SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
4/9/2012 8:01:41 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
Trusting the Lord in Difficult Times
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
71:5-24
Message
of the verses: We will look at Psalm
71 in this SD and to help us remember what we will be looking at in this psalm
I will quote Dr. Wiersbe ending statement in his introduction: “Whoever he was (the author of Psalm 71) he
made four affirmations about the Lord and the help He gives to those who call
on him and trust him.”
“The
Lord Helped Me in the Past” (vv. 5-13):
“5 For You are my hope; O Lord GOD, You are my confidence from my youth.
6 By You I have been sustained from my
birth; You are He who took me from my mother’s womb; My praise is continually
of You. 7 I have become a marvel to many, For You are my strong refuge. 8 My
mouth is filled with Your praise And with Your glory all day long. 9 Do not
cast me off in the time of old age; Do not forsake me when my strength fails. 10
For my enemies have spoken against me; And those who watch for my life have
consulted together, 11 Saying, "God has forsaken him; Pursue and seize
him, for there is no one to deliver." 12 O God, do not be far from me; O
my God, hasten to my help! 13 Let those who are adversaries of my soul be
ashamed and consumed; Let them be covered with reproach and dishonor, who seek
to injure me.”
There is a song that has been
popular in the past entitled “Count Your Blessings” and it seems that in parts
of this section the psalmist was counting the blessings that God had given him,
especially in his youth. The Lord has
been his help and has been his confidence since he was a youngster. The Lord has sustained him all the ways back
to his birth, even when he was formed in his mother’s womb. The Psalmist is now going to ask the Lord to
continue to do these wonderful things in his old age as we seen in verses
9-13. When Samuel wanted to remember the
blessing that the Lord had given to Israel he built an “Ebenezer.” The story can be found in 1Sam. 7:12. When
the Lord stopped the flow of the Jordan River in order to let the children of
Israel cross when they were coming into the Promised Land he told Joshua to
have the priests pick up twelve stones from the dried up river and place them
on the East side of the Jordan River in order for the children of Israel to
remember what the Lord had done for them in getting them out of Egypt and
getting them across the Jordan River into the Promised Land. It is good to remember the blessings of the
Lord in times of troubles.
“The
Lord Will Help Me in the Future” (vv. 14-21):
“14 But as for me, I will hope continually, And will praise You yet more and more. 15 My mouth
shall tell of Your righteousness And of Your salvation all day long; For I do
not know the sum of them. 16 I will come with the mighty deeds of the Lord GOD;
I will make mention of Your righteousness, Yours alone. 17 O God, You have
taught me from my youth, And I still declare Your wondrous deeds. 18 And even
when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation,
Your power to all who are to come. 19 For Your righteousness, O God, reaches to
the heavens, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You? 20 You who
have shown me many troubles and distresses Will revive me again, And will bring
me up again from the depths of the earth. 21 May You increase my greatness And
turn to comfort me.”
In verse eight the Psalmist said
“You are my hope” and now in verse fourteen the Psalmist says “I will hope
continually.” The word “hope” used in
verse fourteen means “a long and patient waiting in spite of delays and
disappointments. If we trust God, then
the trials of life will work for us and not against us and will lead to glory “1
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our
Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also
we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the
glory of God. 3 And not only this, but we also exult in our
tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; 4 and
perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; 5 and hope does not
disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
(Rom. 5:1-5) “16 Therefore we do not lose heart,
but though our outer man
is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. 17 For
momentary, light affliction is
producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
18 while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are
not seen; for the things
which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2Cor. 4:16-18) The psalmist had this kind of hope which is
described in these two sections of Scripture seen above.
It seems that the psalmist had the
hope of the resurrection in his heart as seen in verses 19-21. We also see in verse twenty these words “You
have allowed me to suffer much hardship, but you will restore me to life again
and lift me up from the depths of the earth.”
The psalmist knew that the suffering that came into his life from the
Lord was good for him to grow closer to the Lord. David’s ten years running from King Saul were
difficult years but very profitable years spiritually.
“The
Lord Be Praised for His Help” (vv. 22-24):
“22 I will also praise You with a harp, Even Your truth, O my God; To
You I will sing praises with the lyre, O Holy One of Israel. 23 My lips will
shout for joy when I sing praises to You; And my soul, which You have redeemed.
24 My tongue also will utter Your righteousness all day long; For they are
ashamed, for they are humiliated who seek my hurt.”
Dr. Wiersbe states that “The name
‘Holy One of Israel’ is used thirty times in Isaiah but only three times in the
Psalms (71:22; 78:41; 89:18). The name
connects with the emphasis in the psalm of God’s righteousness. ‘Shall not the judge of all the earth do
right?’ (Gen.18:25). The psalmist sang
and shouted all day long (vv. 24, 8), not just during the stated services at
the temple. He opened the psalm with a
request that he would never be put to shame and confusion, and now he closed
the psalm with the assurance
that his enemies would be put to
shame and confusion! He had
looked back at a life of trials and blessings from the Lord; he had looked
around as his enemies, he had looked ahead at old age and its problems; and he
had even looked down into the depths of the earth (v. 20). But it was when he looked up and realized
that God’s righteousness ‘reaches to the heavens’ (v. 19) that he grew in
confidence and left his worries with the Lord.
This is a good example for us to follow.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: When I
began to read in the introduction of Psalm 71 that this psalm was about an
older person I knew that I could learn something from it. The faithfulness of God is seen in this psalm
along with the righteousness of God, two important things for a believer to
learn.
Our Pastor’s message yesterday
(Easter Sunday) spoke of different kinds of faith that a person can have “Faith
Dimmed; Faith Dawning; and Faith Displayed”
The message was about what could have been going through the minds of
the disciples and friends of Jesus after He was put to death. The text was the first ten verses in John 20
which is about what happened on the day that Jesus was resurrected from the
grave. One of the points that I got from
that message goes along with what I have learned in Psalm 71, and that is that
I have to trust the Lord in times of troubles the most, for if I look around at
my circumstances I will be tempted to run away from the Lord and will surely
loose a blessing from not trusting the Lord in those times of troubles. The passage quoted from Romans 5:1-5 in this
SD goes along with what I am talking about here.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I
desire to continue to trust the Lord in difficult times. The grave is empty because the Lord has been
raised from the dead and that encourages me to trust in my risen Savior.
4/9/2012
9:24:35 AM
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