SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/2/2012
9:03:05 AM
My Worship Time Focus: PT-1 “Gleanings from Psalm 37”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
Psalm 37:1-11
Message
of the verses: Today we begin to
look at Psalm 37 and it is a lengthy psalm having forty verses in it. Dr. Wiersbe writes that this psalm was
written when David was older and more mature and was probably written as part
of his instructions given to Solomon.
Solomon was young when he became king, but God had called him to be king
over Israel when David had finished his reign.
There was to be a lot of things that Solomon was to do when he became
king and one of them was to build the temple of the Lord and so David took the
time to show him the plans that the Lord had given him for the temple and also
gave Solomon instructions on how to rule the people well (See 1 Kings 2:3 and
also Proverbs 23:17-18).
There is an age old question that
has been asked of many believers, and that question is “Why do those who are
evil prosper and why do believers suffer?”
David will address this in Psalm 37.
In the KJV of the Scriptures we see the word wicked found fourteen times
in Psalm 37. Dr. Wiersbe writes that
“The theological foundation for the Psalm is the covenant God made with Israel,
recorded in Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 27-30.
God owned the land, and if the nation obeyed Him, they could live in the
land and enjoy its blessings. But if
Israel disobeyed the Lord, He would first chasten them in the land (invasion,
drought, famine), but if they continued to rebel, He would then take them out of the land (captivity). The prophet Habakkuk wrote the following at
the beginning of his prophecy to address the question of why did God not judge
Israel for her sins and why are the wicked prospering: “1The
oracle which Habakkuk the prophet saw. 2 How long, O LORD, will I call for
help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, "Violence!" Yet You do
not save. 3 Why do You make me see iniquity, And cause me to look on
wickedness? Yes, destruction and violence are before me; Strife exists and
contention arises. 4 Therefore the law is ignored And justice is never upheld. For the wicked surround the
righteous; Therefore justice comes out perverted.” God will eventually answer his question
by saying that He was going to use the Babylonians to capture the nation of
Judah, but then Habakkuk will object to that because they are worse than
Judah. God had a plan and at times we
don’t understand it as Habakkuk did not understand it, but that is where we have
to trust the Lord as David writes in Psalm 37:3a “Trust in the LORD and do good.”
Dr. Wiersbe writes at the end of his
introduction to Psalm 37 these words:
“In the psalm, he gave four encouraging assurances to believers who
question how God is running His world (See also Psalms 49 and 73).”
The Lord Can Be Trusted (vv. 1-11) In this section we will see that David will
give one negative instruction which is found in verses 1, 7, and 8 and that is “do not fret.” He will also gives four positive instructions
in the psalm: “trust in the Lord” (v.-3), delight
in the Lord (v. 4), commit yourself
to the Lord (vv. 5-6), and the last one is to rest in the Lord and this is found in verse seven.
Fear not (vv. 1-2): “1 A
Psalm of David: Do not fret because of
evildoers, Be not envious toward wrongdoers. 2 For they will wither quickly like
the grass And fade like the green herb.”
I want to talk about the word “fret” that is seen four times in
verses 1-11. I think that I get the idea
of what this word means and can explain it from a supplement that I take to
help keep my cholesterol down. I take
Niacin which is a form of vitamin B and one of the things that Niacin does if
you don’t take something else to overcome it is to make you hot. I have to take two baby aspirins to stop this
reaction even though what I am taking is a non-flushing type of niacin. My whole body will begin to get hot and turn
red if I don’t take the baby aspirins and that is what this word “fret” means, to get hot so David is
saying “don’t get hot under the collar
because of evildoers.” I suppose
that is good advice when one looks at the political situation in 21st
century America. What David is really
saying is “keep your cool.” There are times when we look at the world and
see the evil that is going on and according to Ephesians 4:26 we ought to feel
a holy anger, for God is angry with that too, but we are not to ever envy the
wicked, wish we had their money or power, for that will led to you getting
hot. David says in verse two that soon
they will be gone, and we know that their fate is going to be hotter than
taking niacin without baby aspirins if they don’t turn from their sins and
trust the Lord for salvation.
Trust in the Lord (v. 3): “Trust
in the LORD and do good; Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.” (NASB)
“Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe
pasture.” (NIV) “Trust in the LORD and do good; live in the
land and be safe.” (GNBE)
The reason for so many
translations is to show that David is talking about trusting the Lord and do
this by staying in the land. When I
studied the book of Ruth the first thing that was in the book was that there
was a famine in the land and Naomi and her family left the land. (Now I know
that was in the providence of God but the point is that they did not trust the
Lord when they left) In the book of
Genesis we see that after a famine came into the Promised Land that Abraham
left for Egypt and the result was bringing back Hagar, which resulted in a lot
more trouble for Abraham.
