SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
1/26/2012 8:23:49 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Fear and
Trust the goodness of the Lord
Bible
Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
34
Message of the verses: “1 A Psalm of David when he feigned madness
before Abimelech, who drove him away and he departed: I will bless the LORD at
all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul will make its
boast in the LORD; The humble will hear it and rejoice. 3 O magnify the LORD
with me, And let us exalt His name together. 4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And
delivered me from all my fears. 5 They looked to Him and were radiant,
And their faces will never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD
heard him And saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD
encamps around those who fear Him, And rescues them. 8 O taste and see that the
LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! 9 O fear the LORD, you His saints;
For to those who fear Him
there is no want. 10 The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; But they who seek the LORD shall not
be in want of any good thing.
“11 Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the
LORD. 12 Who is the man who desires life And loves length of days that
he may see good? 13 Keep your tongue from evil And your lips from speaking
deceit. 14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it. 15 The eyes
of the LORD are toward the righteous And His ears are open to their cry. 16 The face of the LORD is against
evildoers, To cut off the memory of them from the earth. 17 The
righteous cry, and the LORD hears And delivers them out of all their troubles. 18
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted And saves those who are crushed in
spirit. 19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the LORD delivers him
out of them all. 20 He keeps all his bones, Not one of them is broken. 21 Evil
shall slay the wicked, And those who hate the righteous will be condemned. 22
The LORD redeems the soul of His servants, And none of those who take refuge in
Him will be condemned.”
In
his introduction to Psalm 34 Dr. Wiersbe reveals that this psalm is an acrostic
psalm, but with the omission of the Hebrew letters waw and with an extra pe
in the beginning of verse twenty-two. He
writes the following at the end of his introduction: “Out of his experience in Gath, David shared
in this psalm four instructions for his own followers (1Sam. 22:1-2), as well
as for us today, to help us keep out of the tight situations and live a life
that pleases the Lord.”
David
wrote this psalm because of his experiences of acting “crazy” when he fled to
the Philistines in Gath, and this story is found in 1Samuel 21:10-22:1.
Bless the Lord (vv. 1-3): “I will bless the LORD at all times; His
praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2 My soul will make its boast in the
LORD; The humble will hear it and rejoice. 3 O magnify the LORD with me, And
let us exalt His name together.”
Before I begin to comment on these verses from Psalm
34 I want to go back to the 30th of June in 2010 to pick up my
comments from the verses in 1Samuel where this 34th Psalm is written
from. “David was more in fear of Saul
than in trust of the Lord and that is probably why he ran to the Philistia city
of Gath.”
“These
verses are from Psalm 34:9-16 and point out that David began to know what
fearing the Lord was about while he was in that situation in Gath. I read or heard somewhere recently that David
felt badly that he did not trust the Lord while in this city of Gath, and he
relied on his own ways to get out of this situation instead of trusting the
Lord.”
It
seems that because of David’s fear of Saul that he ran to Gath, yet if he would
not have feared Saul, but feared the Lord he probably not have gone there in
the first place. Again we see Romans
8:28 come into play for God worked it out for David’s good and through David’s
experiences there he wrote two psalms that people can learn from. In no way am I faulting David for going to
Gath for I am sure that I have struck out on my own out of fear of something
when I should have been trusting the Lord.
David
was probably telling his men of his experiences while in Gath and the result
was this psalm. David uses words like
bless, exalt, boast, and magnify in order to lift up the name of the Lord. The word LORD is used sixteen times in this
psalm.
We
see in this psalm that the Lord answered David’s prayer (vv. 4, 15), He
provided for his needs (vv. 9-10), delivered him from trouble (v. 17), and He
protected him from danger (v. 7). It is
no wonder that David was praising the Lord.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “Knowing who we are in Christ and who the Lord is
ought to make us want to bless the Lord.”
I want to add something that I learned recently about the words “bless
the Lord,” and what it means. We get the
word elegy from this word and this happens usually at a funeral when someone
tells good things about the person who had just died, so we are to say good
things about the Lord and this blesses Him.
Seek the Lord (vv.4-8): “4 I sought the LORD, and He answered me, And
delivered me from all my fears. 5 They looked to Him and were radiant, And
their faces will never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard
him And saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps
around those who fear Him, And rescues them. 8 O taste and see that the LORD is
good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!”
As we look at these five verses we see a threefold
witness of what the Lord does for His own.
We see in verses 4-8 that He saves us and in verse seven we see that He
keeps us and in verse eight we see that the Lord satisfies us. When David sought the Lord the Lord saved him
from his fears (terrors) that we within him and the Lord also delivered him
from the troubles that he was in and were around him. Dr. Wiersbe points out that seeking the Lord
is the same as looking unto Him and when we look at Him by faith we will see
that the Lord “shines upon us” (Psalm 4:6 & Numbers 6:22-27). Numbers 6:22-27 are very familiar verses,
especially to the Jews: “22 Then the LORD
spoke to Moses, saying, 23 ‘Speak to
Aaron and to his sons, saying, ’Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You
shall say to them: 24 The LORD bless you, and keep
you; 25 The LORD make His face shine on
you, And be gracious to you; 26 The LORD
lift up His countenance on you, And give you peace.’ 27 “So they shall invoke
My name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them.’”
That
is the positive side, if we are walking with the Lord, however if we are not
and are walking in unbelief are faces will be ashamed and not aglow like the
face of Moses in Ex. 34:29.
David
speaks of the angel of the LORD in verse six and the angel of the LORD is none
other than the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ who came to the children of Israel on
different occasions in the OT. We see
that He came to Joshua right before the children of Israel were about to
conquer the Promised Land. He came to
the parents of Samson before he was born.
We
see in verse eight that the Lord not only saves and keeps but He also satisfies
and in his commentary on this subject Dr. Wiersbe writes the following: “It was a great blessing for David to be
delivered from Gath, and it was a greater blessing for him to be protected by
the Lord after he fled, but the greatest blessing was drawing nearer to God and
enjoying His presence, not just His gifts.
David found God’s Word sweet (119:103), and he rejoiced in the goodness
of the Lord. ‘Good’ is an important word
in this psalm (vv. 8, 10, 12, 14).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: What I think is most important to me as I
have read this first part of Psalm 34 was to be satisfied with the Lord and not
have to be so concerned about the gifts that the Giver gives to me, but getting
to know the Giver of the gifts is much more important. David knew this wonderful truth and we can
see it in many of the psalms that he wrote.
My
Steps of Faith for Today:
1.
Be
satisfied with only the Lord and not so concerned about the gifts that He has
given me.
2.
Continue
to learn contentment as I walk with the Lord.
3.
Have
the desire in my heart that whenever I meet the Lord that He will say to me
“Well done.”
1/26/2012 9:58:29 AM
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