SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/2/2012
9:03:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Gleanings from Psalm 37
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
37
Message
of the verses: Today we begin to
look at Psalm 37 and it is a lengthy psalm having forty verses in it. Dr. Wiersbe writes that this psalm was
written when David was older and more mature and was probably written as part
of his instructions given to Solomon.
Solomon was young when he became king, but God had called him to be king
over Israel when David had finished his reign.
There was to be a lot of things that Solomon was to do when he became
king and one of them was to build the temple of the Lord and so David took the
time to show him the plans that the Lord had given him for the temple and also
gave Solomon instructions on how to rule the people well (See 1Kings 2:3 and
also Proverbs 23:17-18).
There is an age old question that
has been asked of many believers, and that question is “Why do those who are
evil prosper and why do believers suffer?”
David will address this in Psalm 37.
In the KJV of the Scriptures we see the word wicked found fourteen times
in Psalm 37. Dr. Wiersbe writes that
“The theological foundation for the Psalm is the covenant God made with Israel,
recorded in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 27-30.
God owned the land, and if the nation obeyed Him, they could live in the
land and enjoy its blessings. But if
Israel disobeyed the Lord, He would first chasten them in the land (invasion,
drought, famine), but if they continued to rebel, He would then take them out of the land (captivity). The prophet Habakkuk wrote the following at
the beginning of his prophecy to address the question of why did not God judge
Israel for her sins and why are the wicked prospering: “1The oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2
How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to
You, "Violence!" Yet You do not save. 3 Why do You make me see
iniquity, And cause me to look on wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are
before me; Strife exists and contention arises. 4 Therefore the law is ignored
And justice is never upheld. For
the wicked surround the righteous; Therefore justice comes out perverted.” God will eventually answer his question by
saying that He was going to use the Babylonians to capture then the nation of Judah, but then Habakkuk will object
to that because they are worse than Judah.
God had a plan and at times we don’t understand it as Habakkuk did not
understand it, but that is where we have to trust the Lord as David writes in
Psalm 37:3a “Trust in the LORD and do good.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes at the end of his
introduction to Psalm 37 these words:
“In the psalm, he gave four encouraging assurances to believers who
question how God is running His world (See also Psalms 49 and 73).”
The
Lord Can Be Trusted (vv. 1-11) In
this section we will see that David will give one negative instruction which is
found in verses 1, 7, and 8 and that is “do not fret.” He will also give four positive instructions
in the psalm: “trust in the Lord”
(v.-3), delight in the Lord (v. 4), commit yourself to the Lord (vv. 5-6), and
the last one is to rest in the Lord and this is found in verse seven.
Fear
not (vv. 1-2): “1 A Psalm of David: Do not fret because of evildoers, Be not
envious toward wrongdoers. 2 For they will wither quickly like the grass And
fade like the green herb.” I want to
talk about the word “fret” that is seen four times in verses 1-11. I think that I get the idea of what this word
means and can explain it from a supplement that I take to help keep my
cholesterol down. I take Niacin which is
a form of vitamin B and one of the things that Niacin does if you don’t take something
else to overcome it is to make you hot.
I have to take two baby aspirins to stop this reaction even though what
I am taking is a non-flushing type of niacin.
My whole body will begin to get hot and turn red if I don’t take the
baby aspirins and that is what this word “fret” means, to get hot so David is
saying “don’t get hot under the collar because of evildoers.” I suppose that is good advice when one looks
at the political situation in 21st century America. What David is really saying is “keep your
cool.” There are times when we look at
the world and see the evil that is going on and according to Ephesians 4:26 we
ought to feel a holy anger, for God is angry with that too, but we are not to
ever envy the wicked, wish we had their money or power, for that will led to you
getting hot. David says in verse two
that soon they will be gone, and we know that their fate is going to be hotter
than taking niacin without baby aspirins if they don’t turn from their sins and
trust the Lord for salvation.
Trust
in the Lord (v. 3): “Trust in the
LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” (NASB)
“Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe
pasture.” (NIV) “Trust in the LORD and do good; live in the
land and be safe.” (GNBE)
The reason for so many
translations is to show that David is talking about trusting the Lord and do
this by staying in the land. When I
studied the book of Ruth the first thing that was in the book was that there was
a famine in the land and Naomi and her family left the land. (Now I know that
was in the providence of God but the point is that they did not trust the Lord
when they left) In the book of Genesis
we see that after a famine came into the Promised Land that Abraham left for Egypt
and the result was bringing back Hagar, which resulted in a lot more trouble
for Abraham.
