The First Shall Be Last (Mark 10:17-22)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/23/2012 8:25:12 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  The First Shall Be Last

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Mark 10:17-22

 

            Message of the verses:  Since we took almost a month to cover the 119^th Psalm I have not gotten to the book of Mark much this month and so I have decided to cover the rest of the 10^th chapter of Mark before returning to the Psalms.  We have already done two messages from the tenth chapter of Mark so far this month.

 

            17  As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, "Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" 18 And Jesus said to him, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. 19  "You know the commandments, ’DO NOT MURDER, DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY, DO NOT STEAL, DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS, Do not defraud, HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER.’" 20 And he said to Him, "Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth up." 21 Looking at him, Jesus felt a love for him and said to him, "One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." 22 But at these words he was saddened, and he went away grieving, for he was one who owned much property.

            When we first began to look at this tenth chapter of Mark I quoted a section from Dr. Wiersbe’s introductory commentary that is helpful as we make our way through this chapter:  “He (Jesus) could have preached long sermons; but instead, He gave us these five important lessons that can be expressed in five concise, paradoxical statements.”  He also made this statement ad he described what a paradox is, “A paradox is a statement that seems to contradict itself and yet expresses a valid truth or principle.”  Example would be the statement that Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 2Cor. 12:10, “When I am weak, then am I strong.”  One could ask how Paul could make a statement like this, but as a believer when we come to the end of our strength and decide to rely upon the strength of the Lord it is then that we will be strong.

 

            I remember shortly after becoming a believer and shortly after becoming a member of the church that I attended for over 32 years that our Pastor stated one morning that it would make a good sermon if he would go through the NT and speak of all of the things that happened at the feet of Jesus, for there are many times when people came to the feet of Jesus, and we see in this section that a rich young ruler is at the feet of Jesus, but in all of the incidents when this happened he is the only one who went away worse than he came, and this man had a lot of things in his favor, and one of them was that he knew much about the OT.  This was a young man, and yet it is said that he was some kind of a ruler.  John MacArthur speculates that perhaps he was a synagogue ruler.  At any rate we know that he was young, rich, and that he knew his Old Testament.  He surely shows good manners and good morals and he has these things going for him too.

            People today can have these same qualities and it will do them no good when it comes to eternal spiritual qualities, for this young man did not have a high value of salvation, for in his mind he thought that he could do something to earn it, and there are many today who feel the same way, for they want to put God into a box and bring Him down to their level, but that will never happen.  God never changes for He is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and this is one of the things that gives me the desire to worship Him.  Like people today this young man thought that at the end of his life he would have more good works in his favor than bad works and so he would be ushered into the kingdom of God on that basis.  The problem with this is it is not true.  God only wants perfect people or should we say sinless people in His presence and that means that Someone had to pay the price of our sins in order for us to be justified before a holy God, and this rich young ruler was looking him straight in the face and did not realize it.

            When this man, and people today take the approach of earning their way to heaven they make salvation cheap, and although it costs those who accept the death of Jesus in their place free, it was by no means cheap, especially to the Lord Jesus Christ and His Father who sent Him to accomplish this.  Here is something to think about along those lines.  I want to quote the first thing that we find that the Lord Jesus said while on planet earth, “He said, "Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?’”  (Luke 2:49 Message.)  We see this theme throughout the Gospels that Jesus was on a mission and so that is the firth thing that we read that He spoke of when he was a young man.  Now what is the last thing that we read that Jesus said?  We see that Jesus’ last words from the cross are that “It is finished.”  So when we put these things together we see that  Jesus began His life on earth to do His Father’s will and at the end of His life fulfilled His Father’s will for Him. 

            This young man calls Jesus “Good Teacher,” and Jesus then remarks at this by asking him why he calls Him good, for no one is good but God was Jesus’ reply.  By making this statement to Jesus we get the impression that he was trying to flatter the Lord.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “the Jewish rabbis did not allow the word good to be applied to them.  Only God was good, and the word must be reserved for Him alone.  Jesus was not denying that He was God; rather, He was affirming it.  He just wanted to be sure that the young man really knew what he was saying and that he was willing to accept the responsibilities involved.”  The rabbis were right, for Paul writes in Romans 3:12 “THERE IS NONE WHO DOES GOOD, THERE IS NOT EVEN ONE.’”

