2/20/2012 9:07:11 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Let God be God
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 46:4-11
Message of the verses: We began to look at the 46th Psalm in yesterday’s SD and I want to remind all of what Dr. Wiersbe wrote at the end of his introductory commentary before we begin today: “The psalm focuses on the Lord and what He is to His trusting people.” We looked yesterday at the first main point “God is Our Tower of Strength.”
God Is Our River of Joy (vv. 4-7): “4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns. 6 The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered; He raised His voice, the earth melted. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah.”
“4 A river brings joy to the city of our God, the sacred home of the Most High. 5 God dwells in that city; it cannot be destroyed. From the very break of day, God will protect it. 6 The nations are in chaos, and their kingdoms crumble! God’s voice thunders, and the earth melts! 7 The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress. Interlude.” (NLT)
In the book of Genesis we see that when God created the earth that there in the garden of Eden there were four rivers, and at the end of the Bible in the book of Revelations chapter 22: 1 ¶ Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” So at the beginning and end of the Bible there are rivers mentioned.
When Hezekiah was king in Judah he realized that Jerusalem was situated on top of a hill and if the enemy began to attack them they would run out of water and so he built an underground water system that connected the Spring of Gihon in Kidron with the Pool of Siloam which is in the city of Jerusalem making water available to the city all of the time. You can read about this in 2Kings 20 and also in 2Chronicles 32:30. Every time that I think about the way that Hezekiah directed how the water should run in order to make it available in the city of Jerusalem I think of a visiting Pastor who taught about Proverbs 3:5-6 and pointed out that it was the same word “direct” in the Proverbs passage that was used in the passage describing how the water was directed. This reminds me of how the Spirit of God directs the lives of believers.
When one thinks about the peril that Hezekiah and all Judah were in when the Assyrians were about to attack them it makes sense to see that this psalm was written after an angel of the Lord killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in the night to free Judah from the threat of the Assyrians and we read in Psalm 46:6 “God will help her when morning dawns,” for that is what He did.
Dr. Wiersbe makes this statement in his commentary, “God’s people have always depended on the hidden spiritual resources that come from God alone. Whenever Israel turned to a pagan nation for help, they ended up in worse trouble.” Dependence upon God in times of trouble is the first thing that should thought of and not depending on others or your own self. I am not saying that we should not seek counsel from other mature believers when I say we should depend upon God for that is many times part of God’s plan to help us. We see from this psalm and the background of this psalm that we should depend on God.
The reason that I also used the NLT in this section is because of verse seven, “The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress.” The NASB uses the “LORD of Hosts, but you will find in the NLT “The LORD of Heaven’s Armies” and as I listened to the entire Bible last year from the NLT I found that term used many times. It was first used in the book of 1Samuel 1:11, “And she made this vow: “O LORD of Heaven’s Armies, if you will look upon my sorrow and answer my prayer and give me a son, then I will give him back to you. He will be yours for his entire lifetime, and as a sign that he has been dedicated to the LORD, his hair will never be cut.” This begins the story of Samuel when his mother Hannah asked God for a child. Dr. Wiersbe writes “The Commander of the armies of the Lord is always with us (Josh. 5:13-15), for He is ‘Immanuel, God with us’ (Matt. 1:23; Isa. 7:14; 8:8). No matter what the circumstances, we may drink at the river of His joy and blessing and find the peace and strength we need.”
God Is Our God! He Will Be Glorified! (vv. 8-11): “8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, Who has wrought desolations in the earth. 9 He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariots with fire. 10 "Cease striving and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." 11 The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah.”
“8 Come, see the glorious works of the LORD: See how he brings destruction upon the world. 9 He causes wars to end throughout the earth. He breaks the bow and snaps the spear; he burns the shields with fire. 10 “Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.’’ 11 The LORD of Heaven’s Armies is here among us; the God of Israel is our fortress. Interlude” (NLT)
We now look at the scene in the fields near Jerusalem where we find 185,000 dead Assyrians, their weapons and equipment scattered and broken. There was not battle but we learn that the angel of the Lord left this evidence behind to encourage the faith of the people and I am sure that the faith of Judah was increased by what the Lord did to the Assyrians. I have to say that this story reminds me of what the prophet Ezekiel writes about in Ezekiel 38-38 for a similar thing will happen in the life of the new nation of Israel that was founded in May of 1948, something that Ezekiel wrote about in chapters 36-37. The battle of Gog and Magog is written about in chapter 38-39 and we see Israel surrounded by their enemies who launch an attack on Israel, but the Lord will defeat them without the aid of human help just like He did with the Assyrians, and the Assyrians will also be involved in this battle too along with many other nations.
We see in verse ten the words “Cease striving” and in the KJV we read “Be still.” Dr. Wiersbe states “Be still’ literally means ‘Take your hands off! Relax!’ We like to be ‘hands-on’ people and manage our own lives, but God is God, and we are but His servants.” I have to say that this is a lot easier to write about than to do. Let us look at how Hezekiah prayed to the Lord when faced with the problem of the Assyrians, “"Now, O LORD our God, I pray, deliver us from his hand that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.’” (2Kings 19:19) On June 16, 2011 as I looked at this verse and several other verses that went along with this one I wrote these words in my Spiritual Diary, “I have heard that when trouble comes your way that one should not go to the phone, but go to the throne, the throne of God. Hezekiah is seen in yesterday’s SD as a person who went to the prophet of God, Isaiah, but in today’s SD he is seen as a prayer warrior. When I read through his prayer I realize that he has been a man of prayer for some time by how he prays and what he does. He took the letter and laid it before the Lord because this was a great way to focus in on the Lord knowing what he was praying about was right before him and right before the Lord. Hezekiah knew that the Lord was enthroned above the cherubim that are in heaven, and he knew that God was God of all, ahead of all the nations. He then speaks of the creative power of the Lord who made heaven and earth. He then prays about what Sennacherib has done as seen in the letter that he sent to the king, knowing that this letter was blaspheming the Lord, and therefore it was upsetting to Hezekiah and this is why he was praying. Hezekiah’s desire was to bring glory to the Lord and he knew that what Sennacherib was doing was not bring glory to the Lord, but if the Lord would defeat him that would bring glory to the Lord. I believe that there is one more element here that needs to be written about and that is that the Lord had promised Hezekiah that the Assyrian’s would not conquer Jerusalem and Hezekiah is doing like Daniel would do as seen in chapter nine of Daniel, and that is interceding over something that God had promised would take place. God sees and hears this prayer and will answer this prayer for it will bring glory to the Lord of Heaven and earth.”
Dr. Wiersbe comments on verse eleven which speaks of the “God of Jacob,” “we remember how often Jacob got into trouble because he got his hands on circumstances and tried to play God. There is a time to obey God and act, but until then, we had better take our hands off and allow Him to work in His own time and His own way. If we seize His promises by faith with both hands, we won’t be able to meddle!”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: As I wrote in the focus part of this SD, “Let God be God,” that is a difficult thing for me to do in many circumstance that I find myself in, and you may guess that it is a part of learning to be content. Perhaps this problem is more prevalent in men for men always try to fix things before relaxing and looking over the situation. From my days as a Supervisor it was my job to fix things and keep things running even in times of trouble, but I found out that when I took the time to pray and let God be God that things went better. There was one dangerous job that I did not do too often, but when I did it I prayed for God’s help and blessing and God granted me that every time I did that job, for it was a job that if it was not done right then people could have been injured badly.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Let God be God.
2. Remember to “Be still or stop striving.”
3. Continue to learn contentment.
2/20/2012 10:29:19 AM
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