SPIRITUAL
DIARY FOR 4/15/2012 9:07:48 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“Has the Lord rejected us?”
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference:
PT-1 Psalm
74
Message
of the verses: In today’s SD we will
begin to look at Psalm 74, another psalm of Asaph. This is the second of ten psalms in a row
that were written by Asaph and this is the second psalm in the third book or
section of the psalms. We will begin
with several introductions from various commentators.
“This community lament expresses the
agony of the people in the midst of the most excruciating of
circumstances. It was bad enough that
Israel’s enemies had destroyed the temple (cf. 2 Kings 25). But even worse, it seemed to the psalmist
that God had abandoned them. In this
prayer he reminds God of His bond with Israel, His past supernatural deeds in
the protection of Israel, and begs God to save His covenant nation now (cf.
Psalm 137 and Lamentations).” (From The
John MacArthur Study Bible)
“Psalm 73 deals with a personal
crisis of faith, but Psalm 74 moves to the national scene and focuses on the
destruction of the temple in Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 B. C. The author is obviously not the Asaph of
David’s day but a namesake among his descendants. Psalm 79 is a companion psalm, and you will
find parallel passages in the book of Lamentations (4/2:6-7; 7/2:2; 9/2:6, 9)
and Jeremiah 6-7/10:25; 1, 13/23:1).
Even through the prophets had warned that judgment was coming (2 Chron.
36:15-21), the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple were
catastrophic events that shook the people’s faith. As he surveyed the situation, Asaph moved
from despair to confidence and in the end affirmed that all was not lost.” (Warren Wiersbe)
The Sanctuary: “The Lord Has Rejected Us!” (vv. 1-11): “1 A Maskil of Asaph: O God, why have You
rejected us forever? Why does Your anger smoke against the sheep of Your
pasture? 2 Remember Your congregation, which You have purchased of old, Which
You have redeemed to be the tribe of Your inheritance; And this Mount Zion,
where You have dwelt. 3 Turn Your footsteps toward the perpetual ruins; The
enemy has damaged everything within the sanctuary. 4 Your adversaries have
roared in the midst of Your meeting place; They have set up their own standards
for signs. 5 It seems as if one had lifted up His axe in a forest of trees. 6
And now all its carved work They smash with hatchet and hammers. 7 They have
burned Your sanctuary to the ground; They have defiled the dwelling place of
Your name. 8 They said in their heart, "Let us completely subdue
them." They have burned all the meeting places of God in the land. 9 We do
not see our signs; There is no longer any prophet, Nor is there any among us
who knows how long. 10 How
long, O God, will the adversary revile, And the enemy spurn Your name
forever? 11 Why do You withdraw Your hand, even Your right hand? From within
Your bosom, destroy them!”
Before we get started on these
verses I want to continue the point that was made earlier that God had stated
through His prophets that one day this would all come about, that is that
Israel would be removed from their land and be taken to another country because
they would not follow the Lord. This goes
back to the writings of Moses in the book of Deuteronomy where God through
Moses told the children of Israel that they would go into their land and then
they would disobey the Lord and He would remove them from their land but then
would bring them back to the land where they would disobey Him again and then
the Lord would remove them again and they would offer themselves as slaves, but
no one would buy them. This happened in
70 A. D. when Titus who lead the Roman army against Israel and defeated them,
tore down the temple (the second temple) and then because there were so many
slaves on the slave market at that time people would not even buy the children
of Israel as slaves. Deuteronomy 28
which is called the “Palestinian Covenant” tells about this. 4/15/2012 9:34:08 AM
4/15/2012
1:02:11 PM
There are many promises that God
gave to the nation of Israel, beginning with Abraham, that God would give the
Promised Land to them, and of course after the destruction of the temple I am
sure that there were many doubts in the minds of the people that God perhaps
had changed His mind about having Israel stay in their land. This was a logical conclusion, but faith does
not always seem logical, for there were times when God had told His prophets to
do something that would not seem logical and it turned out okay. Elijah did some things by faith that from a
human point of view seemed crazy. When
he was with the prophets of Baal they both made a sacrifice to their gods and
Baal was suppose to burn up the sacrifice, but could not do it so Elijah then
dug a pit around the sacrifice he was offering and then filled it with water
along with pouring water over the sacrifice and God consumed the sacrifice with
water. This took faith on the part of
Elijah to do something like this and it would also take faith on the part of
the children of Israel who saw the city and the temple broken down, faith that
God would restore it.
Spiritual
meaning for my life today: I have
mentioned something similar when commenting on other psalms, and that is that
we can see in certain psalms that they start out with a problem, in the case of
Psalm 74 it is the problem of wondering what it is that God is doing in
allowing the city of Jerusalem and His temple to be destroyed, and then as the
psalmist begins to work his way through the writing of the psalm we find that
his faith in the Lord is increased and so he will believe that God has a plan
to take care of this problem. This is
true in life as we go through life as a believer, we will see a problem and
then we should begin to research in the Word of God on what He has to say about
the problem and then this should increase our faith and we trust the Lord to
take care of the problem. Psalm 56:3-4 says “3 When I am afraid, I will put my
trust in You. 4 In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I
shall not be afraid. What can mere man do to me?” It takes trust in the Lord to have the faith
to believe that God will take care of our problems. Where do we get our faith from? “Faith
come by hearing, hearing the Word of God.”
My Steps of Faith for Today:
I trust that the Lord will continue to teach me contentment as I go
through different issues that I am facing.
4/15/2012
3:02:55 PM
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