            Jesus points this young man to the Law for He wanted him to see himself as a sinner.  The first part of the Ten Commandments speaks of how men should view God while the second is about man to man relationships or people relationships.  We must remember that the Law of God speaks of the holiness of God, and it was there to show us that God is perfect and we fall short of perfection and thus shows are need for a Savior.  However this young man did not see himself as a sinner, for He tells Jesus that he has kept the Law.  I have been told that the hardest commandment of the Ten Commandments to keep is the tenth.  “’You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor (Exodus 20:17).’”  This commandment is the one that this young man had broken, and I believe that the reason that it is the hardest to keep is because it works in a person’s mind.  If a person sees that his neighbor has a beautiful wife, in his mind he may covet this man’s wife, or perhaps the wife is a hard worker and he desires a hard working wife the same can be true.  A woman could do the same thing as the man and covet her neighbor’s husband.  The point is in this story that this man was rich, coveted riches and therefore would not follow Jesus for this reason.  Paul writes to Timothy “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil (1Tim. 6:10).”

 

9/23/2012 8:19:58 PM

 

            I did not have a chance to finish this Spiritual Diary this morning as it took me longer than I thought it would and we had to leave for church so I decided to add some more this evening.  When we got to church our Pastor was preaching on the parallel passage to this section from the Gospel of Matthew and so I did get some more insight into this passage.

            Jesus is said to have loved this man, and was probably as saddened as the man was when he left because he could not give up his riches in order to follow Jesus. 

            It was during a baptismal service at our church a few months back that our Pastor allowed a former Pastor who attends our church to be a part of the baptism of his grandchild.  This man was elated to once again be able to be a part of a baptism and shared a story that goes along with our subject of this SD, although the outcome is much different.  The former Pastor told the story of a young lady that he had the privilege of baptizing who was told by her father that if she proceeded in being baptized, which would make her a member of the church that he would take her out of his will and would not leave to her the one million dollars that he intended to leave her.  She went ahead with the baptism and after her father died she received nothing from him.  She followed the Lord, but the rich young ruler decided not to follow the Lord.

            It was in the 1950’s that there were a group of missionaries serving in South America and it was their desire to communicate with the Aqua Indians, who were a fierce tribe that had little problems in killing anyone who invaded their territory.  The men decided to begin to drop food and supplies to the Indians in order to make friends with them and then they decided to land next to a river in order to speak with them.  They did make contact with the Indians, but later that night the Indians killed all of them.  Jim Elliot was one of the missionaries who was killed and he made a statement that is rather famous, and also goes along with this section.  He said “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep, to get what he cannot lose.”  The young lady in the story I told did this, but the rich young ruler did not understand this.

            Lord willing we will continue to look at the rest of the story in the next SD.

 

9/23/2012 8:40:43 PM

 

Hear My Prayer (Ps. 119:169-176)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/22/2012 7:49:58 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                  Focus:  Hear My Prayer

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                     Reference:  Psalm 119:169-176

 

            Message of the verses:  “169 Tav. Let my cry come before You, O LORD; Give me understanding according to Your word. 170 Let my supplication come before You; Deliver me according to Your word.  171 Let my lips utter praise, For You teach me Your statutes.  172 Let my tongue sing of Your word, For all Your commandments are righteousness.  173 Let Your hand be ready to help me, For I have chosen Your precepts. 174 I long for Your salvation, O LORD, And Your law is my delight.  175 Let my soul live that it may praise You, And let Your ordinances help me.  176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments.”

 

            We began looking as Psalm 119 on the 30^th of August and now it is the 22^nd of September and we begin the last eight verses of this wonderful psalm.  It seems to me that much of this Psalm was a prayer that the psalmist has written and in today’s section we will look at the ending of this psalm that Dr. Wiersbe has described as hearing the prayer of the psalmist and in this section we see the word “your” or “Thy” (KJV) in all of the verses with the exception of verse 174.  He points out that this often repeated word will help us understand the requests that the psalmist is making.

