SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR
7/21/2012 9:14:03 AM
My Worship Time Focus: Psalm
106 PT-4
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
106:34-46
Message
of the verses: We will look at the
next major point from Psalm 106 in Today’s SD.
This is a psalm of history, a psalm of seeing the grace and mercy of the
Lord to the children of Israel in the early years of that nation.
Repeated
Rebellion (vv. 34-46): 34 They did not destroy the peoples, As the LORD
commanded them, 35 But they mingled with the
nations And learned their practices, 36
And served their idols, Which became a snare to them. 37 They even
sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, 38 And shed innocent
blood, The blood of their sons and their daughters, Whom they sacrificed to the
idols of Canaan; And the
land was polluted with the blood. 39 Thus they became unclean in their
practices, And played the harlot in their deeds. 40 Therefore the anger of the
LORD was kindled against His people And He abhorred His inheritance. 41 Then He
gave them into the hand of the nations, And those who hated them ruled over
them. 42 Their enemies also oppressed them, And they were subdued under their
power. 43 Many times He would deliver them; They, however, were rebellious in
their counsel, And so sank down in their iniquity. 44 Nevertheless He looked
upon their distress When He heard their cry; 45 And He remembered His covenant for their sake,
And relented according to the greatness of His lovingkindness. 46 He also made
them objects of compassion In the presence of all their captors.”
Verse thirty-four speaks of Israel’s
failure in defeating the godless nations that were in Canaan, something that
God told them to do. We have spoken
about this in earlier SD’s, the fact that God was calling upon Israel to defeat
these godless nations, for God had given these nations a very long time to
repent, but they did not repent and so God commanded Israel to destroy them. In the same way this would also happen to
Israel, with the exception that God would remember the covenant that He had
made with Abraham, never to completely destroy Israel. I want to quote Ezekiel 5:13 which was
written when God’s wrath was upon the nation of Israel for their sins, sins
that are mentioned in this section of Psalm 106, but the principle can be seen
in why God’s wrath was taken out upon the nations that are spoken of in verse
thirty-four: “’Thus My anger will be spent and I will satisfy My wrath on them,
and I will be appeased;
then they will know that
I, the LORD, have spoken in My zeal when I have spent My wrath upon them.” This verse speaks of God’s anger being
“spent” and therefore He will be satisfied when His punishment was
complete. I think that it is in the 15th
chapter of Revelations that we read that at the end of the “bowl” or “vial”
judgments that God sends upon the whole world that His wrath will be complete,
will be made perfect. Re 15:1 Then I saw
another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven
plagues, which are the
last, because in them the wrath of God is finished.”
When the Lord Jesus Christ was upon
the cross and had taken all of the punishment for or sins, all of God’s wrath
was taken out upon Him on the cross He spoke these words, “It is
finished.” We see these words recorded
in John 19:30 “When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is
finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.” The word in the Greek for finished is teleo
tel-eh’-o,” and I am told that when a person was in prison during that time and
was getting out because his crime had been paid for they stamped that word on a
document that they gave to him at his release showing that he had paid in full
for his crime. Jesus paid in full for
our crimes of sin when He suffered and died on the cross and therefore God was
satisfied with Christ’s payment for our sins.
This is the meaning of the word propitiation, satisfaction of an angry
God.
The people of Israel knew the terms
of the covenant that God had made with them which is recorded in Deuteronomy
28-30, but they did not keep their end of the covenant, for this covenant found
in these verses of Deuteronomy was what is called a conditional covenant, where
Israel had to keep up their end of the covenant or God would invoke the
punishments of the covenant that was made with them. If it were not for the grace of God Israel
would have been destroyed many times over, but God had a covenant with Abraham
to never completely destroy Israel and the psalmist knew of this covenant, but
still prayed that God would not destroy them.
The section that the psalmist is writing about here is from the days of
the Judges, which is a depressing book to read in that Israel would sin and then
cry out to God and God would save them and then they would repeat this all the
way through the book of Judges, but they kept going lower and lower each time
this happened eventually coming to the place where they would offer their
children on the altar to pagan gods.
When Israel came into the land God
told them to destroy all of the nations that were in the Promised Land, which
they did not do and these nations became a stumbling block to Israel and
eventually they actually became worse than the nations that they were suppose
to destroy, thus God taking the necessary action of having the Babylonians
defeating Israel and taken many of them into exile. I have looked at what happened to Israel when
they first went into the land and have compared it to a person when they first
become a true believer in Jesus Christ.
All of our sins are forgiven when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and
Savior and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. From that point on we are being tempted to
sin from the world, the flesh, and the Devil because we now have a new nature
and all three of these enemies are against us.
When Israel went into the Promised Land they needed faith in the Lord to
defeat their enemies, but they chose to look at themselves and not look to God
and therefore their enemies ended up bringing them to a point of doing what
they were doing, sinning by worshiping idols.
As a believer we have to walk by the same kind of faith that was given
to us when we accepted the Lord as our Savior.
“Therefore as you have received Christ
Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col.
2:6). God has given us everything we
need to walk in this new faith to please Him, but we still fail, just like the
children of Israel failed in not defeating their enemies. We need to learn from their mistakes.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: “Romans
12:1-2 “1 I beseech you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service. 2 And be not conformed to this world: but be you
transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good,
and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”
How do we become transformed in the renewing of our minds? Form the very Word of God replacing our old
mind set. “For by these He has granted
to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become
partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the
world by lust.” (2Peter 1:4) Putting on
the armor of God that is described in Ephesians 2:10-18 is also necessary in
walking with the Lord, for when we put on the spiritual armor we are actually
putting on the Lord Jesus Christ as seen in “Ro 13:14 But put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.”
My Steps of Faith for Today:
Romans 12:1-2; Ephesians 6:10-18; Prov. 3:5-6; Eph. 4:11b; Rom. 13:14;
Col. 2:6; and 2Pe. 1:4.
Memory
verses for the week: 2Peter 1:1-7
1.
Simon
Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those
who have received a faith of the same kind as ours, by the righteousness of our
God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 2. Grace and peace be multiplied in the knowledge
of God and of Jesus our Lord, 3. seeing that His divine power has grant to us everything
pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called
us by His own glory and excellence. 4. For by these He has granted to us His
precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of
the divine nature, having escaped the corruption of the world by lust.
5.
Now for this reason also, having all diligence, in your faith supply
moral excellence and in your moral excellence, knowledge, 6. and in your
knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your
perseverance, godliness, 7. and in your godliness brotherly kindness, and in
your brotherly kindness, love.
7/21/2012
10:40:38 AM
No comments:
Post a Comment