SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
4/27/2012 7:51:56 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Appreciating the Present
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
78:65-72
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we will
look at the last main section in Psalm 78.
Once more I want to quote from Dr. Wiersbe’s introductory comments in
order for us to better understand this psalm.
“Since Israel is a covenant nation, she has the responsibility of obeying
and honoring the Lord, and this psalm presents three responsibilities God
expected His people to fulfill.”
Appreciating
the Present (vv. 65-72): “65 Then
the Lord awoke as if from sleep, Like a warrior overcome by wine. 66 He drove
His adversaries backward; He put on them an everlasting reproach. 67 He also
rejected the tent of Joseph, And did not choose the tribe of Ephraim, 68 But
chose the tribe of Judah, Mount Zion which He loved. 69 And He built His
sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which He has founded forever. 70 He
also chose David His servant And took him from the sheepfolds; 71 From the care
of the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him To shepherd Jacob His people,
And Israel His inheritance. 72 So he shepherded them according to the integrity
of his heart, And guided them with his skillful hands.”
The time in which Asaph wrote Psalm
78 is not clear, for he may have written it before Israel was divided into two
nations or he may have written it just before that happened. We do know that the temple had been built, for
he speaks of it in verse 68, so his writing of Psalm 78 took place after the
death of David. If he is writing this
psalm after Israel split, then he is warning them not to follow the ways of the
Northern Kingdom that is not to follow the idolatrous ways of the Northern
tribes.
Verse 65 is speaking metaphorically,
for God does not get drunk, and God does not sleep. Asaph is stating that when God chose David to
led Israel as their shepherd it was as if God had woke up from a long sleep and
began again to work in the nation of Israel.
We know from Genesis 49:10 the following, “"The scepter shall not
depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh
comes, And to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” Jacob is saying that Israel’s king will come
from the tribe of Judah and from that line the Messiah will come.
Asaph is saying in verse 67 that the
Lord had rejected the tribe of Joseph, that is Ephraim as having the temple
built there, and also God rejected the tribe of Benjamin as the tribe where the
king would come from, for Saul came from Benjamin.
Like Moses before him David was a
shepherd and it was from the sheepfolds that the Lord took both of them to lead
the children of Israel. The kings Israel
were called shepherds for they were to lead and shepherd the flock of
Israel. When we look at 1Peter 5 we will
see that the leaders of the local churches today are called shepherds, that is
the Pastors or Elders are to shepherd the flock of God. We sometimes wonder if God created sheep in
order to compare them to humans for there are many similarities between sheep
and humans.
We read the following statement from
the end of Warren Wiersbe’s commentary on Psalm 78 as he is writing on the
integrity of leaders like David.
“Integrity and skill need each other, for no amount of ability can
compensate for a sinful heart and no amount of devotion to God can overcome
lack of ability.” We know from studying
the life of David and other leaders from the pages of Scripture that this is a
true statement.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: It is my
prayer that God has given me an ability to serve Him so that my service will
bring glory to my Lord, and with this God given ability I will serve Him with
integrity.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
I pray that the Lord will continue to use me in whatever way He desires
to use me and that I will do it with integrity, and that as I serve Him He will
continue to teach me contentment.
4/27/2012
8:29:34 AM
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