 

            I Need Your Word (vv. 169-172):  ““169 Tav. Let my cry come before You, O LORD; Give me understanding according to Your word. 170 Let my supplication come before You; Deliver me according to Your word.  171 Let my lips utter praise, For You teach me Your statutes.  172 Let my tongue sing of Your word, For all Your commandments are righteousness.”

            As believer’s we need to be in the Word of God each and every day so that we can continue to learn from it.  The writer of the book of Hebrews has this to say about the Word of God, “For the Word that God speaks is alive and active; it cuts more keenly than any two-edged sword: it strikes through to the place where soul and spirit meet, to the innermost intimacies of a man’s being: it examines the very thoughts and motives of a man’s heart (Hebrews 4:12 Phillips).”   Don’t believe any person who states that he knows the Word of God from cover to cover, for we will be spending eternity learning from His Word.  I once heard of a person who was very faithful in reading and studying the Word of God each day, and a person that he knew asked him why it was that he studied the Word of God each day for he could not possibly remember all that he was learning each day.  He replied to him that six months ago he did not remember what his wife had fixed him for supper, but he did remember that that food had sustained him for that day and so did the Word of God sustain him for that day too.

            We see in this section that the psalmist is asking for understanding and deliverance in this section for just as Jesus stated in John 8:32 that the truth would set a person free, the psalmist wanted to be set free by the truth.  We can see that once the psalmist understood the statutes of God that he began to praise him, and from this we understand that study and worship go together.  Paul gives us an example of this from his letter to the Romans, for after Paul discussed the wonderful decrees of the Lord that are found in chapters 9-11 he writes the following in praise to the Lord, “33 I stand amazed at the fathomless wealth of God’s wisdom and God’s knowledge. How could man ever understand his reasons for action, or explain his methods of working? 34 For: Who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been his counsellor? 35 Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? 36 For everything began with him, continues its existence because of him, and ends in him. To him be the glory forever, amen (Romans 11:33-36 Phillips).”

 

            I Need Your Hand (v. 173):  “173 Let Your hand be ready to help me, For I have chosen Your precepts.”

            This is the only time that the psalmist spoke of God’s hand in this psalm but in other psalms it is used to help us understand who God is.  The worthless idols that man worshiped in the OT times, and even today have hands, but they do not move, while the Lord is Spirit and in reality does not have hands but He does move on our behalf.  In Psalm 95:7 we read “For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.”  Jesus used this image in the following verses from John’s Gospel, “27 “My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; 28 and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 29  "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand (John 10:27-28).”

 

            I Need Your Salvation (v. 175):  “174 I long for Your salvation, O LORD, And Your law is my delight.”

            The psalmist is speaking of salvation from his enemies in this verse, but we did learn about the salvation that is provided for us earlier in verse 166, “I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, And do Your commandments.”  Our ultimate salvation comes through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, but we can be delivered from different difficult situations from the Lord including being harassed by Satan.

 

            I need Your Help (v. 175):  “175 Let my soul live that it may praise You, And let Your ordinances help me.”

            I can truly concur with the psalmist in this verse, asking for His Word to help me through difficult situations that I find myself in.

            Dr. Wiersbe writes the following to help us understand this section, “God’s hand can help us (v. 173), but so can God’s judgments.  ‘Judgments’ is a synonym for the Word of God, but it can also refer to the workings of God’s providence in this world (105:7; Rom. 11:33).  Of course, the two go together, because God always obeys His own Word when He works in this world.  God helps us as He arranges the affairs of this world and of our lives, for there are no accidents in the life of the believer—only appointments.  Our Father watches over us and accomplishes His will (23:3; John 10:4; Rom. 8:28).”

 

            I am Your Servant (v. 176):  “176 I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek Your servant, For I do not forget Your commandments.”

            I can see the grace of God in this section for His Word says in Isaiah 53, “All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”  (Isa 53:6)  The psalmist was a believer and I think that he was saying that there were times when he still went astray like the sheep that is in the parable of the “lost sheep” from Luke’s Gospel.

