. 1: 3 ¶  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, 4  who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5  For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 6  But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer.”

            One more thing from Psalm 34 and that comes from verse twenty were at the end of this verse we read “Not one of them is broken.”  David is writing about bones and we know that Jesus is the Passover Lamb and it is said of the Passover Lamb that none of its bones are to be broken and so John quotes this verse in John 19:36 speaking of Jesus:  “For these things came to pass to fulfill the Scripture, "NOT A BONE OF HIM SHALL BE BROKEN."

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  As I look at the nation that I live in and see all of the moral corruption that is going on and what seems to me that the blessings of God are now like they once were on our country I am distressed and saddened over this, and I must admit at times a little bit frightened.  The words of this section of Psalm 34 have been an encouragement to me in that I am once again reminded that the Lord is surely in control and will see me through until my work on earth is done either by dying of by going to be with the Lord in the clouds after I am changed on the way up to meet the Lord.  1Cor. 15:51-58 and 1Thes.& 4:13-18 speak of this event which is called the rapture of the Church.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       Continue to trust the Lord through the difficulties of life knowing that he will never leave me and He will never forsake me.

2.       Continue to learn contentment through the trials and difficulties of life.

1/28/2012 10:53:42 AM

Part Two of Psalm 34

1/27/2012 9:34:10 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  Psalm 34 Part Two

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Psalm 34:9-22

            Message of the verses:  As I begin this second part of Psalm 34 I began to wonder exactly what it means to “bless the Lord” which is found in the first verse of this psalm.  This is something that I have struggled with the understanding of for a long time and when I looked up the word in the Hebrew/English dictionary I was even more confused by it because the Hebrew word “barak” is actually translated as curse five times in the KJV of the Bible.  I began to look to the internet for some answers and came across an article that was written in 1978 by John Piper that helped me to understand what “bless the Lord” is all about.  I am going to put this article on this SD and hopefully it will be a help to others who have struggled with this.

          “What Does It Mean to Bless God?

November 1, 1978| by John Piper| Topic: Prayer

My thesis is that in the Scripture when God "blesses" men they are thereby helped and strengthened and made better off than they were before, but when men "bless" God he is not helped or strengthened or made better off. Rather (with C. A. Keller in THAT, I, 361) man's blessing God is an "expression of praising Thankfulness" (ein lobendes Danksagen), when the OT speaks of blessing God it does not "designate a pro­cess that aims at the increase of God's strength" (THAT, I, 361). It is an "exclamation of gratitude and admiration" (THAT, I, 357).

This is not at all a strange semantic phenomenon. If God is the primal and inexhaustible "blesser," then he must be above all others in a "blessed" state—the fullness and source of all "blessing." If this is so, then a most nat­ural burst of praise would be "You are blessed!" That this recognition and joyful exclamation of God's blessedness should then be described as "blessing God" is not unusual. Other analogies, though not exact, would be our expressions like: "I mag­nify the Lord" or "Let us exalt his name." Both of these expressions properly recognize and give joyful expression to God's magnificence and his exalted status. They do not mean that we make God larger or higher. So to bless God means to recognize his great richness, strength, and gracious bounty and to express our gratitude and delight in seeing and experiencing it.

Here are some texts that have led me to these conclusions:

Deuteronomy 8:10 And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you.

Here "bless" is virtually identical to "thank" or "gratefully recognize as the giver of blessing."

Psalm 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!

Psalm 145:10 All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you!

Psalm 103:2 Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,

Psalm 96:2-3 Sing to the Lord, bless his name; tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples!

Here bless probably means: joyfully announce all these good things about God.

Psalm 104:1 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty,

This psalm begins and ends with "Bless the Lord, O my soul!" This probably means that the psalm is meant as the blessing. Therefore blessing God means heartily saying things like "God, you are very great!"

2 Chronicles 29:10 Therefore David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said: "Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of Israel our father, forever and ever."

This is a clear example of what one does when one blesses the Lord: he calls him blessed! The same thing is seen in comparing Gen. 24:27 and 48.

Psalm 34:1 I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Psalm 145:1-2,21 I will extol you, my God and King, and bless your name forever and ever. Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord, and let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.

Psalm 113:1,2 Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord, praise the name of the Lord! Blessed be the name of the Lord from this time forth and forevermore!”

