1/3/2012 9:03:00 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: A Joyful Psalm
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 16
Message of the verses: “1 ¶ «A Mikhtam of David.» Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. 2 I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good besides You." 3 As for the saints who are in the earth, They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. 4 The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips. 5 The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. 6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me. 7 I will bless the LORD who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night.
“ 8 ¶ I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 9 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. 10 For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay. 11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
This is a personal and joyful psalm and it is also a “Mikhtam” psalm as are Psalm’s 56-60. The word is not really understood by Bible scholars so we will leave it at that. The psalm is also a Messianic psalm as this psalm prophesies the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is mentioned two times in the book of Acts, once by Peter (Acts 2:25-28) and then again by Paul in Acts 13:35.
As far as what occasion that David wrote this psalm it could have been right after he received the news that it would be through his line that Messiah would be born. We read about this in 2Samuel 7 and some of the wording there is similar to this psalm.
When I copied this psalm the first time at the top of this page I highlighted the word “my” in order to show that this was a personal psalm for we see my over a dozen times in this psalm along with the words me and I.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “As he praised God for His grace and goodness, David presented three descriptions of the Lord, and all three may be applied to Jesus Christ today.”
The Lord of Life (vv. 1-8): We see the words “Preserve me” at the very beginning of this psalm and these words do not mean that David is in some kind of trouble like we have seen in some of the earlier psalm, but this simply means that he needed God’s constant care and oversight so that he might bring honor to the Lord and also that he might enjoy every good thing that can be given to him by God. We know that one of the attributes of God is His goodness and apart from Him we have nothing good. “Jas 1:17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” It was on the 28th of August that I studied this passage in the book of James and the following is how I wrote out this verse with the help of Dr. Wiersbe, “Every gift that God gives us is perfect, and the way that He gives it to us is perfect, and He keeps on giving us gifts all of the time, even when we do not realize that He is giving them to us, and God is not like the moving of the planets and stars, for He never changes because He cannot change for worse because He is holy, and He cannot change for better because He is perfect.”
A good relationship (vv. 1-2): “Preserve me, O God, for I take refuge in You. 2 I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good besides You.’”
We have seen in the introduction of this section from the verse in James that the Lord is our highest good and the greatest treasure and the giver of all good gifts, and of course the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ is surely included in those good gifts that God has given to us. Jesus is the highest privilege in life. We may think that we have something that is good, however if it doesn’t come from God it is not good: “For You meet him with the blessings of good things; Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” (Psalm 21:3; 23:6).
Dr. Wiersbe writes: “When Jesus Christ is your Savior (refuge) and Lord you experience God’s goodness even in the midst of trials. Our relationship to ourselves, our circumstances, other people, and the future depends on our relationship to the Lord.”
A good companionship (vv.3-4): “3 As for the saints who are in the earth, They are the majestic ones in whom is all my delight. 4 The sorrows of those who have bartered for another god will be multiplied; I shall not pour out their drink offerings of blood, Nor will I take their names upon my lips.”
We see in this portion of Psalm 16 as we have seen in earlier psalms that there are two groups described here and earlier I used John 3:36 to describe them: “"He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.’” This was as true in the day that David wrote this psalm as it is today for there were some that believed in the Lord then and were saved and some that did not and were not saved, and the same is true for those after the cross, for we know that there are people out there who have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and Lord and some who only speak His name when they are cursing and thus reject Him.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “In spite of our faults and failures, believers are God’s elite, His nobility on earth.” With that said believers are to be the ones who tell others about who Jesus Christ is and what He has done for them. We are to be salt and light and we are to be in this world but not of this world. We are the hands and the feet and the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ while we are here on earth, for Jesus told His disciples just before He was going to the cross that it was better that He go away and that there would be more miracles that would be done after He left than if He would have stayed. Every time someone accepts the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord we see a miracle and we as believers are a part of that miracle when we just tell others the truth about Christ and what He has done for them.
A good stewardship (vv. 5-6): “5 The LORD is the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You support my lot. 6 The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; Indeed, my heritage is beautiful to me.”
