SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/28/2012 7:22:47 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 108 PT-1
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 108:1-13
Message of the verses: In Today’s SD we will begin to look at the
108th Psalm by looking at several introductions from different Bible
Commentators in order to better understand this psalm and how we can apply this
psalm to our lives in order to bring glory to our Lord.
“TITLE AND
SUBJECT: A Song or Psalm of David. To be
sung jubilantly as a national hymn, or solemnly as a sacred psalm. We cannot
find it in our heart to dismiss this psalm by merely referring the reader first
to #Ps 57:7-11 and then to #Ps 60:5-12, though it will be at once seen that
those two portions of Scripture are almost identical with the verses before us.
It is true that most of the commentators have done so, and we are not so
presumptuous as to dispute their wisdom; but we hold for ourselves that the
words would not have been repeated if there had not been an object for so
doing, and that this object could not have been answered if every hearer of it
had said, "Ah, we had that before, and therefore we need not meditate upon
it again." The Holy Spirit is not so short of expressions that he needs to
repeat himself, and the repetition cannot be meant merely to fill the book:
there must be some intention in the arrangement of two former divine utterances
in a new connection; whether we can discover that intent is another matter. It
is at least ours to endeavour to do so, and we may expect divine assistance
therein.
“ We have before
us The Warrior’s Morning Song, with which he adores his God and strengthens his
heart before entering upon the conflicts of the day. As an old Prussian officer
was wont in prayer to invoke the aid of "his Majesty’s August Ally,"
so does David appeal to his God and set up his banner in Jehovah’s name.” (Charles H. Spurgeon)
“David
combines portions of his own previously written Pss. 57 and 60 to make up this
psalm commemorating God’s victories (vv. 1-5 are from 57:7-11; vv. 6-13 are
from 60:5-12). He deleted the laments
that began each psalm (57:1-6 and 60:1-4) while combining his own words of
exaltation and confidence in God with only slight word variation. NO specific historical occasion behind this
psalm is given.” (The John MacArthur
Study Bible)
“The
worship leader took the first five verses from 57:7-11 and the last eight from
60:5-12 and made a new psalm. (For
commentary, see those psalms.) God’s
truth is adaptable to new situations and old songs become ‘new songs’ when new
challenges are matched with changeless theology. The writer opened with praise to the Lord
(vv. 1-5) and then reminded Him of His promises to conquer Israel’s enemies
given them to the land (vv. 6-9). He
closed with prayer for God’s help and expression of confidence in the power of
the Lord (vv. 10-13). Praise, prayer,
and promises form a combination found often in the psalms, a pattern that we
ought to imitate in our own daily lives.”
(Warren Wiersbe)
Psalm
108:1-13: “1 ¶ «A Song, a Psalm of David.» My heart is
steadfast, O God; I will sing, I will sing praises, even with my soul. 2 Awake, harp and lyre; I will awaken the dawn!
3 I will give thanks to You, O LORD,
among the peoples, And I will sing praises to You among the nations. 4 For Your lovingkindness is great above the
heavens, And Your truth reaches to the skies. 5
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, And Your glory above all the
earth.
“6 ¶
That Your beloved may be delivered, Save with Your right hand, and
answer me! 7 God has spoken in His
holiness: "I will exult, I will portion out Shechem And measure out the
valley of Succoth. 8 "Gilead is
Mine, Manasseh is Mine; Ephraim also is the helmet of My head; Judah is My
scepter. 9 "Moab is My washbowl;
Over Edom I shall throw My shoe; Over Philistia I will shout aloud."
10 Who will bring me into the besieged
city? Who will lead me to Edom? 11 Have
not You Yourself, O God, rejected us? And will You not go forth with our
armies, O God? 12 Oh give us help
against the adversary, For deliverance by man is in vain. 13 Through God we will do valiantly, And it is He
who shall tread down our adversaries.”
The
following is what I wrote on Psalm 57:6-11 on March 13, 2012: “Dr.
Wiersbe writes this about the order of this psalm: “In verses 1-5, the order is prayer (v.1),
witness (vv. 2-3) and a description of the enemy (v.4), followed by the
refrain, but in this section the order is the enemy (v. 6), witness to the Lord
(vv. 7-8), and praise (vv. 9-11), with praise as the emphasis.”
