SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/14/2012 8:18:20 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 105 PT-2
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 105:16-41
Message of the verses: Just a bit of review from the last SD on
Psalm 105 as we looked at several introductions to this psalm finding out that it
is a psalm about the history of the nation of Israel. This is not the first psalm that we have
looked at that was about the history of Israel.
Dr. Wiersbe believes that this psalm was written by someone who came
back from the exile in Babylon. The
Jewish people needed to be reminded of their past and also the covenants that
the Lord had made with Abraham and then with David in order to help them begin
a new life in the country that their ancestors lived in and so this psalm would
help them to remember their past.
Joseph—God’s Wise Preparation (vv. 16-25): “16
And He called for a famine upon the land; He broke the whole staff of
bread. 17 He sent a man before them,
Joseph, who was sold as a slave. 18 They
afflicted his feet with fetters, He himself was laid in irons; 19 Until the time that his word came to pass,
The word of the LORD tested him. 20 The
king sent and released him, The ruler of peoples, and set him free. 21 He made him lord of his house And ruler over
all his possessions, 22 To imprison his
princes at will, That he might teach his elders wisdom. 23 Israel also came into Egypt; Thus Jacob
sojourned in the land of Ham. 24 And He
caused His people to be very fruitful, And made them stronger than their
adversaries.25 He turned their heart to
hate His people, To deal craftily with His servants.”
Who doesn’t
love the story of Joseph when they read about it in the book of Genesis, for
Joseph was a young man whom the Lord used in a mighty way, and he was also a
young man who trusted the Lord greatly, and suffered for the cause of His God
in order to bring about the plan that God had for His chosen people. Suffering brings about glory as we read “After
you have suffered
for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will
Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you (1Peter 5:10).” We can also read concerning a servant, which
Joseph was that being a servant precedes being a ruler. (“"His master said to him, ’Well done,
good and faithful slave. You were faithful with a few things, I will put you in
charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’)” (Matthew 25:21)
God’s Word
that He gave to Joseph came true and the way that God fulfilled this promise
was to send Joseph to Egypt through means that caused great suffering to him
and also to his father, as Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son. Once in Egypt Joseph was a slave and bought
by a man named Potiphar, and Joseph was successful because God was with him,
yet Potiphar wife desired to sleep with Joseph, but Joseph would not do this so
she accused him of rape. Joseph was then
thrown into prison where God was with him there too as he became a leader to
those in charge of the prisoners. It is
believed that Joseph was about 17 years old when his brothers sold him into
slavery and about 30 years old when he began to serve Pharaoh as the second in
command of Egypt. Joseph interpreted a dream
for Pharaoh showing that there would be seven years of plenty in the land
followed by seven years of famine. The
famine was what brought Joseph and the rest of his family to Egypt, and this is
where the Lord was going to take 400 years to make this family into a
nation. Joseph was a big part of God’s
plan in getting the rest of his family to Egypt where God’s Word was fulfilled
by having Joseph’s brothers bow down to him.
Dr. Wiersbe
writes “No matter how dark the day, God always sends His servant ahead to
prepare the way. God permitted the
Egyptians to persecute His people, for suffering is one of the secrets of
fruitfulness. God did not force the
Egyptians to hate the Jews nor did He force Pharaoh to harden his heart. The Lord arranged the circumstances so that Pharaoh
and his officers could either obey or disobey His Word, and their repeated
disobedience hardened their hearts more.
God sent the plagues, but Pharaoh would not obey. The same sun that melts the ice will harden
the clay.”
Moses—God’s Awesome Judgments (vv. 26-41): “26
He sent Moses His servant, And Aaron, whom He had chosen. 27 They performed His wondrous acts among them,
And miracles in the land of Ham. 28 He
sent darkness and made it dark; And they did not rebel against His words.
