SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 3/10/2012 10:08:50 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Walk by Faith
Bible Reading &
Meditation Reference: Psalm 56:1-4
Message of the verses: We will begin looking at Psalm 56 this
morning as for the first time in a long time I did not do a Spiritual Diary
yesterday. I firmly believe that the
evil one does not like it when I write in my SD’s everyday and is trying to
cause trouble for me so that I would not be faithful in doing this each day.
The first commentator that I
have chosen to use this morning to help understand this 56th Psalm
is John Gill.
“The words
"jonathelemrechokim" are by our translators left untranslated. Aben
Ezra takes them to be the beginning of a song; and others think they are the
name of a musical instrument: but they seem rather to design the subject matter
of the psalm, and may be rendered, "concerning the mute dove among them
that are afar off" {m}, or "in far places" {n}; and refer to
David, who, when he wrote this psalm, was among the Philistines, who were
aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, afar off from God and his law, and from
righteousness; and when David was there, he was at a distance from his native
country, his father’s house, the king’s court, and, what gave him most concern,
from the house and worship of God; and here he was as a mute dove. He may be
compared to a dove for his innocence in the case of Saul; and to a silly dove,
for his acting the part of a fool or madman before Achish king of Gath; and was
mute to what the servants of Achish said, and was dumb before the Lord, who had
suffered him to fall into their hands, and into this distress he was now in.
They are also applicable to Christ, who is comparable to a dove for his
harmlessness, innocence, meekness and humility; and was as a mute one before
Pontius Pilate the Roman governor, when his enemies accused him, and he
answered not a word; and when among the Roman soldiers, who mocked at him and
reviled him, and he reviled not again; and when he was led to be crucified, he
opened not his mouth either against God or man. They may be also applied to the
church of God, which is often called a dove in #So 4:1 5:2 6:9; and is in the
wilderness, and among wicked men, that are afar off from God, and is silent
under all afflictions and persecutions; see #So 2:14.”
“It seems by this, and many other
psalms, that even in times of the greatest trouble and distress David never
hung his harp upon the willow-trees, never unstrung it or laid it by; but that when his dangers and
fears were greatest he was still in tune for singing God’s praises. He
was in imminent peril when he penned this psalm, at least when he meditated it;
yet even then his meditation of God was sweet.”
(Matthew Henry)
“In an hour of deep despair and
doubt, David left Judah and fled to Gath, the Philistine city identified with
the giant Goliath whom David had slain (1Sam. 17). David was alone and didn’t
get a very good reception. (The second
time he went to Gath, he was accompanied by his men and was accepted. See 1Samuel 27-30.) This psalm reveals that his life was in great
danger, and history tells us that he had to pretend to be insane in order to escape
(1 Sam. 21:10-22:1). Psalm 34 also came
out of this experience in Gath. The
musical inscription is translated variously: ‘the silent dove among those far
away,’ ‘the silent dove among the strangers,’ ‘the dove of the distant oaks (or
terebinths).’ Some connect this inscription with 55:6-8 and see David as the
dove (innocence), silent under attack while far from home. In the midst of peril and fear (vv. 3, 4,
11), David lifted three requests to the Lord and the Lord answered.” (Warren Wiersbe)
On June 30, 2010 I wrote the
following in my Spiritual Diary that came from 1Samuel 21:10-15: “Message
of the verses: As I have been
listening to the book of Psalms in the evenings while studying the life of
David in my quiet time doing these SD’s each morning the Psalms seem to be more
meaningful to me and am thankful that David had this time of ten years in exile
to write them for when I go through troubles that the Lord is allowing me to go
through, although none of my troubles are life threatening as David’s were, I
receive help from these Psalms of David.
Dr. Wiersbe points out that there are two Psalms that David wrote while
going through this experience that is recorded in today’s Scripture portion,
Psalms 34 & 56. 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.
“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.”
“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.
“Spiritual meaning for my life today: The Proverbs tell me that the fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the 34th Psalm also speaks
wonderful things about fearing the Lord, and I have heard that if I will fear
the Lord then I will not have to fear anything else.”
“Deliver Me from Death: (vv. 1-4): “1 For the choir director; according to
Jonathelemrechokim. A Mikhtam of David, when the Philistines seized him in
Gath. Be gracious to me, O God, for man has trampled upon me; Fighting all day
long he oppresses me. 2 My foes have trampled upon me all day long, For they
are many who fight proudly against me. 3 When I am afraid, I will put my trust
in You. 4 In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not
be afraid. What can mere man do to me?”
What
we see in this portion of Psalm 56 is both fear and faith in the life of
David. I don’t believe that David had
prayed about going to the Philistines before going there and whether or not
there was any physical harm done to David is not clear. It is probably safe to say that this was not
in the will of God for David to go there, something like when Abraham went to
Egypt because there was a famine in the land.
Dr.
Wiersbe has some important and interesting things to say about fear and faith
and we can see that in this Psalm that “David manifested both fear and faith as
he cried out to God.” We can see this
same thing happening with the disciples of our Lord when they were in a boat
with Jesus who was sleeping, and a powerful storm came upon them so much that
the boat began to fill with water. The
disciples were fearful, yet they had enough sense to awaken Jesus who calmed
the storm, but chastised them for not having faith.
Dr.
Wiersbe writes these important words, “The refrain in verses 3-4 is repeated in
verses 10-11 as David affirms that God alone gives him the power to praise Him
and trust Him. ‘So then faith comes by
hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17, NKUV). Faith and praise cannot be ‘manufactured’; they must be received as
God’s gift. ‘Mortal man’ is ‘mere
man,’ man who is flesh.’ This phrase is
quoted in Ps. 118:6 and Hebrews 13:6.
What Scripture says about fallen human nature is negative (John 6:63;
Romans 7:18; Phil. 3:3).”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: I want to go back to one of my favorite
verses to make a point here: “For we are
His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand
so that we would walk in them.” This is
Ephesians 2:10 and what it says to me is that back in eternity past the Lord
has set aside a “work assignment” for all of those whom He has chosen for
salvation (Eph. 1:4). Once we become
believers in Jesus Christ and are born from above (John 3) we are given the
Holy Spirit as a down payment (Eph. 1:14) until we are taken to heaven. It is the Holy Spirit who will be working
through us to do the works that God has ordained for us to do in eternity past.
We will do these works by faith, and as
Romans 10:17 says that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of
God.” When we look at the 7th
chapter of Romans we see a personal testimony of the Apostle Paul who speaks
about the different natures that all believers have, one is the new nature
given to us who have been born from above, and one is the nature we received
when we were born physically called sometimes the Adamic as it comes from
Adam. Believes are in a battle to do right
because of these two natures and when we look at what David did on a few
occasions we see that on some occasions he did not win the battle. I know that David did not have the Holy
Spirit in the same way that NT believers do, but he did have the Holy Spirit to
guide him because he was God’s anointed king over His people.
With
all of this said I want to continue to read God’s Word in order to increase my
faith, and to do the works that were planned for me to do in eternity
past. I desire also to not fall into the
trap that the “flesh” wants me to fall into for Paul says that there is nothing
good in the flesh (old nature).
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1.
Ga
5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and
you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
2.
Ga 5:25
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
3.
Ephesians 4:11b.
4.
Romans 12:1-2.
5.
Proverbs 3:5-6.
6.
Ephesians 6:10-18.
3/10/2012 11:18:36 AM
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