            Dr. Wiersbe concludes his commentary on this verse and the entire psalm by writing “He opened the psalm with a benediction (v. 1), but he closed it with a warning, and both are important to the balanced Christian life.  God gave us promises and assurances so we will not despair, but He gave us warnings that we might not presume.  He was still the servant of God not the servant of sin, and he still remembered God’s Word, so he would not stray for long.  The Good Shepherd would find him and lead him back to the fold.  He would anoint his wounds with healing oil and give him a long refreshing drink of water (23:5).”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  The Word of God is what this psalm is all about and it encourages me to stay in the Word in order to find my marching orders from the Lord.  Paul writes in the book of Ephesians that a Pastor is to equip the saints to do the work of the Lord, and the way that he does that is by teaching and preaching the whole counsel of God. 

            Verse 176 is a fitting end of this psalm as it teaches me that the Lord loves me so much that he will come and get me when I stray.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to stay or remain in the Vine, and continue to be taught contentment so that I can learn contentment.

 

Memory verses for the week:  1Cor. 13:1-7

 

            1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love I am nothing.  3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

            4 Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag, and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.

 

9/22/2012 9:14:59 AM

               

Blessed are the Ballanced (Ps. 119:161-168)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/21/2012 8:37:49 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                 Focus:  Blessed Are the Balanced

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                  Reference:  Psalm 119:161-168

 

  Message of the verses:  “161 Shin. Princes persecute me without cause, But my heart stands in awe of Your words. 162 I rejoice at Your word, As one who finds great spoil. 163 I hate and despise falsehood, But I love Your law. 164 Seven times a day I praise You, Because of Your righteous ordinances. 165 Those who love Your law have great peace, And nothing causes them to stumble. 166 I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, And do Your commandments. 167 My soul keeps Your testimonies, And I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep Your precepts and Your testimonies, For all my ways are before You.”

 

  I have always said that the entire Bible is a balanced book, and as we have studied the 119^th Psalm we can see that it is also balanced, and we will see that this quality is especially true in this stanza.

 

  Respect and Rejoicing (vv. 161-162):  “Princes persecute me without cause, But my heart stands in awe of Your words. 162 I rejoice at Your word, As one who finds great spoil.”

  Let us go back to verse 23 for some insight on verse 161.  “Even though princes sit and talk against me, Your servant meditates on Your statutes.”  We see that the princes began to talk against the psalmist in verse 23, but now they are persecuting against him in verse 160.  The psalmist does not change as he continues to be strengthened by the Word of God.  The psalmist has learned as we should learn that when we fear the Lord we need to fear no one else.  We can see that the psalmist both respected and rejoiced in the Word of God at the same time.  We must learn that the joy of the Lord and the greatness of the Lord are friends and not enemies.  As the princes were trying to rob the psalmist of perhaps even his life he was growing wealthier in the Word of God.  In this world today we hear a lot about money as we have TV networks dedicated 24/7 speaking about money.  When I began my job at Ford in 1965 I was making $2.68 per hour and a nice house cost no more that $12-15 thousand dollars.  Today you can’t buy a good used car for that much money.  God’s Word is full of promises and they never lose their value, and we cannot be robbed of them.

 

  Love and Hate (v. 163):  “163 I hate and despise falsehood, But I love Your law.”

  When people think about God they mostly think that God is love, and He surely is love, but God also hates sin, and the Bible teaches us that God hates divorce.  The Bible states that “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.  God hated sin so much that He had to use love to satisfy His hatred of sin, and this was accomplished by sending His Son to planet earth to become sin for us in order to give us His righteousness.  We see love and justice on the cross and for that I will be eternally thankful.  We have seen the psalmist speaking about love and hate throughout this psalm for he states that He loves God’s Law but hated every false way (vv. 97, 104, 127-128).  The psalmist states He loves God’s law but hated double-minded people (v. 113). 

 

  Praise and poise (vv. 164-165):  “164 Seven times a day I praise You, Because of Your righteous ordinances. 165 Those who love Your law have great peace, And nothing causes them to stumble.”