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, so that you will abound
in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Paul wrote these words in Romans 15:13
showing that a faithful heart is a joyful heart but a fretful heart lacks joy
and peace.
Delight in the Lord (v. 4):
“Delight yourself in the LORD;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.”
Dr Wiersbe’s commentary is so wonderful from
this section that I am going to quote all of it here. “The word translated ‘delight’ comes from a
root that means ‘to be brought up in luxury, to be pampered.’ It speaks of the abundance of the blessings
we have in the Lord Himself, totally apart from what He gives us. To enjoy the blessings and ignore the Blesser
is to practice idolatry. In Jesus
Christ, we have all God’s treasures, and we need no other. If we truly delight in the Lord, then the
chief desire or our heart will be to know Him better so we can delight in Him
even more, and that Lord will satisfy that desire! This is not a promise for people who want
‘things’ but for those who
want more of God in their lives.”
Dr. Wiersbe’s commentary on the book of Ephesians is entitled “Be Rich,”
and the book of Ephesians is filled with the richness of God.
Commit your way to the Lord (vv.
5-6): “5
Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He will do it. 6 He will
bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment as the noonday.”
In 1 Peter 5:7 we can see what
the verb commit means: “You can throw the whole weight of your
anxieties upon him, for you are his personal concern. (Philips)
We are to roll off our burdens.
Now God does not take our burdens in order to for us to become
irresponsible, but in order for us to serve Him better. Let’s look at verse six in the NIV to help us
understand what David means when he writes “bring
it to pass.” “He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of
your cause like the noonday sun.”
David is talking about the vindication of the people of God who have
been slandered by the enemies of God.
Rest in the Lord (vv. 7-11):
“7 Rest in the LORD and wait
patiently for Him; Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, Because
of the man who carries out wicked schemes. 8 Cease from anger and forsake
wrath; Do not fret; it leads only to evildoing. 9 For evildoers will be cut
off, But those who wait for the LORD, they will inherit the land. 10 Yet a little while and the
wicked man will be no more; And you will look carefully for his place
and he will not be there. 11 But
the humble will inherit the land And will delight themselves in abundant
prosperity.”
The word “rest” means to be
silent, to be still. “My soul, wait in
silence for God only, For my hope is from Him. (Psalm 62:5).” We see here one of the most difficult things
for many people to do and that is to keep silent, to be still before the Lord
in order to seek God, for silence is not something that the culture we live in
likes to do, but for the believer it is necessary. I find that this is one of the greatest
problems that I have to overcome. My
mind seems to be always working and to just sit and be still before the Lord
patiently is one of the things that Paul must have known for he could not have
written that he had learned to be content unless he knew how to be still and
wait patiently for the Lord.
When we see evil in our world it
is easy to fret, but if we have spent time in God’s Word, and spent time in
stillness before the Lord then we will not fret over evildoers for we know that
there will come a day when the evildoers will be judged by the Lord. As believers we are to cease from anger. Numbers 12:3 speaks of Moses being a meek man
“(Now the man Moses was very meek, above
all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)” (KJV) Jesus was meek too, and we cannot get
meekness and weakness mixed up for meekness is power under control, and we
certainly know that Moses and Jesus were powerful, but they kept their power
under control.
Matthew 5:5 reads as follows, “’Blessed are the gentle, for they shall
inherit the earth.’” This is a
quotation form verse eleven of Psalm 37 with the exception that Jesus used the
word earth and not land and Dr. Wiersbe points out “Inherit the land’ refers to security of future generations in the
Promised Land, according to God’s covenant, for God had a great work for His
righteous remnant to do in that land, culminating in the coming of
Messiah. Eventually, the wicked will be
cut off as seen in verses 9, 22, 28, 34, and 38, which in Israel usually meant
exclusion from the covenant community, but it could mean execution.”
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: Psalm 37 has spoken to my heart in two ways
as I studied these first eleven verses this morning. To learn to be silent before the Lord and to
listen to His Spirit like Elijah did when the Spirit of the Lord came to him in
a still small voice and not in the noise of the earthquake or the storm. Learning this would help me on my quest to
learn contentment. Trusting the Lord to
take care of the wicked is another thing that I am learning and this psalm has
been a great help to encourage me to do this.
I read in Daniel 2:21 “"It
is He who changes the times and the epochs; He removes kings and establishes kings; He gives
wisdom to wise men And knowledge to men of understanding.” Trusting God’s plan for my life and trusting
God’s plan for the world truly takes learning contentment.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Learn to get alone and be silent
before the Lord.
2. Continue to trust the Lord’s plan
for my life and for the world.
3. Continue to learn contentment.
2/2/2012
11:01:39 AM
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