SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 7/21/2012 9:14:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 106 PT-4
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 106:34-46
Message of the verses: We will look at the next major point from
Psalm 106 in Today’s SD. This is a psalm
of history, a psalm of seeing the grace and mercy of the Lord to the children
of Israel in the early years of that nation.
Repeated Rebellion (vv. 34-46): 34 ¶
They did not destroy the peoples, As the LORD commanded them, 35 But they mingled with the nations And learned
their practices, 36 And served their
idols, Which became a snare to them. 37
They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons,
38 And shed innocent blood, The blood of
their sons and their daughters, Whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan;
And the land was polluted with the blood. 39
Thus they became unclean in their practices, And played the harlot in
their deeds. 40 Therefore the anger of
the LORD was kindled against His people And He abhorred His inheritance.
41 Then He gave them into the hand of
the nations, And those who hated them ruled over them. 42 Their enemies also oppressed them, And they
were subdued under their power. 43 Many
times He would deliver them; They, however, were rebellious in their counsel,
And so sank down in their iniquity. 44
Nevertheless He looked upon their distress When He heard their cry;
45 And He remembered His covenant for their sake, And
relented according to the greatness of His lovingkindness. 46 He also made them objects of compassion In
the presence of all their captors.”
Verse
thirty-four speaks of Israel’s failure in defeating the godless nations that
were in Canaan, something that God told them to do. We have spoken about this in earlier SD’s,
the fact that God was calling upon Israel to defeat these godless nations, for
God had given these nations a very long time to repent, but they did not repent
and so God commanded Israel to destroy them.
In the same way this would also happen to Israel, with the exception
that God would remember the covenant that He had made with Abraham, never to
completely destroy Israel. I want to
quote Ezekiel 5:13 which was written when God’s wrath was upon the nation of
Israel for their sins, sins that are mentioned in this section of Psalm 106,
but the principle can be seen in why God’s wrath was taken out upon the nations
that are spoken of in verse thirty-four:
“’Thus My anger will be spent and I will satisfy My wrath on them, and I
will be appeased; then they will know that I, the LORD, have spoken in My zeal
when I have spent My wrath upon them.”
This verse speaks of God’s anger being “spent” and therefore He will be satisfied
when His punishment was complete. I
think that it is in the 15th chapter of Revelations that we read
that at the end of the “bowl” or “vial” judgments that God sends upon the whole
world that His wrath will be complete, will be made perfect. Re 15:1
Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who
had seven plagues, which
are the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.”
When the
Lord Jesus Christ was upon the cross and had taken all of the punishment for or
sins, all of God’s wrath was taken out upon Him on the cross He spoke these
words, “It is finished.” We see these
words recorded in John 19:30 “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he
said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” The word in the Greek for finished is teleo
tel-eh’-o,” and I am told that when a person was in prison during that time and
was getting out because his crime had been paid for they stamped that word on a
document that they gave to him at his release showing that he had paid in full
for his crime. Jesus paid in full for
our crimes of sin when He suffered and died on the cross and therefore God was
satisfied with Christ’s payment for our sins.
This is the meaning of the word propitiation, satisfaction of an angry
God.
The people
of Israel knew the terms of the covenant that God had made with them which is
recorded in Deuteronomy 28-30, but they did not keep their end of the covenant,
for this covenant found in these verses of Deuteronomy was what is called a
conditional covenant, where Israel had to keep up their end of the covenant or
God would invoke the punishments of the covenant that was made with them. If it were not for the grace of God Israel
would have been destroyed many times over, but God had a conditional covenant
with Abraham to never completely destroy Israel and the psalmist knew of this
covenant, but still prayed that God would not destroy them. The section that the psalmist is writing
about here is from the days of the Judges, which is a depressing book to read
in that Israel would sin and then cry out to God and God would save them and
then they would repeat this all the way through the book of Judges, but they
kept going lower and lower each time this happened eventually coming to the
place where they would offer their children on the altar to pagan gods.
When Israel
came into the land God told them to destroy all of the nations that were in the
Promised Land, which they did not do and these nations became a stumbling block
to Israel and eventually they actually became worse than the nations that they
were suppose to destroy, thus God taking the necessary action of having the
Babylonians defeating Israel and taken many of them into exile. I have looked at what happened to Israel when
they first went into the land and have compared it to a person when they first
become a true believer in Jesus Christ.
All of our sins are forgiven when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. From that point on we are being tempted to
sin from the world, the flesh, and the Devil because we now have a new nature
and all three of these enemies are against us.
When Israel went into the Promised Land they needed faith in the Lord to
defeat their enemies, but they chose to look at themselves and not look to God
and therefore their enemies ended up bringing them to a point of doing what
they were doing, sinning by worshiping idols.
As a believer we have to walk by the same kind of faith that was given
to us when we accepted the Lord as our Savior.
God has given us everything we need to walk in this new faith to please
Him, but we still fail, just like the children of Israel failed in not
defeating their enemies. We need to
learn from their mistakes.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: “Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus
the Lord, so walk in Him.” (Col. 2:6)
Romans 12:1-2 “1 ¶ I beseech you
therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a
living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
2 And be not conformed to this world:
but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is
that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” How do we become transformed in the renewing
of our minds? Form the very Word of God
replacing our old mind set. “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.” (2Peter 1:4) Putting on the armor of God that is described
in Ephesians 2:10-18 is also necessary in walking with the Lord, for when we
put on the spiritual armor we are actually putting on the Lord Jesus Christ as
seen in “Ro 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no
provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”
My Steps of Faith for
Today: Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians
6:10-18; Prov. 3:5-6; Eph. 4:11b; Rom. 13:14; Col. 2:6; and 2Pe. 1:4.
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 in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3. seeing that His
divine power has grant 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 of the world by lust.
5. Now for this reason also, having 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.
7/21/2012 10:40:38 AM
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