May 16, 2010, 8:03 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: Thank the Lord
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: 1Samuel 12:6-11
Message
of the verses: “6 ¶ Then Samuel said to the people, "It is
the LORD who appointed Moses and Aaron and who brought your fathers up from the
land of Egypt. 7 "So now, take your
stand, that I may plead with you before the LORD concerning all the righteous
acts of the LORD which He did for you and your fathers. 8 "When Jacob went into Egypt and your
fathers cried out to the LORD, then the LORD sent Moses and Aaron who brought
your fathers out of Egypt and settled them in this place. 9 "But they forgot the LORD their God, so
He sold them into the hand of Sisera, captain of the army of Hazor, and into
the hand of the Philistines and into the hand of the king of Moab, and they
fought against them. 10 "They cried
out to the LORD and said, ’We have sinned
because we have forsaken the LORD and have served the Baals and the Ashtaroth;
but now deliver us from the hands of our enemies, and we will serve You.’ 11 "Then the LORD sent
Jerubbaal and Bedan and Jephthah and Samuel, and delivered you from the hands
of your enemies all around, so that you lived in security.”
This
SD begins the second main point from Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on 1Samuel which he has entitled “A nation’s iniquity,) and it covers
verses 6-25. The first sub-point under
it is today’s SD.
Samuel
tells the children of Israel a history of the nation from the time they were
taken into Egypt by their father Jacob up until the present time. The first thing that he points out is that it
was God who appointed Moses and Aaron to bring the children of Israel out of
Egypt, and not some men who had appointed them.
Samuel
begins this part of his talk by actually putting these people on trial for in
verse seven Samuel says to them, “take your stand” which is
language that is used in a court trial.
Samuel’s reason for doing this was
because he wanted to show the righteousness of the Lord in His dealings with
Israel, and also Israel’s unfaithfulness
to the Lord. Israel was the only nation
on earth in which the Lord had made a covenant with and from the reading of
Deuteronomy 28-30 is part of the conditional covenant that God had made with
Israel, in which the Lord told Israel if you do these good things you will be
blessed and if you do these bad things you will be cursed, and so Israel could
look back on their history and see the blessings and the cursing that had come
from the Lord.
There
were seven cycles of disobedience, discipline, and deliverance in the times of
the judges of Israel and the Lord had always provided a leader to lead the nation
out of the discipline part of this cycle when the people cried out to the
Lord. He is making the point that they
did not trust the Lord and that is why they asked for a king.
In
explaining 1Samuel 12:11 Warren Wiersbe writes the following: “Jerubbaal (‘let Baal contend
for himself’) is Gideon, and Bedan is
probably Barak. Samuel included himself,
for he was the last of the judges (7:15).
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: As I go
through this time of indecision on things concerning our church leadership this
section kind of adds to the indecision for me.
After all I was the one who began the prayer meetings concerning our
need of a Pastor. (Now I realize that it
was the Lord who was the One who prompted me in doing so). The Lord is the One who brought our church
leadership here but as a person of His Word there are some things that do not
add up to me about it and this is part of the indecision. I want to continue to pray about this and
seek the Lord to change my heart in a way that is completely His will in all of
this.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Proverbs 3:5-6 is my step of faith for today.
May 16, 2010, 8:37 AM
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