Monday, November 12, 2012

The Lord is True, The Lord be Praised (Psalm 135:15-21)


SPIRITIUAL DIARY FOR 11/12/2012 8:15:59 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                               Focus:  Psalm 135 PT-3

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Psalm 135:13-21

 

            Message of the verses:  The Lord Is the True and Living God—He Cares for Us (vv. 15-18):  “15 ¶  The idols of the nations are but silver and gold, The work of man’s hands. 16  They have mouths, but they do not speak; They have eyes, but they do not see; 17  They have ears, but they do not hear, Nor is there any breath at all in their mouths. 18  Those who make them will be like them, Yes, everyone who trusts in them.”

 

            The verses above are almost the same from Psalm 115:4-8.  When commenting on Psalm 115 I quoted Warren Wiersbe and would like to also use that quote for this section of Psalm 135: “But the greatest tragedy is not what the idols cannot do but what they can do to the people who worship them.  We become like the God we worship.  As we worship the true and living God, He transforms our ears to hear His truth and the cries of those in need.  He give us eyes to see His Word and His world and the path He wants us to walk.  Our ‘spiritual senses’ develop and we become more mature in Jesus Christ (Heb. 5:10-14).  But those who worship false gods loose the use of their spiritual senses and become blind to the light and deaf to God’s voice.”

            At the beginning of this psalm we mentioned that the psalmist took different parts of Scripture to write this psalm.  We see in this part of Psalm 135 that the psalmist writes about worthless idols, idols that are made by man that have eyes, but cannot see, ears but cannot speak, noses, but cannot breathe and so we wonder why these people who make them or buy them have so little sense to worship them.  The answer to that question is that they are blinded because of their sin and as Paul writes in Romans 1:22  Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23  and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.”  We see in this section of Romans one from verses 19-32 a series of judgments that come from the Lord to those who fall into these things that Paul writes about.  The person or nation becomes blinded by their sin and then we see the phrase “God gave them over” and then talks about a specific sin that He is giving them over to.  Idol worship is mentioned here along with sins of sexual depravity, homosexual sins, and then at the end of the list Paul writes these words, “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.  There is one more sin that is added to this list of a failing nation and that is the cursing of the people of Israel which is spoken about in Genesis 12:1-3, “1 ¶  Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, And from your relatives And from your father’s house, To the land which I will show you; 2  And I will make you a great nation, And I will bless you, And make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; 3  And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.’”  God is saying to Abraham here that the people or nations who bless Israel will be blessed by God, and the people that curse Israel just because of who they are will be cursed by God.

            In a message given before the 2012 election Dr. John MacArthur states that during the democratic convention that the democratic party put into their platform all of the curses that are found in Romans 1:19-32, and then this nation went out and elected a democratic president.  Dose this show were we are as a nation?

 

            The Lord Be Praised—He Is with Us (vv. 19-21): 19  O house of Israel, bless the LORD; O house of Aaron, bless the LORD; 20  O house of Levi, bless the LORD; You who revere the LORD, bless the LORD. 21  Blessed be the LORD from Zion, Who dwells in Jerusalem. Praise the LORD!”

 

            There has never been a nation who has had the God of heaven dwell with them like the nation of Israel.  God was with them from the time He began their nation as He called out Abram and Sarah and led them to the Promised Land and gave them a miraculous child, Isaac.  He was with them when they went down to Egypt and live there in bondage for 400 years and then He brought them out with a strong hand by doing ten miracles destroying the so called gods of Egypt.  When the tabernacle was built God’s glory rested in the holy of holies and led Israel through the desert for forty years and then continued to rest in the tabernacle until the temple was built by Solomon where the glory of the Lord filled the temple.  We read in the book of Ezekiel that the glory of the Lord left the temple and was not present in the second temple like the first.  The second temple was actually better because the second person of the trinity, Jesus Christ went into this temple when He came to earth.  Now we see the glory of the Lord in the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church that is in all true believers.  This enable the believers to praise the Lord in a way that will please Him, but there is coming a day when the Lord Jesus will return to planet earth and will sit on David’s throne in Jerusalem and rule over all the earth from there for 1000 years.  This is something well worthy of praising the Lord about.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I read in the book of 1Thesolonians these words, “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”  As I see the difficulty that is facing the nation that I live in I can take comfort that God is in control, and that God will care for His Church as He promised to and that in all of this I can give thanks to the Lord as I praise Him.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to be taught contentment from the Lord and continue to seek to have my mind transformed by the Word of God.

 

Memory verses for the week:  Psalm 130:1-4

 

            1 Out of the debts I cried to You, O LORD.  2 Lord hear my voice!  Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.  3 If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?  4 But there is forgiveness in you, that you may be feared.

 

11/12/2012 9:23:27 AM

 

No comments:

Post a Comment