We know that when Joshua lead the children of Israel into the Promised Land that each tribe was given an inheritance from the Lord but the tribe of Levi and they were the tribe that served at the tabernacle and ate the holy sacrifices, which means that the priests and the Levites had the Lord’s special inheritances. David now sees himself in that privileged position as seen in verse five of this psalm. Dr. Wiersbe writes “To possess great wealth but not have the Lord is poverty indeed (Luke 12:13-21), and to enjoy the gifts but ignore the Giver is wickedness indeed. If Jesus is the Lord of our lives, then the possessions we have and the circumstances we are in represent the inheritance He gives us.”
A good fellowship (vv. 7-8): “7 I will bless the LORD who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night. 8 I have set the LORD continually before me; Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
Dr. Wiersbe suggests that David went to “night school,” because of what is said in verse seven. The word nigh is plural and this suggests that there were many nights that David went to school, for the word instructs suggests the hard and difficult times that David went through and this is where the Lord became so very precious to him and taught David the things that he learned from the Lord. It may have been during this “Night School” that David got the words from the Holy Spirit to write many of his psalms.
We see the statement “He is at my right hand” and this speaks of the Lord as David’s defender and His advocate. Since the Lord was his defender and guard he had nothing to fear and we can see that this was true in David’s life when he said that he “set the Lord continually before him.
The Conqueror of Death (vv. 9-10): “9 Therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices; My flesh also will dwell securely. 10 For You will not abandon my soul to Sheol; Nor will You allow Your Holy One to undergo decay.”
Paul writes these words in 1Cor. 15:19 “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.” 1Corinthians 15 is commonly referred to as the “Resurrection Chapter” and it is in this chapter that Paul explains about the resurrection. This a long chapter with 58 verses in it and I want to go down to the end of the chapter in order to explain or point out something, “51 ¶ Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. 55 "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
“58 ¶ Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”
First of all this is one of the sections from the NT that explain what is called the “rapture” of the church. Rapture is not actually in the Bible but is a Latin word that means to “snatch out,” and that is what the Lord will do at this event called the “Rapture” He will snatch out all believers of the Church age into the clouds and then transport all to heaven. David was writing of the hope of the resurrection. The OT does not have a lot to say about the resurrection, but it does speak of it in the books of Job and Daniel. As we looked at the beginning of 1Cor. 15 and verse 19 we saw little hope but after reading the end part of the chapter we have hope and that hope is in the resurrection, and Jesus Christ was the “first fruit” of the resurrection and therefore because of that we need not fear death for Paul writes “Death is swallowed up in victory ‘O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting.’”
The Joy of Eternity (v.11): “11 You will make known to me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; In Your right hand there are pleasures forever.”
We now that some people make fun of the idea of heaven, one such person was a noted philosopher and Harvard University professor Alfred North Whitehead and he said one day to a friend “As for the Christian theology, can you imagine anything more appallingly idiotic than the Christian idea of heaven?” Well others today and in earlier times make fun of something that they do not know much about and that is heaven. David is speaking of things that will be going on in heaven, for heaven is a place where God dwells, and the Son of God dwells along with the Holy Spirit and someday all believers will dwell in the new heaven that is described in the book of Revelations. If you want a good picture of heaven read Revelations chapters four through five and you will see what is going on there. We will be enjoying the Lord and worshiping Him without things that prohibit us doing so in a perfect way today, thins like the flesh, the world system, and being in this body we now have. Dr. Wiersbe writes “The pleasures of heaven will be far beyond any pleasures we have known here on earth, and as we enjoy the Lord and serve Him, we will not be restricted or encumbered by time, physical weakness, or the consequences of sin.” That will be a great experience when this happens to all believers.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: When I look at the death of Jesus Christ on the cross and realize that He did that for me I am truly amazed. I sometimes miss out on thinking about the resurrection of Jesus from the grave and the importance of it. I mean I know that He has been resurrected and is now at the right had of the Father, but I think that what I need to do is dwell on the importance of it. It is in my head, but it needs to be in my heart is what I am saying.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Remember the importance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
2. Romans 12:1-2.
3. Philippians 4:11b.
4. Proverbs 3:5-6.
5. Ephesians 6:10-18.
6. Psalm 139:23-24.
1/3/2012 11:06:05 AM
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