SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
1/29/2012 7:36:07 AM
My Worship Time Focus: David’s
Examples of Prayer
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
35
Message of the verses: The first thing that I would like to mention
about Psalm 35 is that it is an imprecatory psalm. I quoted from Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on the
importance of the imprecatory psalms when I did the commentary on Psalm 5 and
so I am not going to go over all of that in this introduction for this psalm,
but ask that those interested who have not read the commentary on Psalm 5 do so
in order to have a better understanding about imprecatory psalms as there will
be more of them as we go along with our study of the psalms.
The background of this psalm is again the hounding
of Saul as he goes after David because his desire is to kill David and have one
of his sons be the next king in Israel, however Saul knows in his heart of
hearts that God has chosen David to be king in Israel, but there were times
when Saul would listen to his men who also wanted David dead. Saul’s men would spread lies about David and
this would enhance the anger in Saul for David and instead of doing the
business of the kingdom he would go out after David. Dr. Wiersbe writes at the end of the
introduction of this psalm these words, “David made three requests of God, and
eventually He granted all of them.”
Protect Me (vv. 1-10): “1 A Psalm of David: Contend, O LORD, with
those who contend with me; Fight against those who fight against me. 2 Take
hold of buckler and shield And rise up for my help. 3 Draw also the spear and
the battle-axe to meet those who pursue me; Say to my soul, "I am your
salvation." 4 Let those be ashamed and dishonored who seek my life; Let
those be turned back and humiliated who devise evil against me. 5 Let them be
like chaff before the wind, With the angel of the LORD driving them on. 6 Let
their way be dark and slippery, With the angel of the LORD pursuing them. 7 For
without cause they hid their net for me; Without cause they dug a pit for my
soul. 8 Let destruction come upon him unawares, And let the net which he hid
catch himself; Into that very destruction let him fall. 9 And my soul shall
rejoice in the LORD; It shall exult in His salvation. 10 All my bones will say,
"LORD, who is like You, Who
delivers the afflicted from him who is too strong for him, And the
afflicted and the needy from him who robs him?’”
When David was a teenager Samuel came to the house
of Jessie who was David’s father looking to anoint the next king of
Israel. Samuel was mourning over the
fact that Saul had not turned out the way that he hoped he would for Saul had
turned against following the commands of the Lord and could no longer be
trusted. As Samuel was mourning over
Saul the Lord came to him and told him to fill his flask with oil so that he
could go and anoint the next king of Israel who was a son of Jesse. Samuel was frightened of Saul and so the Lord
told him to go to the house of Jesse in Bethlehem for a sacrifice. This story is told in 1Samuel 16. When Samuel got there he began to look at
Jesse’s sons and none of them were the ones that God had chosen. Some of his sons were very handsome and
strong and this must have reminded Samuel of what the people thought about
Saul, for Saul was a king that the people wanted, but David was the king that
God wanted to rule over Israel for he was a man after God’s own heart. After looking over all of Jesse’s sons and
not finding who he was looking for Samuel asked Jesse if he had any other sons. He replied that he had a younger son who was
tending the sheep in the pasture. Samuel
told Jesse to go and quickly get him and when Samuel saw him he knew that this
was the one whom God had chosen to be Israel’s next king and he anointed him
with oil.
Now
we fast forward to the time when David is writing this psalm and we wonder what
is going through the mind of David as Saul’s men continue to chase him and try
to kill him. This would go on for ten
years and could it be that David is beginning to doubt that God would fulfill his
promise of making David king over Israel.
Remember the story of the butterfly and the struggle that it had to get
out of the cocoon well we can look at David as being in that stage of
struggling as he is chased by Saul and his men.
We can also look back at the life of Joseph and see the same thing as
Joseph was put in a pit by his brothers and then sold in Egypt where he was
falsely accused of rape and then put into prison unjustly for a few years
before being elevated to the second in command of the nation of Egypt. Years later Moses, who knew that God had
chosen him to lead the people out of Egypt tried in vain to do this when he was
forty years old, but had to flea for his life and tend sheep for the next forty
years before God called him back to Egypt to lead the children of Israel out of
Egypt. Years later David was also
tending sheep as God chose him to lead the children of Israel back to the Lord
by anointing him king. Many, many years
after this Peter would write in 1Peter 5 these words, “1 Therefore, I exhort
the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of
Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, 2 shepherd the
flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but
voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with
eagerness; 3 nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but
proving to be examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you
will receive the unfading crown of glory.”
We see in this passage that Peter was an elder and now called his fellow
elders to shepherd the flock of God, God is calling those who belong to Him
sheep and Jesus Christ the Chief Shepherd and so we can see the importance in
understanding how sheep act, for people are like sheep and perhaps we can now
understand why two of the most prominent people of the Old Testament were
shepherds, in fact we know that probably Joseph tended sheep too before sold
into slavery. When John MacArthur was
preaching through the book of 1Peter he tells the story of how he and his
family went to New Zealand to see how sheep were tended there. He also read a book by the most famous
shepherd who lived in New Zealand in order to understand how the Elders,
Pastors, are to shepherd the flock of God and according to him learned a
valuable lesson from being there and from reading the book too.
Isaiah
writes these words in Isaiah 53:6 “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each
of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all
To fall on Him. 7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open
His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is
silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.”
I
said all of this because I think that when we are in a position that we don’t
like and don’t understand why we are there we may be like David, or Moses, or
Joseph being prepared to do something for the Lord and as we read through
psalms like Psalm 35 and see how David reacted we can learn from them as we go
through these difficult times in our life that perhaps we are being prepared by
God for something special.
We
can see two aspects in verse one of Psalm 35, one of a soldier and one of a
judge, for David wants God to plead his case for him and also wants God to
fight for David. We see images of the
soldier in verses two and three as David asks God to fight for him with a spear
and a battle-ax while being clothed with buckler and shield. David knows in his heart that God had him
anointed as king and for that reason he asks God to fight against his enemies
for him.
David
wanted his enemies to fall into the traps that they had set for him, and these
traps were probably holes in the ground covered by sticks and leaves that were
used to catch animals, but the animals were the ones who were setting the traps
for David.
We
will see in each section of this psalm that David will end the three sections
with a song of praise to the Lord (vv. 9-10, 17-18, and 27-28).
We
will continue with Psalm 25 tomorrow, Lord willing.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: David had to have a lot of contentment and
trust in the Lord as he faced the troubles of being hunted by Saul for ten
years, and my prayer is that I will learn from how David lived his life while
he, like the butterfly, was being strengthened by his struggling.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
1.
Proverbs
3:5-6.
2.
Romans
12:1-2.
3.
Romans
8:28.
4.
Philippians
4:11b.
5.
Ephesians
6:10-18.
1/29/2012
8:47:54
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