Psalm Eleven

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/29/2011 6:40:39 AM

 

 

My Worship Time                                                                     Focus:  Psalm 11

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                      Reference:  Psalm11

 

            Message of the verses:  “1 For the choir director. A Psalm of David: In the LORD I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain; 2 For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. 3 If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?"  4The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD’S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. 5 The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates. 6 Upon the wicked He will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. 7 For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face.”

 

            It is unknown as to what time in David’s life that he wrote this psalm, but there was some kind of a crisis, and in this particular crisis in the life of David he chose not to run, but to put his trust in the Lord to take care of it while staying put.  There were other times in the life of David when it was a good chose to run, like when he was living with Saul and Saul tried to kill him, which would put David on the run for about ten years, and that was a wise choice too.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “Whatever the crisis, the psalm teaches us that we must choose between fear (walking by sight) or trust (walking by faith), listening to human counsel or obeying the wisdom that comes from the Lord (James 1:5).”

 

            What David Should Do (v.1): “1 For the choir director. A Psalm of David:  In the LORD I take refuge; How can you say to my soul, "Flee as a bird to your mountain.” When writing about this psalm John MacArthur spoke of consolers who were involved in decisions that were being made that took place and thus this psalm was written.  We see that in verse one where David’s consolers were telling him to leave, yet David did not want to leave, but to trust the Lord to care for this crisis while staying put.  David was the leader of God’s people and had a responsibility to care for them and therefore did not want to leave Jerusalem.

 

            What the Enemy Does (v. 2):  “2 For, behold, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.”  We see in this verse that the consolers were consoling David that there were enemies who were ready to shoot arrows at him, but this was probably a metaphor and not real arrows.  There was probably a secret plan to do harm to David, but David chose to stay and face the crisis, and what we can be sure of is that David got counsel from the Lord to stay and not flee.

 

            What Can the Righteous Do? (v. 3):  “3 If the foundations are destroyed, What can the righteous do?’”  The answer to that question is to lay the foundations again, for there are times when that is the only thing left to do and we see evidences of that in Scripture.  We see in the book of 1Samuel and chapter 12 that Samuel laid again the foundation of the covenant and we also see in the book of Ezra that he laid the foundation of the temple again. Jesus spoke of troubles that were in the churches that are described in Revelations 2-3 and gave advice to take care of those troubles, and this too speaks of laying again the foundations and gets going on the right track again.  As believers we seem to get off track and need to examine ourselves to make sure we have our foundations laid properly.   

 

            What God Will Do (vv. 4-7):  “4 The LORD is in His holy temple; the LORD’S throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. 5 The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked, And the one who loves violence His soul hates. 6 Upon the wicked He will rain snares; Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup. 7 For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness; The upright will behold His face.”

            In an earlier SD I spoke of a song that I heard many years ago that was written about different characters in the Bible and the chorus went something like this “He didn’t look down, He didn’t look around, He just looked up, up, up” and then repeated those lines again.  The point is that David did not look down or around, but he looked up to get his help from the Lord who was and is in His holy temple. 

            We see here that the Lord will test both the righteous and the wicked, and we can be sure that the wicked will fail, but the righteous should trust the Lord and thus pass the test, and this will bring glory to the Lord as we saw recently in the book of Job.

            In verse six we see different ways that the Lord uses in judgment against the wicked, the first is like what happened to Sodom and Gomorrah.  The second is burning heat from a desert, and this could be a picture of hell, as hell will surely be hot, and the last is a picture of drinking from a cup and we can assume that will be poison.

              We see in verse seven that those who are the Lord’s own will someday see His face.  When we see a person’s face it means we have access to that person.  This will be a great day when we look upon the face of our Lord.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  When crisis come into my life I have to look up and not look down or look around and by looking up I can trust that the Lord will give me the guidance that I am in need of.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:

 

1.       Continue to trust the Lord to guide me.

2.       Continue to seek to learn contentment.

 

12/29/2011 7:28:34 AM