            Fear the Lord (vv. 9-16):  “9  O fear the LORD, you His saints; For to those who fear Him there is no want. 10  The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing. 11 Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12  Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that he may see good? 13  Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking deceit. 14  Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. 15  The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry. 16  The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth.”

            We have spoken about the fear of the Lord in past SD’s but if one fears the Lord then he does not need to fear anything else.  Dr. Wiersbe writes some interesting comments on this subject:  “God promises to give us what is good for us and to cause all things to work together for good (Romans 8:28).  If we don’t receive what we think we need, it means it isn’t good for us and we don’t need it at this time.”  He goes on to write:  “At this point, David may have gathered the children and youths around him to teach them the secret of real living.  Peter quoted verses 12-14 in 1Peter 3:10-12, and his instructions are wise and workable.” 

            Desire what is good (v. 12):  “12  Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that he may see good?”  What does David mean when he writes “desires life” or “love life?”  Does it mean that one has to have a lot of possessions to love life, for that is what the world would teach us.  Solomon who was probably the richest man ever to live as far as possessions wrote in Eccl. 2:17-20 “17 ¶  So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind. 18  Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me. 19  And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity. 20  Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.”  This does not sound to me like possessions are the answer.  Character is certainly part of the answer, along with faith, and a desire to honor God.  Jesus ways in John 10:10 “"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  That word abundantly means “beyond measure.”

            Speak what is true (v. 13):  “13  Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking deceit.”  Both James and Solomon have something to say about the tongue:  “5  So also the tongue is a small part of the body, and yet it boasts of great things. See how great a forest is set aflame by such a small fire! 6  And the tongue is a fire, the very world of iniquity; the tongue is set among our members as that which defiles the entire body, and sets on fire the course of our life, and is set on fire by hell. 7  For every species of beasts and birds, of reptiles and creatures of the sea, is tamed and has been tamed by the human race. 8  But no one can tame the tongue; it is a restless evil and full of deadly poison. 9  With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the likeness of God; 10  from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way (James 3:5-10).”  “He who guards his mouth and his tongue, Guards his soul from troubles (Pr. 21:23).”  Paul writes in Ephesians 4:15 these words, “but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ.”  I must say that this 34^th Psalm actually sounds to me like how the Proverbs are written.

            Pursue what is right (v. 14):  “14  Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it.”  David, one would think, is not exactly the man who would write “seek peace and pursue it” for he was a man of war, a man who was not allowed to build the temple because he had shed so much blood.  As Christians we are not to seek peace at any price, because peace depends on purity. “13 ¶  Who among you is wise and understanding? Let him show by his good behavior his deeds in the gentleness of wisdom. 14  But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. 15  This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. 16  For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing. 17  But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, unwavering, without hypocrisy. 18  And the seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace (James 3:13-18).”  As Christians we are to make every effort not to make enemies, and yet when we look at the life of Jesus and the things that He said to the Pharisees and the Scribes we know that there is a time to stand up for what is right as Jesus did when talking to these people.  Dr. Wiersbe says that the word “pursue” means that we have to work at it, with the help of the Lord, and this makes perfect sense because we are to seek the help of the Lord in all we do.

            Expect what is best (vv. 15-16):  “15  The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry. 16  The face of the LORD is against evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth.”  We see the entire face of the Lord including His eyes and His ears in these two verses and this should give us confidence God sees us and hears us when we pray and God is against evildoers.  There is a great example of this in the 12^th chapter of the book of Acts where we see Peter in prison, sent there by Herod who was king at that time.  The church began to pray to God so He would have Peter released and God answered their prayer and had Peter released using a miracle.  A little while later Herod was killed because he did not honor God, thus taking care of that evildoer.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  Today the 27^th of January in the year of our Lord 2012, by the grace of God I begin my 39^th year in serving the Lord, and my prayer is that I will bring honor and glory to His name.

            Character is something that has spoken to me as I did this SD, and having good character is important to me and one of the ways to accomplish this is to continue to, not only read and study the Word of God, but to put the things into practice what I have learned.  Difficult at times because of the enemies that we all face, the world, the flesh and the devil are all against us, but God is for us and that is all we need.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1.       By the help and grace of God I desire to put into practice what I am learning.

2.       Continue to learn contentment.

1/27/2012