SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 12/22/2011 9:18:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm 6 PT-1
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 6
Message of the verses: “1 For the choir director; with stringed
instruments, upon an eight-string lyre. A Psalm of David. O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger, Nor
chasten me in Your wrath. 2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am pining away;
Heal me, O LORD, for my bones are dismayed. 3 And my soul is greatly dismayed;
But You, O LORD-how long? 4 Return, O LORD, rescue my soul; Save me because of
Your lovingkindness. 5 For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who
will give You thanks? 6 I am weary with my sighing; Every night I make my bed
swim, I dissolve my couch with my tears. 7 My eye has wasted away with grief;
It has become old because of all my adversaries.
“8 Depart from me, all you who do iniquity, For
the LORD has heard the voice of my weeping. 9 The LORD has heard my
supplication, The LORD receives my prayer. 10 All my enemies will be ashamed
and greatly dismayed; They shall turn back, they will suddenly be ashamed.”
It is not
clear as to when David wrote this psalm, but in the psalm we see that David is
ill and thinks that he will soon die. I
think that is one of the beauties of the book of Psalms, in that whatever a
person seems to be feeling there seems to be a psalm that will help.
The Pain of Discipline (vv.1-3): We see verse one of this psalm repeated in
verse one of psalm 38, and it has to do with discipline. We also see David using the covenant name for
God in this psalm eight times, “LORD” which is Jehovah.
Dr. Wiersbe points out that God
usually rebukes His children and then disciplines them when needed, but it is
that of a loving father as seen in Hebrews 12:5-6 and also in Proverbs
3:11-12. The idea of this chastening
from the Lord is always to bring them back into fellowship with God.
We see in
this psalm that David was sick, and he was surrounded by his foes, who were
evil doers and his enemies. He was weak
from the sickness and when you put all of this together you will see that David
felt that God was surely mad at him because of the circumstances that he found
himself in. Let us look at verses 2-3 in
the KJV: “2 Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my
bones are vexed. 3
My soul is also sore vexed:
but thou, O LORD, how long?” The
highlighted word vexed is also used in John 12:27 “Now is my soul troubled; and
what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I
unto this hour.” This word vexed, when
put into the Septuagint (The Greek translation of the OT) is the same word as
in John 12:27 and this was very close to when the Lord would go to the cross.
Dr. Wiersbe
writes that the words “How long” are seen at least 16 times in the Psalms and
he says the answer to that question is “I will discipline you until you learn
the lesson I want you to learn and are equipped for the work I want you to do.”
The futility of Death (vv. 4-5): “4
Return, O LORD, rescue my soul; Save me because of Your lovingkindness. 5
For there is no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks?”
We see in verse five that David
is asking the Lord to return to him so David must have felt that the Lord had
gone away from him, that there was not the fellowship with the Lord that there
had been before the incident that David was writing about in this psalm. David knew that the Lord was merciful as most
Jews knew for we see in Exodus 34:6-7 “"The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate
and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth.”
In the NASB
we see the word Sheol, and this is speaking of the place of the dead, and David
is saying that he could not praise the Lord from the place of the dead, so
David wants the Lord to heal him. This
is a similar prayer that Hezekiah prayed when he was about to die and God
answered his prayer and gave him 15 more years to live.
In the OT
times there was not as much known about the afterlife as we know now since the
Lord Jesus has come and conquered death for all of His own. We know that absence from the body is present
with the Lord, but this was not known then.
We see in the parable that Jesus spoke about the rich man and Lazarus
that the dead in the OT times went to a place called Abraham’s bosom, “Lu
16:22 "Now the poor man died and
was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died
and was buried.” Some believe that when
Jesus was resurrected from the grave that he brought all of the OT saints with
Him to heaven, and others think that Abraham’s bosom was actually heaven.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I can understand the feeling that David
thought God was mad at him, but you can’t always go by your feelings. Job felt the same way as we learned when
going through the book of Job. The Bible
says that God will never leave us or forsake us, and that is a great
promise. We can however loose fellowship
with the Lord by sinning and not confessing that sin. This is something I do not desire to do, for
fellowship with the Lord is necessary for our growth and maturity in our walk
with God. We can learn what it is that
God desires for us to accomplish for Him that will give Him glory through these
accomplishments. Psalm 139:23-24 are
essential in our walk with the Lord, for we surely need the Holy Spirit to
search our hearts for sins that we may be harboring in our hearts.
My Steps of Faith for
Today:
1. Psalm
139:23-24
2. Romans
12:1-2
3. Phil.
4:11b
4. Proverbs
3:5-6
12/22/2011 10:10:56 AM
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