29 He turned their waters into blood And
caused their fish to die. 30 Their land
swarmed with frogs Even in the chambers of their kings. 31 He spoke, and there came a swarm of flies And
gnats in all their territory. 32 He gave
them hail for rain, And flaming fire in their land. 33 He struck down their vines also and their fig
trees, And shattered the trees of their territory. 34 He spoke, and locusts came, And young
locusts, even without number, 35 And ate
up all vegetation in their land, And ate up the fruit of their ground. 36 He also struck down all the firstborn in
their land, The first fruits of all their vigor. 37 Then He brought them out with silver and
gold, And among His tribes there was not one who stumbled. 38 Egypt was glad when they departed, For the
dread of them had fallen upon them. 39
He spread a cloud for a covering, And fire to illumine by night. 40 They asked, and He brought quail, And
satisfied them with the bread of heaven. 41
He opened the rock and water flowed out; It ran in the dry places like a
river.”
We see in this section as well
as the last that the psalmist uses the word “Ham” when referring to the people
of Egypt. Ham was of course one of the
son’s of Noah, and it was the three sons of Noah that God used to repopulate
the earth after the flood. The children
of Israel came from the line of Shem which can be seen in Luke’s Gospel when
giving the genealogy of Jesus Christ, “Lu 3:36
the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of
Noah, the son of Lamec.”
The story that is contained in this
section is a very familiar story as it tells about Moses, the servant of God,
and how the Lord would use Moses and Aaron to lead the new nation of Israel out
of bondage from the Land of Egypt. God performed
ten miracles or plagues in order to have Pharaoh finally agree into allowing
the children of Israel to leave Egypt.
The psalmist writes that Egypt was glad to see Israel leave and gave
them gifts of silver and gold as kind of a goodbye present. The Egyptians were in dread of them because
of the plagues that God sent on them and after all of their first born children
died I believe that Egypt was afraid that the next plague would have killed all
of them.
Just as in the case of Joseph God
had His servant prepared to take Israel through another crisis, and Moses was
the man that God prepared for this job.
Moses was rescued from the edict that Pharaoh that all baby boys were to
be killed, and was raised in the household of Pharaoh. Moses knew that he was from Israel and sensed
that God had chosen him to lead the people out of Egypt. Israel knew that God would send a redeemer and
so Moses tried to do this on his own when he was forty years old by killing an
Egyptian. Moses fled to the land of
Midian where he lived as a shepherd for the next forty years of his life. At age 80 God called Moses to lead the Israelites
out of Egypt by speaking to him from a burning bush. The rest as is said is history and this is
what the psalmist writes about in this section.
The ten plagues that God performed
in Egypt were actually against different gods that Egypt worshiped, showing
them that there was only one True God and they should worship Him. The psalmist mentioned the ninth plague
first, the plague of darkness and then stayed in sequence in mentioning the
rest of them. The psalmist then proceeds
to bring up some of the miracles that God did while He led Israel to the
Promised Land, miracles of the keeping Israel comfortable with a cloud over
them during the day and fire at night to keep them warm. Giving the water out of a rock and food from
heaven along with some meat too, so we see that God cared for His people, but
when reading the text in Exodus through Deuteronomy we also see much disbelief
with the children of Israel.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have
not seen the types of miracles that God did to get Israel out of Egypt, but I
have seen an even bigger miracle, and that is that the Lord Jesus Christ has
freed me from the bondage of sin, which is far better than what He did with the
children of Israel, freeing them from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. Being freed from the bondage of sin makes me
free indeed, and ready to serve the Lord with the new life that He has given me
through the Lord Jesus Christ.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: “He has told you, O man, what
is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love
kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?”
Memory verses for the week:
2Peter 1:1-5
1. Simon Peter, a bond-servant and
apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who have received a faith
of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus
Christ: 2. Grace and mercy be multiplied
to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3. Seeing that His divine
power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through
the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 4. For by these He has granted to us His
precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the
divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
5. Nor for this very reason also,
applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence and in your moral
excellence knowledge,
7/14/2012 9:31:48 AM
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