3/10/2012 10:08:50 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Walk by Faith
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 56:1-4
Message of the verses: We will begin looking at Psalm 56 this morning as for the first time in a long time I did not do a Spiritual Diary yesterday. I firmly believe that the evil one does not like it when I write in my SD’s everyday and is trying to cause trouble for me so that I would not be faithful in doing this each day.
The first commentator that I have chosen to use this morning to help understand this 56th Psalm is John Gill.
“The words "jonathelemrechokim" are by our translators left untranslated. Aben Ezra takes them to be the beginning of a song; and others think they are the name of a musical instrument: but they seem rather to design the subject matter of the psalm, and may be rendered, "concerning the mute dove among them that are afar off" {m}, or "in far places" {n}; and refer to David, who, when he wrote this psalm, was among the Philistines, who were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, afar off from God and his law, and from righteousness; and when David was there, he was at a distance from his native country, his father’s house, the king’s court, and, what gave him most concern, from the house and worship of God; and here he was as a mute dove. He may be compared to a dove for his innocence in the case of Saul; and to a silly dove, for his acting the part of a fool or madman before Achish king of Gath; and was mute to what the servants of Achish said, and was dumb before the Lord, who had suffered him to fall into their hands, and into this distress he was now in. They are also applicable to Christ, who is comparable to a dove for his harmlessness, innocence, meekness and humility; and was as a mute one before Pontius Pilate the Roman governor, when his enemies accused him, and he answered not a word; and when among the Roman soldiers, who mocked at him and reviled him, and he reviled not again; and when he was led to be crucified, he opened not his mouth either against God or man. They may be also applied to the church of God, which is often called a dove in #So 4:1 5:2 6:9; and is in the wilderness, and among wicked men, that are afar off from God, and is silent under all afflictions and persecutions; see #So 2:14.”
“It seems by this, and many other psalms, that even in times of the greatest trouble and distress David never hung his harp upon the willow-trees, never unstrung it or laid it by; but that when his dangers and fears were greatest he was still in tune for singing God’s praises. He was in imminent peril when he penned this psalm, at least when he meditated it; yet even then his meditation of God was sweet.” (Matthew Henry)
“In an hour of deep despair and doubt, David left Judah and fled to Gath, the Philistine city identified with the giant Goliath whom David had slain (1Sam. 17). David was alone and didn’t get a very good reception. (The second time he went to Gath, he was accompanied by his men and was accepted. See 1Samuel 27-30.) This psalm reveals that his life was in great danger, and history tells us that he had to pretend to be insane in order to escape (1 Sam. 21:10-22:1). Psalm 34 also came out of this experience in Gath. The musical inscription is translated variously: ‘the silent dove among those far away,’ ‘the silent dove among the strangers,’ ‘the dove of the distant oaks (or terebinths).’ Some connect this inscription with 55:6-8 and see David as the dove (innocence), silent under attack while far from home. In the midst of peril and fear (vv. 3, 4, 11), David lifted three requests to the Lord and the Lord answered.” (Warren Wiersbe)
June 30, 2010 I wrote the following in my Spiritual Diary that came from 1Samuel 21:10-15: “Message of the verses: As I have been listening to the book of Psalms in the evenings while studying the life of David in my quiet time doing these SD’s each morning the Psalms seem to be more meaningful to me and am thankful that David had this time of ten years in exile to write them for when I go through troubles that the Lord is allowing me to go through, although none of my troubles are life threatening as David’s were, I receive help from these Psalms of David. Dr. Wiersbe points out that there are two Psalms that David wrote while going through this experience that is recorded in today’s Scripture portion, Psalms 34 & 56. David was more in fear of Saul than in trust of the Lord and that is probably why he ran to the Philistia city of Gath.
“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.”
“These verses are from Psalm 34:9-16 and point out that David began to know what fearing the Lord was about while he was in that situation in Gath. I read or heard somewhere recently that David felt badly that he did not trust the Lord while in this city of Gath, and he relied on his own ways to get out of this situation instead of trusting the Lord.
“Spiritual meaning for my life today: The Proverbs tell me that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the 34th Psalm also speaks wonderful things about fearing the Lord, and I have heard that if I will fear the Lord then I will not have to fear anything else.”
“Deliver Me from Death: (vv. 1-4): “1 ¶ «For the choir director; according to Jonathelemrechokim. A Mikhtam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.» Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me; Fighting all day long he oppresses me. 2 My foes have trampled upon me all day long, For they are many who fight proudly against me. 3 When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. 4 In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?”
What we see in this portion of Psalm 56 is both fear and faith in the life of David. I don’t believe that David had prayed about going to the Philistines before going there and whether or not there was any physical harm done to David is not clear. It is probably safe to say that this was not in the will of God for David to go there, something like when Abraham went to Egypt because there was a famine in the land.
Dr. Wiersbe has some important and interesting things to say about fear and faith and we can see that in this Psalm that “David manifested both fear and faith as he cried out to God.” We can see this same thing happening with the disciples of our Lord when they were in a boat with Jesus who was sleeping, and a powerful storm came upon them so much that the boat began to fill with water. The disciples were fearful, yet they had enough sense to awaken Jesus who calmed the storm, but chastised them for not having faith.
Dr. Wiersbe writes these important words, “The refrain in verses 3-4 is repeated in verses 10-11 as David affirms that God alone give him the power to praise Him and trust Him. ‘So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17, NKUV). Faith and praise cannot be ‘manufactured’; they must be received as God’s gift. ‘Mortal man’ is ‘mere man,’ man who is flesh.’ This phrase is quoted in Ps. 118:6 and Hebrews 13:6. What Scripture says about fallen human nature is negative (John 6:63; Romans 7:18; Phil. 3:3).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I want to go back to one of my favorite verses to make a point here: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” This is Ephesians 2:10 and what it says to me is that back in eternity past the Lord has set aside a “work assignment” for all of those whom He has chosen for salvation (Eph. 1:4). Once we become believers in Jesus Christ and are born from above (John 3) we are given the Holy Spirit as a down payment (Eph. 1:14) until we are taken to heaven. It is the Holy Spirit who will be working through us to do the works that God has ordained for us to do in eternity past. We will do these works by faith, and as Romans 10:17 says that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” When we look at the 7th chapter of Romans we see a personal testimony of the Apostle Paul who speaks about the different natures that all believers have, one is the new nature given to us who have been born from above, and one is the nature we received when we were born physically called sometimes the Adamic as it comes from Adam. Believes are in a battle to do right because of these two natures and when we look at what David did on a few occasions we see that on some occasions he did not win the battle. I know that David did not have the Holy Spirit in the same way that NT believers do, but he did have the Holy Spirit to guide him because he was God’s anointed king over His people.
With all of this said I want to continue to read God’s Word in order to increase my faith, and to do the works that were planned for me to do in eternity past. I desire also to not fall into the trap that the “flesh” wants me to fall into for Paul says that there is nothing good in the flesh (old nature).
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Ga 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
2. Ga 5:25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
3. Ephesians 4:11b.
4. Romans 12:1-2.
5. Proverbs 3:5-6.
6. Ephesians 6:10-18.
3/10/2012 11:18:36 AM
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