SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/19/2012 8:48:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus: More on God’s Faithfulness
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm 89:39-52
Message of the verses: In today’s SD we will continue looking at Psalm 89, remembering that we are looking at this psalm by looking at it through the prism of God’s faithfulness.
God Is Faithful in His Chastening (vv. 39-45): “39 You have spurned the covenant of Your servant; You have profaned his crown in the dust. 40 You have broken down all his walls; You have brought his strongholds to ruin. 41 All who pass along the way plunder him; He has become a reproach to his neighbors. 42 You have exalted the right hand of his adversaries; You have made all his enemies rejoice. 43 You also turn back the edge of his sword And have not made him stand in battle. 44 You have made his splendor to cease And cast his throne to the ground. 45 You have shortened the days of his youth; You have covered him with shame. Selah. “
I want to look at these verses in whole by the covenants that the Lord had made with Israel. We know that the first covenant that the Lord made with Israel was through Abraham and that can be found in two places, Genesis 12:1-3 and also in Genesis 15:18-21. When Israel was about to cross over the Jordan River to take possession of the Promised Land we read in Deuteronomy 28 of another covenant that God made with Israel, and this one unlike the other two was a conditional covenant which is at times called the Palestinian Covenant. In that unconditional covenant we find that the Lord told the children of Israel that if they obeyed the Lord and kept His laws that He would bless them, but if they disobeyed God’s law then the covenant stated that the Lord would remove them from His land. Now we move to 2Samuel 7 where the Lord makes an unconditional covenant with David stating that there would always be one of David’s sons on the throne. Here we see the problem that Ethan, the author of Psalm 89 saw, and that was that if Israel was defeated then how could there be one of David’s sons on the throne? What I see here is that God did not supersede His unconditional covenant with His conditional covenant, for it was because of Israel’s sin in breaking the unconditional covenant that they were defeated by Babylon. The two unconditional covenants are still intact for it is because of God’s faithfulness that He will fulfill those covenants, for Jesus Christ is now on the throne in heaven ruling over all the earth and will someday soon return to take up His father David’s throne in Jerusalem and rule all the earth from there for 1000 years, and this will fulfill both of the unconditional covenants that God made with Israel, and David.
Let’s us look back at verse 37 “"It shall be established forever like the moon, And the witness in the sky is faithful." Selah.” Dr. Wiersbe writes “The ‘witness’ in verse 37 is probably the Lord Himself in heaven, but the constancy of the heavenly bodies is also a witness to the faithfulness of the Lord’s promises (Genesis 8:20-22; Jer. 31:35-36; 33:19-26).”
Dr. Wiersbe goes on to say “Ethan told the Lord what He had done to Judah’s anointed king, the descendant of David. The Lord was angry with the kings because of their sins, especially idolatry (v. 38), so He permitted the Babylonians to come and ravage the land, destroy Jerusalem, and burn the temple, (v. 40-41). To Ethan, the Lord was actually aiding the enemy! (vv. 42-43). But the glory had once more departed from the temple (v. 44; see 1Sam. 4:21-22; Ezek. 8:1-4; 9:3; 10:4, 18; 11:22-23) because the leaders had turned their backs on the Lord and turned to idols. I appears that verse 45 applied especially to King Jehoiachin, who was but eighteen years old when he became king and reigned for three months and ten days (2Kings 24:8). He became a captive in Babylon for thirty-seven years.”
God’s Faithfulness Will Never Cease—Wait for Him (vv. 46-52): “46 How long, O LORD? Will You hide Yourself forever? Will Your wrath burn like fire? 47 Remember what my span of life is; For what vanity You have created all the sons of men! 48 What man can live and not see death? Can he deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah. 49 Where are Your former lovingkindnesses, O Lord, Which You swore to David in Your faithfulness? 50 Remember, O Lord, the reproach of Your servants; How I bear in my bosom the reproach of all the many peoples, 51 With which Your enemies have reproached, O LORD, With which they have reproached the footsteps of Your anointed. 52 Blessed be the LORD forever! Amen and Amen.”
As we begin this last section it is good to note that this is the last section in the third book of the book of Psalms. Psalms is made up of four books and with this last section we have covered the first three books of Psalms with one more to cover which contains sixty Psalms in it and has the longest chapter in the book in the entire Bible, Psalm 119 which has 176 verses and will take many days to discover what gems we will be able to mine there.
I see a flavor of Job in verses 46-48, and perhaps Ethan had read the book of Job before writing Psalm 89. We also see in these verses that Ethan asks a question that he probably already knew the answer too and that question is “How Long.” The answer to that question is found in Jeremiah 25:1-14 and 29:4-14. How long will Israel be in exile? Jeremiah writes that it will be for seventy years.
In verse forty-nine Ethan looks back and asks the Lord what had happened to His lovingkindness, and the Lord’s lovingkindness had not changed, but Judah’s love for the Lord had waned. Dr. Wiersbe writes these insightful words, “Lik any good parent, God shows His love to His children either by blessing their obedience or chastening them for their disobedience, but in either situation, He is manifesting His love.”
We see in verses 50-51 that Ethan looks around and sees the reproach of the enemies. The nation had been taken into exile and the beloved city of Jerusalem was devastated along with the temple of the Lord, and worst of all the glory of the Lord had departed from the temple and would not return until the Lord Jesus Christ would enter into the temple, but what He saw was displeasing to Him. Many would think that the god’s of the Babylonians were more powerful than the God of Israel, and that is not and never will be true.
As when will looked at the last verse in Psalm 72, which was the end of book three in the book of Psalms and found out that it was not really a part of Psalm 72 we see that verse 52 is not really a part of Psalm 89. Dr. Wiersbe writes as he conclude his commentary on this section “no matter how much we suffer because of the sins of others, and no matter how perplexed we may be at the providential workings of the Lord, we should still be able to say by faith, ‘Praise the Lord! Hallelujah!’ And our fellow sufferers ought to respond with, ‘Amen and amen! So be it!’
“That’s the way of trust—faith in the faithfulness of the Lord.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: It is wonderful to remember the great promises of the Lord, especially when trouble comes, and there are great friends of mine who are going through some deep waters so I will pray that I will be able to comfort them with these great promises from God’s Word.
My Steps of Faith for Today: Trust that the Lord will give me the courage and strength to tell others of the wonderful truth of becoming a born-again believer in Jesus Christ for there are only two kinds of people on this earth, those who believe and those who do not believe: “"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.’” (John 3:36)
5/19/2012 10:15:06 AM
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