SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 12/22/2011 9:18:18 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1
Psalm 6
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Psalm
6:1-5
Message
of the verses: “1 For the choir director; with stringed instruments, upon an
eight-string lyre. A Psalm of David: O
LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger, Nor chasten me in Your wrath. 2 Be
gracious to me, O LORD, for I am pining away; Heal me, O LORD, for my bones are
dismayed. 3 And my soul is greatly dismayed; But You, O LORD-how long? 4 Return,
O LORD, rescue my soul; Save me because of Your lovingkindness. 5 For there is
no mention of You in death; In Sheol who will give You thanks?
It is not clear as to when David
wrote this psalm, but in the psalm we see that David is ill and thinks that he
will soon die. I think that is one of
the beauties of the book of Psalms, in that whatever a person seems to be
feeling there seems to be a psalm that will help.
The
Pain of Discipline (vv.1-3): “1 For the choir director; with stringed
instruments, upon an eight-string lyre. A Psalm of David: O LORD, do not rebuke me in Your anger, Nor
chasten me in Your wrath. 2 Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am pining away;
Heal me, O LORD, for my bones are dismayed. 3 And my soul is greatly dismayed;
But You, O LORD-how long?
We see verse one of this psalm
repeated in verse one of Psalm 38 and it has to do with discipline. We also see David using the covenant name for
God in this psalm eight times, “LORD” which is Jehovah.
Dr. Wiersbe points out that God
usually rebukes His children and then disciplines them when needed, but it is
that of a loving father as seen in Hebrews 12:5-6 and also in Proverbs
3:11-12. The idea of this chastening
from the Lord is always to bring them back into fellowship with God.
We see in this psalm that David was
sick, and he was surrounded by his foes, who were evil doers and his
enemies. He was weak from the sickness
and when you put all of this together you will see that David felt that God was
surely mad at him because of the circumstances that he found himself in. Let us look at verses 2-3 in the KJV: “2 Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am
weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed. 3 My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD,
how long?” The highlighted word
vexed is also used in John 12:27 “Now is
my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for
this cause came I unto this hour.” This word vexed, when put into the Septuagint
(The Greek translation of the OT) is the same word as in John 12:27 and this
was very close to when the Lord would go to the cross.
Dr. Wiersbe writes that the words “How long” are seen at least 16 times
in the Psalms and he says the answer to that question is “I will discipline you
until you learn the lesson I want you to learn and are equipped for the work I
want you to do.”
The
futility of Death (vv. 4-5): “4 Return, O LORD, rescue my soul; Save me
because of Your lovingkindness. 5 For there is no mention of You in death; In
Sheol who will give You thanks?”
We see in verse five that David
is asking the Lord to return to him so David must have felt that the Lord had
gone away from him, that there was not the fellowship with the Lord that there
had been before the incident that David was writing about in this psalm. David knew that the Lord was merciful as most
Jews knew for we see in Exodus 34:6-7 “"The
LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in
lovingkindness and truth who keeps lovingkindness for thousands,
who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the
guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on
the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."
In the NASB we see the word Sheol,
and this is speaking of the place of the dead, and David is saying that he
could not praise the Lord from the place of the dead, so David wants the Lord
to heal him. This is a similar prayer
that Hezekiah prayed when he was about to die and God answered his prayer and
gave him 15 more years to live.
In the OT times there was not as
much known about the afterlife as we know now since the Lord Jesus has come and
conquered death for all of His own. We
know that absence from the body is present with the Lord, but this was not
known then. We see in the parable that
Jesus spoke about the rich man and Lazarus that the dead in the OT times went
to a place called Abraham’s bosom, “Lu 16:22
"Now the poor man died and
was carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom; and the rich man also died
and was buried.” Some believe that
when Jesus was resurrected from the grave that he brought all of the OT saints
with Him to heaven, and others think that Abraham’s bosom was actually heaven.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I can
understand the feeling that David thought God was made at him, but you can’t
always go by your feelings. Job felt the
same way as we learned when going through the book of Job. The Bible says that God will never leave us
or forsake us, and that is a great promise.
We can however loose fellowship with the Lord by sinning and not
confessing that sin. This is something I
do not desire to do, for fellowship with the Lord is necessary for our growth
and maturity in our walk with God. We
can learn what it is that God desires for us to accomplish for Him that will
give Him glory through these accomplishments.
Psalm 139:23-24 are essential in our walk with the Lord, for we surely
need the Holy Spirit to search our hearts for sins that we may be harboring in
our hearts.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Psalm 139:23-24
2. Romans 12:1-2
3. Phil. 4:11b
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