Now that we know the order we will
look at these verses and tie the in with praise. We can see in verse six that David is
comparing his enemies with hunters who were hunting him as their prey. Then, because of his confidence and faith in
the Lord David has great reason to praise the Lord in verses 7-11. David had been through many difficult
situations and his confidence and faith in the Lord had grown and so he knew
that he could praise the Lord even while in this difficult situation. When you read about David’s experiences in
1Samuel, experiences of being on the run we do not get all of what was going on
inside of David’s heart. When we read
the psalms that go along with this ten year period of being on the run we can
better understand how much David learned and leaned upon the Lord during this
difficult time in his life. We see this
time of testing that turns into trusting not only in David’s life, but also in
Abraham’s life and Moses’ life and also in the life of Joseph. We can even see a wilderness testing for our
Lord Jesus Christ from Mark1 and also the 4th chapters of Matthew
and Luke.
Let us
talk about “My heart is steadfast” and the word steadfast. Dr. Wiersbe states “that a steadfast heart is
a heart that is fixed on the Lord’s promises and not wavering between doubt and
faith (Ps. 51:10; 108:1; 112:7; 119:5).
This same word is used to describe the constancy of the heavenly bodies
(Ps. 8:3; 74:16).”
The prayer
is a prayer that seems to last throughout the day as it begins by David
actually praising the Lord at dawn. I
know that there is a verse in 1Thes. that tells us to “pray without ceasing”
which in theory is probably what David was doing. I believe the this verse means to have an
attitude of prayer all of the time which is what David was doing at this time.
“Each Day Is a Day of Exalting the Lord”
(vv. 5 & 11): “5 Be exalted above the heavens, O God; Let Your
glory be above all the earth. 11 Be exalted above the heavens, O God; Let Your
glory be above all the earth.”
These two verses are the refrain
of Psalm 57 and “they call upon the Lord to manifest His greatness in such a
way that people had to say, ‘This is the Lord’s doing; it is marvelous in our
eyes.’”
Dr. Wiersbe
writes these concluding words at the end of his commentary, “If we are praying,
trusting, and praising the Lord, we should have no problem exalting His name in
all that we say, do, and suffer.” “The
elements of prayer, praise, and a desire for God to be magnified will transform
any cave into a Holy of Holies to the glory of God.”
As I look
at the life of David I am able to see why David is a man after God’s own heart,
and a man that I have great admiration for.”
Now we will
look at my commentary from March 19, 2012 on Psalm 60 which actually included that
entire psalm.
““Abandonment—A Troubled People (vv. 1-5): “1 ¶
«For the choir director; according to Shushan Eduth. A Mikhtam of David,
to teach; when he struggled with Aram-naharaim and with Aram-zobah, and Joab
returned, and smote twelve thousand of Edom in the Valley of Salt.» O God, You
have rejected us. You have broken us; You have been angry; O, restore us.
2 You have made the land quake, You have
split it open; Heal its breaches, for it totters. 3 You have made Your people experience
hardship; You have given us wine to drink that makes us stagger. 4 You have given a banner to those who fear
You, That it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah. 5 That Your beloved may be delivered, Save with
Your right hand, and answer us!”
“1 ¶ For the choir director:
A psalm of David useful for teaching, regarding the time David fought
Aram-naharaim and Aram-zobah, and Joab returned and killed 12,000 Edomites in
the Valley of Salt. To be sung to the tune “Lily of the Testimony.’’! You have rejected us, O God, and broken our
defenses. You have been angry with us;
now restore us to your favor. 2 You have
shaken our land and split it open. Seal
the cracks, for the land trembles. 3 You
have been very hard on us, making us
drink wine that sent us reeling. 4 But
you have raised a banner for those who fear you- a rallying point in the face of attack. Interlude 5
Now rescue your beloved people.
Answer and save us by your power.”
(NLT)
The first verse gives the
background for the occasion of writing this psalm and we see that David and the
army of Israel were in Syria fighting there when the Edomites came and attacked
Israel so David sent Joab who was the commander of his army back to fight the
Edomites while David stayed in Syria to fight against the Syrians. The valley of Salt is below the Dead Sea.
In verses 2-5 we see how upsetting
it was for the people of Israel to be defeated by Edom, but because David was a
man of faith and because David knew the covenant that God had made with Israel
to protect Israel, David rallied around his faith in the Lord and trusted Him
for victory. Verse four speaks of a
banner and we find this is the name of the Lord, Jehovah Nissi—the Lord our
Banner as found in Exodus 17:15. “Moses
built an altar and named it The LORD is My Banner.”
