1/21/2012 10:05:10 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: The victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings.
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 30
Message of the verses: “1 ¶ «A Psalm; a Song at the Dedication of the House. A Psalm of David.» I will extol You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my enemies rejoice over me. 2 O LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. 3 O LORD, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit. 4 Sing praise to the LORD, you His godly ones, And give thanks to His holy name. 5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.
“ 6 ¶ Now as for me, I said in my prosperity, "I will never be moved." 7 O LORD, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong; You hid Your face, I was dismayed. 8 To You, O LORD, I called, And to the Lord I made supplication: 9 "What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your faithfulness? 10 "Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me; O LORD, be my helper." 11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, 12 That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”
Psalm 30 is a personal psalm of David with the exception of verses 4-5 where he includes the nation in this psalm of thanksgiving. Dr. Wiersbe sites two possible places in the Scriptures where this psalm could be referring to. The first was when David and his army captured the city of Jerusalem and made it the capital of Israel. This would be when David had built a palace (house) for himself to live in and after that could have become proud of being king over all of Israel. The second possible scenario would be when David sinned by numbering the people of Israel and the Lord killed 70,000 people because of David’s sin. David bought a piece of property from a man named Ornan and sacrificed to the Lord so that the plague would stop. There are three things that are very interesting about this piece of property. The first was it was the place David bought as mentioned above, the second is that is the place where the temple of the Lord would be built (1Chron. 22:1), and the last goes back to Genesis 22 where we find that God would test Abraham and God told Abraham to go to a certain mountain where he was to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice to the Lord. We know that Abraham obeyed the Lord and the Lord provided a lamb to take the place of Isaac, which is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God dying for our sins, but the place where all this happened was the same place that David offered the sacrifice to stop the plague and the place where the temple of God would be built.
David had become proud of what he accomplished, forgetting that the Lord had accomplished all of this through David. David became sick, near death as the psalm speaks of, and then the Lord would bring him back to health so that David could praise the Lord and be thankful to the Lord and thus write this psalm.
Dr. Wiersbe quotes from a noted Scottish preacher named George Morrison in many of his commentaries with a quote that every believer should put to memory and it is the theme of this psalm that David has written. Morrison writes “The victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings.” This is a wonderful truth to remember, for we all will need new beginnings.
A New Victory—From Death to Life (vv. 1-3): “I will extol You, O LORD, for You have lifted me up, And have not let my enemies rejoice over me. 2 O LORD my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me. 3 O LORD, You have brought up my soul from Sheol; You have kept me alive, that I would not go down to the pit.”
We see in these verses that David experienced three problems; David was distressed from within because of the problem he was facing, he was sinking down to the pit, and his enemies would rejoice if David died. We see that the Lord delivered David from all three problems.
The healing that is mentioned in verse two does not necessarily mean a physical healing, for it could have meant an emotional healing from emotional distress. When you look at the circumstances that occurred when David sinned by numbering the people it was mostly emotional because David knew that it was because of his sin that those 70,000 people had died.
A New Day—From Night to Morning (vv. 4-5): “4 Sing praise to the LORD, you His godly ones, And give thanks to His holy name. 5 For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for a lifetime; Weeping may last for the night, But a shout of joy comes in the morning.”
These two verses are written for corporate worship that came from David’s personal worship. Dr. Wiersbe writes “Personal worship that doesn’t enrich our corporate worship may become selfish and lead to more pride! The contrasts in verse 5 are the motivation for David’s praise: from God’s anger to God’s favor; from chastening for only a moment to al lifetime of His grace (Isa. 54:7-8); from a night of weeping to a morning of joy. For David, this was the dawning of a new day after a painful time of suffering in darkness. Each morning, God’s mercies are new (Lam. 3:22-23), and God’s special help often arrives in the morning. The resurrection of Jesus Christ brought the dawning of a new day for all who trust in Him (Matt. 28:1). Weeping comes as a guest, but God’s gracious favor is with us for a lifetime. As Jesus explained to His disciples, God doesn’t replace sorrow with joy; He transforms sorrow into joy (John 16:20-22). The same baby that causes the mother pain also brings the mother joy.”