  We can see praise and poise in these two verses as praise is found in verse 164 and poise is found in verse 165.  We see the psalmist praising the Lord seven times a day, but you realize that this is not a matter of pride that he writes these words, and he is not a legalist in doing this.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “The legalist would set a goal and be proud that he reached it; the Spirit-filled believer sets no goal but goes beyond any goal he might have set.  Just as prayer can bring peace to our hearts (Phil. 4:4-7), so praise can bring peace as well.  Focusing on the Lord, asking for nothing, and totally lost in our praise of Him, has a way of making the problems look much smaller and the future much brighter.  But praise also helps us to have poise in our Christian walk and to not stumble (Jude 24) or cause others to stumble (1Cor. 8:13; Romans 14:13).  The singing saint is a stable saint, walking on a level path even when the enemy digs pits and sets up obstacles.”

 

  Walking and Waiting (vv. 166-168):  “166 I hope for Your salvation, O LORD, And do Your commandments. 167 My soul keeps Your testimonies, And I love them exceedingly. 168 I keep Your precepts and Your testimonies, For all my ways are before You.”

  Titus 2:13 is a wonderful promise that all true believers are looking forward to:  “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus.”  This is what all true believers are truly looking forward for we know that this is going to happen someday, as it begins with the rapture of God’s church, the bride of Christ will be taken to heaven to be rewarded for the work that they have done for the Lord while in the body.  This will happen in heaven while the world will be in the tribulation period, the last seven years of earth as we know it.  Revelations 19 shows us that we will return to the earth with our Lord at the very end of the tribulation period and then the Lord will end the war before it destroys the entire earth.  He will then separate the sheep from the goats sending the goats into hell along with the antichrist, the false prophet and the devil.  After this He will recreate the earth into something like it was at the first creation and He will reign from Jerusalem for 1000 years fulfilling His promises to the nation of Israel that are scattered throughout the OT.  The new heavens, new earth, and new Jerusalem await after the end of the 1000 year kingdom as the entire universe is uncreated (2Peter 3:10) and eternity with the Lord begins for all those who have trusted Him for their forgiveness of sins.

  Now we have to keep this in balance with what we are to be doing now while on planet earth.  The reason that Peter told his readers that the earth would be completely destroyed was to encourage them to keep working.  “9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.

    “11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12  looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat! 13  But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells. 14  Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, 15  and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, 16  as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. 17 You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, 18 but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.”  A couple of comments on this passage and the first is that these were the last words of Peter that were written in the NT, for not long after he wrote these words he was crucified upside down, which followed the crucifixion of his wife as tradition tells us.  The other comment is about the word “element” and this word in the Greek means “basic building block.”  The basic building block of all the universe is the atom and we know from Scripture that the Lord holds the world together, but one day He will let loose of the world and it will all burn up in a very, very large atomic explosion.  I have been watching a 26 part series on the last days of the Second World War and at the end of that war two bombs were set off over Japan having the power of twenty thousand tons of TNT and the heat from that blast was in the millions of degrees.  These are just small bombs compared to what are now available, but all of the bombs will not produce the power or heat of when the Lord un-creates the world, and as Peter says, knowing this ought to spurn us on to good works.  Dr. Wiersbe states “But as we wait and hope, we must walk and work, for we want to be found faithful when Jesus comes (Matt. 24:45-51).  When we love His Word, we will also love His appearing (2Tim. 4:6-8) and live like those who are ready to meet their Lord (1John 2:28).”

 

  Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I have always been goal oriented, and I suppose that this is a good thing up unto a point as long as it is not in a legalist way when it comes to spiritual things.  I am glade and at the same time sad (good balance) when it comes to having my toes stepped on from God’s Word.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I want to sincerely praise the Lord in times of troubles and temptations.

 

Memory verses for the week:  1Cor. 13:1-7

 

  1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

  4 Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag, and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

9/21/2012 9:54:19 AM

Strength for the Journey (Ps. 119:153-160)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/20/2012 9:27:45 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                         Focus:  Strength for the Journey

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Psalm 119:153-160

 

            Message of the verses:  “153 Resh. Look upon my affliction and rescue me, For I do not forget Your law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me; Revive me according to Your word. 155 Salvation is far from the wicked, For they do not seek Your statutes. 156 Great are Your mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your ordinances. 157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, Yet I do not turn aside from Your testimonies. 158 I behold the treacherous and loathe them, Because they do not keep Your word. 159 Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your lovingkindness. 160 The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.”