“Now
may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the
power of the Holy Spirit.” Paul wrote
these words in Romans 15:13 showing that a faithful heart is a joyful heart but
a fretful heart lacks joy and peace.
Delight in the Lord
(v. 4): “Delight yourself in the LORD; And He will
give you the desires of your heart.” Dr
Wiersbe’s commentary is so wonderful from this section that I am going to quote
all of it here. “The word translated
‘delight’ comes from a root that means ‘to be brought up in luxury, to be
pampered.’ It speaks of the abundance of
the blessings we have in the Lord Himself, totally apart from what He gives
us. To enjoy the blessings and ignore
the Blesser is to practice idolatry. In
Jesus Christ, we have all God’s treasures, and we need no other. If we truly delight in the Lord, then the
chief desire or our heart will be to know Him better so we can delight in Him
even more, and that Lord will satisfy that desire! This is not a promise for people who want
‘things’ but for those who want more of God in their lives.” Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on the book of Ephesians
is entitled “Be Rich,” and the book of Ephesians is filled with the richness of
God.
Commit your way to
the Lord (vv. 5-6): “5 Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in
Him, and He will do it. 6 He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.” In
1Peter 5:7 we can see what the verb commit means: “You can throw the whole weight of your
anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern. (Philips)
We are to roll off our burdens.
Now God does not take our burdens in order to for us to become
irresponsible, but in order for us to serve Him better. Let’s look at verse six in the NIV to help us
understand what David means when he writes “bring it to pass.” “He will make your righteousness shine like
the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.” David is talking about the vindication of the
people of God who have been slandered by the enemies of God.
Rest in the Lord
(vv. 7-11): “7 Rest in the LORD and wait patiently for
Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because of the man who
carries out wicked schemes. 8 Cease from anger and forsake wrath; Do not fret;
it leads only to evildoing. 9 For evildoers will be cut off, But those who wait
for the LORD, they will inherit the land. 10 Yet a little while and the wicked man will be no more;
And you will look carefully for his place and he will not be there. 11 But the humble will
inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”
The
word “rest” means to be silent, to be still. “My soul, wait in silence for God
only, For my hope is from Him. (Psalm 62:5).”
We see here one of the most difficult things for many people to do and
that is to keep silent, to be still before the Lord in order to seek God, for
silence is not something that the culture we live in likes to do, but for the
believer it is necessary. I find that
this is one of the greatest problems that I have to overcome. My mind seems to be always working and to
just sit and be still before the Lord patiently is one of the things that Paul
must have known for he could not have written that he had learned to be content
unless he knew how to be still and wait patiently for the Lord.
When
we see evil in our world it is easy to fret, but if we have spent time in God’s
Word, and spent time in stillness before the Lord then we will not fret over
evildoers for we know that there will come a day when the evildoers will be
judged by the Lord. As believers we are
to cease from anger. Numbers 12:3 speaks
of Moses being a meek man “(Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men
which were upon the face of the earth.)” (KJV)
Jesus was meek too and we cannot get meekness and weakness mixed up for
meekness is power under control, and we certainly know that Moses and Jesus
were powerful, but they kept their power under control.
Matthew
5:5 reads as follows, “’Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the
earth.’” This is a quotation form verse
eleven of Psalm 37 with the exception that Jesus used the word earth and not
land and Dr. Wiersbe points out “Inherit the land’ refers to security of future
generations in the Promised Land, according to God’s covenant, for God had a
great work for His righteous remnant to do in that land, culminating in the
coming of Messiah. Eventually, the
wicked will be cut off as seen in verses 9, 22, 28, 34, and 38, which in Israel
usually meant exclusion from the covenant community, but it could mean
execution.”
Spiritual meaning for my life
today: Psalm 37 has spoken to my heart in two ways
as I studied these first eleven verses this morning. To learn to be silent before the Lord and to
listen to His Spirit like Elijah did when the Spirit of the Lord came to him in
a still small voice and not in the noise of the earthquake or the storm. Learning this would help me on my quest to
learn contentment. Trusting the Lord to
take care of the wicked is another thing that I am learning and this psalm has
been a great help to encourage me to do this.
I read in Daniel 2:21 “"It is He who changes the times and the
epochs; He removes kings
and establishes kings; He gives wisdom to wise men And knowledge to men
of understanding.” Trusting God’s plan
for my life and trusting God’s plan for the world truly takes learning
contentment.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Learn to get alone and be silent
before the Lord.
2. Continue to trust the Lord’s plan
for my life and for the world.
3. Continue to learn contentment.
2/2/2012
11:01:39 AM
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