A New Heart—From Pride to Humility (vv. 6-10): “6 ¶ Now as for me, I said in my prosperity, "I will never be moved." 7 O LORD, by Your favor You have made my mountain to stand strong; You hid Your face, I was dismayed. 8 To You, O LORD, I called, And to the Lord I made supplication: 9 "What profit is there in my blood, if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your faithfulness? 10 "Hear, O LORD, and be gracious to me; O LORD, be my helper.’”
We see the story beginning from these verses for it was David’s pride that made it necessary for the Lord to discipline him. Dr. Wiersbe writes: “One reason the Lord permits trials is that we might not get comfortable in our faith and stop growing.” In a very personal way that I am not going to go into I understand exactly what David went through when he became comfortable. I knew this feeling and I also knew that there was something that was going to happen in order to shake up my world so that I would not be comfortable, but go through a trial that has changed my life. Dr. Wiersbe writes: “Prosperity without humility can lead to adversity.”
The Hebrew word translated “trouble” (KJV) and “dismayed” (NASB) describes intense agony or terror, or anguish, and is the same word used to describe King Saul’s feelings when he was in the house of the witch (1Sam. 28:21). David knew that he had sinned and so he cried out to the Lord and even bargained with the Lord to restore his health, either mental or physical, in order to be able to praise the Lord again, for if he was in the grace he would not be able to praise the Lord.
A New Song—From Mourning to Rejoicing (vv. 11-12): “11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; You have loosed my sackcloth and girded me with gladness, 12 That my soul may sing praise to You and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to You forever.”
David speaks of having put on sackcloth which he did when he sinned by numbering the people of Israel. I want to take just a moment to speak of the two great sins that were committed by David and it turns out that both of them would end up, by the grace of God, having to do with the temple of God. David’s sin with Bathsheba would end up with David marrying Bathsheba and out of that union would come a number of children including Solomon would succeed David as king and would be the one that God chose to build the temple. David’s sin in numbering the people of Israel would end up, by the grace of God, the purchasing of the property where the temple would be built. I see Romans 2:28 in both of these sinful stories of David, for God did cause something good to come out of them, yet it was not God who caused David to sin in order for this to happen, but did as Romans 8:28 says worked it out for the good of David and the glory of God. This is how awesome the God whom I serve is.
Dr. Wiersbe points out that in this psalm we see seven times the words “You have, which bear witness to the strong and gracious hand of the Lord working on David’s behalf. We even see the sin working on his behalf (Hebrews 12:1). When David was forgiven he went from the funeral to the feast and took off his sackcloth which depicted sadness and put on the garments of gladness. Dr. Wiersbe has mentioned in some of his other commentaries that a change of clothes marks a dramatic alteration of one’s life: (Gen. 35:2; 41:14; 45:22; Ex. 19:10, 14; 2Sam. 12:20; Luke 15:22).
In his closing comments Dr. Wiersbe writes: “Every difficult experience of life—and David had many of them—is an opportunity to have a ‘pity party’ or attend a rehearsal for singing in the choirs of heaven! We have a lifetime of grace (v. 5) to prepare us for an eternity of glory.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: Comfortable can mean trouble for believers for as pointed out above it can cause us to stop growing and then we may have to have the hand of God’s discipline come upon us as described in Hebrews 12. Even though it is done in love it is still painful, but we can profit much from it. I sometimes have to catch myself when I begin to think about what I want to do realizing that it may not be what the Lord wants me to do, and therefore is prideful and that is something that the Lord does not like in a person. Contentment is relying upon the Lord to guide my life in places that I may not want to go and do things that I may not want to do, but in doing them it is what the Lord desires me to do. Trusting the Lord in all of life’s circumstances that come my way is learning contentment.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Remember that the victorious Christian life is a series of new beginnings.
2. Continue to trust the Lord to teach me contentment.
3. Proverbs 3:5-6.
1/21/2012 11:46:13 AM
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