“Encouragement—A Triumphant Message” (vv. 6-8): “6 ¶
God has spoken in His holiness: "I will exult, I will portion out
Shechem and measure out the valley of Succoth. 7 "Gilead is Mine, and Manasseh is Mine;
Ephraim also is the helmet of My head; Judah is My scepter. 8 "Moab is My washbowl; Over Edom I shall
throw My shoe; Shout loud, O Philistia, because of Me!’”
“6 ¶ God has promised this by his holiness: “I
will divide up Shechem with joy. I will
measure out the valley of Succoth. 7
Gilead is mine, and Manasseh,
too. Ephraim, my helmet, will produce my warriors, and Judah, my scepter, will produce my kings.
8 But Moab, my washbasin, will become my
servant, and I will wipe my feet on
Edom and shout in triumph over
Philistia.’” (NLT)
It is not told to us when David got
this message from the Lord, but we know that David was a man of prayer and he
also had one of the priests with him and so it is possible that when David
heard of the attack of the Edomites that he asked the Lord how he was to respond
and this was the answer he got from the Lord so David then sent Joab to fight
against Edom.
We see in these verses a
description of the land of Israel, a land that God had given to Israel. We see how the Lord divided up the land of
Israel and these verses speak of Ephraim being the helmet for Ephraim was a
strong tribe called to defend Israel and Judah was the tribe where the kings
would come from, David being the first king out of the tribe of Judah. Genesis 49:10 says, “"The scepter shall
not depart from Judah, Nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until
Shiloh comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” This was a prophecy given to Jacob from
God. Jacob was about to die when he
blessed all of his sons and the two sons of Joseph telling them about the
future of their tribes. We see here that
Messiah (Shiloh) would come from the tribe of Judah.
God describes Moab as a washbasin
and Edom would be nothing more than a servant who cleaned dirty shoes. It must be remembered that Moab was the
nation where David’s great-grandmother Ruth came from. See the last part of Ruth chapter 4.
“Enablement—A Trustworthy Lord” (vv. 9-12): “9
Who will bring me into the besieged city? Who will lead me to Edom?
10 Have not You Yourself, O God,
rejected us? And will You not go forth with our armies, O God? 11 O give us help against the adversary, For deliverance by man is in
vain. 12 Through God we shall do
valiantly, And it is He who will tread down our adversaries.”
“9
Who will bring me into the fortified city? Who will bring me victory over Edom? 10 Have you rejected us, O God? Will you no longer march with our armies? 11 Oh, please help us against our enemies, for all human help is useless. 12 With God’s help we will do mighty things, for he will trample down our foes.”
Verse nine speaks of a fortified
city, and this could be Petra which was the capital of Edom. This city was a city that was greatly
fortified and it gave the Edomites a reason to brag about it, but God still
destroyed them and one of the reasons was because of their arrogance. In the book of Revelations we see that God is
going to hide Israel and many Bible Commentators believe that the place where
this will be is in the city of Petra.
David believed that God would bring
victory to Israel for David was not trusting in humans, but in the Lord.
I have mentioned that the
background for this psalm is found in 2Samuel 8:1-14 and in verse thirteen of
that section we read the following: “So David made a name for himself when he
returned from killing 18,000 Arameans in the Valley of Salt.” It is not impossible that David was beginning
to become proud and perhaps the Lord was using the defeat that came from Edom
as something to humble him, but David being a man after God’s own heart would
begin again to trust in the Lord as we see in these last verses of Psalm 60.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: The first part of Psalm 108 has been written
into one of my favorite songs (“Be Exalted”) and on today this is even more
precious to me as my 90 year old mother is very close to coming into the
presence of her Lord and because of this we can surely exalt the Lord.
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Draw the strength that we
need from the One who is all powerful, all compassionate, and all loving.
Memory verses for the week:
2Peter 1:1-7
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 peace 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 ¶ Now for this very reason also, applying all
diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence,
knowledge, 6 and in your knowledge,
self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance,
godliness, 7 and in your godliness,
brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
7/28/2012 8:09:37 AM
Mthedsig0nofu1984 Toney Reynolds Download
ReplyDeletecompcothumbter