SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
5/18/2012 8:20:57 AM
My Worship Time Focus: God is Faithful to His
Covenant—Trust Him
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
89:19-37
Message
of the verses: In the last SD we
began to look at Psalm 89 by looking at the first main point along with several
introductions from different Bible Scholars including Warren Wiersbe who wrote
the following at the end of his commentary: “The psalm gives us four assurances
about the faithfulness of the Lord.”
God Is Faithful to His
Covenant—Trust Him (vv. 19-37): “19 Once You spoke in vision to
Your godly ones, And said, "I have given help to one who is mighty; I have
exalted one chosen from the people. 20 “I have found David My servant; With My
holy oil I have anointed him, 21 With whom My hand will be established; My arm
also will strengthen him. 22 “The enemy will not deceive him, Nor the son of
wickedness afflict him. 23 “But I shall crush his adversaries before him, And
strike those who hate him. 24 “My faithfulness and My lovingkindness will be
with him, And in My name his horn will be exalted. 25 “I shall also set his
hand on the sea And his right hand on the rivers. 26 “He will cry to Me, ’You
are my Father, My God, and the rock of my salvation.’ 27 “I also shall make him
My firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth. 28 “My lovingkindness I
will keep for him forever, And My covenant shall be confirmed to him. 29 “So I
will establish his descendants forever And his throne as the days of heaven.
30 "If his sons forsake My law And
do not walk in My judgments, 31 If they
violate My statutes And do not keep My commandments, 32 Then I will punish their transgression with
the rod And their iniquity with stripes. 33 “But I will not break off My
lovingkindness from him, Nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. 34 “My covenant I will not violate,
Nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. 35 “Once I have sworn by My
holiness; I will not lie to David. 36 “His descendants shall endure forever And
his throne as the sun before Me. 37 “It shall be established forever like the
moon, And the witness in the sky is faithful." Selah.”
God is speaking in this section of
the psalm, and He is speaking about David and his reign, and how He chose David
to rule over Israel. I first want to go
back to the end of the book of Genesis in order to see what Jacob had to say
about his son Judah. “10 “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.” (Genesis 49:10) “Judah was the royal tribe of which the King
of Kings would come from and so the description of the king of beasts(Lion) was
a good one. In the book of Revelations
John describes Jesus as both a lion and also a lamb. All of the kings of Judah came from the line
of David to which God had given him a covenant that this would happen.” (I wrote these words on 02/11/2008 in my SD
commenting on Genesis 49:8-12) As the
Bible gives a line from the time that sin entered the universe through Adam and
Eve to when the Lord Jesus would come to earth we see in Genesis 49:10 that the
line goes through the tribe of Judah, and then in 2Samuel 7 that the line then
goes through David and will continue through the line of David until Jesus
Christ is born. In the book of Matthew
we see the genealogy of Jesus Christ from His birth back to Abraham. Many scholars believe that this is the line
from David through Joseph who is the step father of Jesus Christ. We also see another genealogy in the book of
Luke and this goes all the way back to Adam, and there are many Bible scholars
who believe that this is the genealogy from Mary back to another son of David,
Nathan. Matthews goes back to David’s
son, Solomon. There was a great sin
committed by one of the kings that came from David through Solomon, and I must
confess that I do not remember which one it was, but that sin was so awful that
many believe that is why there are the two lines from the two Gospel accounts
and Mary’s line comes through Nathan, while Joseph’s line comes through Solomon.
God tells a short version of David’s
calling and his rule in this section of Scripture and I want to briefly comment
on some of these verses. Dr. Wiersbe’s
title for this main point is important for the covenant that God made with
David was not broken at the time when Babylon captured Judah so they can trust
the Lord to fulfill that covenant in spite of Judah being captives in Babylon.
In verses 19-24 we see that God
chose David to rule Israel and that He would be faithfulness will be with
David. I want to put in a note from
Charles H. Spurgeon on verse 25 at this point:
““Ver.
25. I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. He
shall reach far beyond the little rivers which stand for boundaries in
Palestine; he shall by his power embrace all lands from sea to sea. He shall
have his hand in the ocean and his right hand in earth’s mightiest streams. As
monarchs hold in their hands a globe to set forth their dominion over the
earth, he shall grasp the far more unconquerable sea, and be Lord of all. This
power is to be given him of the Lord, and is to be abiding; so we understand
the words "I will set." The verse has in it a voice of good cheer
concerning sailors, and all dwellers on the waters; the hand of Jesus is over
them, and as he found his first apostles by the sea, so we trust he still finds
earnest disciples there.
“EXPLANATORY
NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.
“Ver.
25. I will set his hand also in the sea, and his right hand in the rivers. That
is, he should reign from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates; figuratively
expressed by his left hand being extended to the sea, and his right hand to the
rivers. A similar expression is used, according to Curtius, by the Scythian
ambassadors to Alexander. "If," said they, "the gods had given
thee a body as great as thy mind, the whole world would not be able to contain
thee. Thou wouldst reach with one hand
to the east, and with the other to the west." —Kitto’s Pictorial Bible.
“Ver.
25. I will set his hand also in the sea and his right hand in the rivers. A
certain artist was in the habit of saying that he should represent Alexander in
such a manner, that in one hand he should hold a city and from the other pour a
river. Christ is represented here as of immense stature, higher than all
mountains, with one hand holding the earth, and the other the sea, while from
Eastern sea to Western he extends his arms. —Le Blanc.”
In verse 27 we see that although
David was the eight son of Jessie he was the first born of the Lord, the
highest king upon the earth. David
reigned from the Mediterranean Sea on the West to the Tigris and Euphrates
Rivers on the East. (“"I will fix
your boundary from the Red Sea to the sea of the Philistines, and from the
wilderness to the River Euphrates; for I will deliver the inhabitants of the
land into your hand, and you will drive them out before you.’ (Exodus
23:31”).
Dr. Wiersbe writes “It was David’s
close relationship to the Lord and his desire to exalt the Lord along that made
him a success (v. 26).”
I think that in understanding verses
28-37 we need to understand that it is God who made this covenant with David
and it would be up to God to make sure that this covenant was fulfilled. In the Scriptures we see conditional
covenants, and unconditional covenants that God makes. The covenant that He made with Abraham was
unconditional and so was this covenant that He made with David, and even though
the offspring of David would sin, God would punish them for their sin, “But I
will not break off My lovingkindness from him, Nor deal falsely in My
faithfulness. 34 “My covenant I will not violate, Nor will I alter the
utterance of My lips.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: What do
all of these things have to do with me as I live in the year 2012? I would say that they have a lot to do with
me because it was from the offspring of David that Jesus Christ was born, and
it is because of the birth, death, resurrection, ascension, and calling by the
Holy Spirit to me that I have become a child of God. It was all a part of God’s plan. As I look at Romans 8:28 in view of the
covenant that God made with David I can see that God used all things to work
together for good in spite of sinful men.
I once heard John MacArthur say that the reason that God works with
sinful men is because that is all that He has to chose from.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Praise the Lord for the unconditional covenant that He made with David.
5/18/2012
9:25:04 AM
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