 

            We are getting to the end of Psalm 119, and it has been a great journey for us to go on. The psalmist is realizing that as he nears the end of the Hebrew alphabet that his trials would continue, and so will ours.  The psalmist still needs help from the Lord as he goes through trials, and he will draw that strength from God’s Law.  Dr. Wiersbe states that the Christian life is like the land of Canaan, for we read in Deuteronomy 11:11 these words, “’But the land into which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks water from the rain of heaven.’”  (Italics added)  Yes the Christian life is full of hills and valleys as we go to mountain top experiences and then are plunged down into the valleys of life, but God is always the same and His Word is always the same.  One of the most dangerous times in the life of the believer is after a mountain top experience, and we have to remember this so that we are not defeated after a mountain top experience.  I certainly can relate to those experiences.

 

            We see a key phrase in this section, something we have seen before and that phrase is “revive me.”  Dr Wiersbe points out that this word means “give me life, lift me up and keep me going.”  We as believers need to be revived many times in our walk with the Lord and we must remember the statement from an old Scottish Pastor who stated that “The successful Christian life is a series of new beginnings.”  Revival is a necessary part of those new beginnings.

 

            Revive me, for you are my Redeemer (vv. 153-155):  “Look upon my affliction and rescue me, For I do not forget Your law. 154 Plead my cause and redeem me; Revive me according to Your word. 155 Salvation is far from the wicked, For they do not seek Your statutes.”

            One way to better understand the Bible is to look at a concordance like the “Strongs Concordance,” where you can look up a word and see how it is used in different part of the Bible.  I am going to copy and paste verse 153 including the Strongs numbers and then copy and past Genesis 22:8 the same way.  “Look <07200> upon my affliction <06040> and rescue <02502> me, For I do not forget <07911> Your law <08451>.”  “Abraham <085> said <0559>, "God <0430> will provide <07200> for Himself the lamb <07716> for the burnt <05930> offering <05930>, my son <01121>." So the two <08147> of them walked <01980> on together <03164>.”  We see the number 07200 in both verses and this helps us to understand what the psalmist is saying to the Lord.  The meaning of the word is “The Lord will see to it, and that is what Abraham is saying to his son Isaac when he asks where the sacrifice is that they were going to offer to the Lord.  We know that our Lord not only sees our afflictions but will see to them, providing what is needed.  Now let us look at verse 154 and look at the word redeem: “to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer, avenge, revenge, ransom, do the part of a kinsman.”   We know this word from the book of Ruth as Boaz was the kinsman-redeemer for Ruth, but we also know this word in the NT as Jesus Christ is our kinsman as he entered into the human family and in the crucifixion Jesus paid the price to redeem us from sin, death, and hell. The words plead [defend] ties in with the Lord Jesus Christ as our Kinsman Redeemer and He is also our Surety as seen in verse 122:  “Be surety for Your servant for good; Do not let the arrogant oppress me.”  Jesus is our Mediator, and He is our Advocate, who represents us before the throne of God (1John 2:1-2):  “1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; 2 and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.”  Just as the psalmist knew that in his affliction the Lord would hear his prayer and intercede for him, we can have that assurance too.

 

            Revive me, for you are merciful (vv. 156-158):  “. 156 Great are Your mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your ordinances. 157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries, Yet I do not turn aside from Your testimonies. 158 I behold the treacherous and loathe them, Because they do not keep Your word.”

            If we prayed to God on our own merit we would not get too far, but Jesus told His disciples and they passed it on to us that we are to pray in the name of Jesus and we are also to pray in the help of the Spirit.  “John 15:16, “’You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.’”  Romans 8:26-27, “26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words; 27  and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

            We see in this section that the psalmist was still disgusted with the way the unbelievers were living, yet their bad habits did not change his own convictions, and that is something that we need to remember when we see all the things that are going on in our country today.

 

            Revive me, for Your Word can be trusted (vv. 159-160):  “159 Consider how I love Your precepts; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your lovingkindness. 160 The sum of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous ordinances is everlasting.”

            We see the wonderful promise of verse 160 stating that God’s Word can be trusted, and that is because God can be trusted.  Dr. Wiersbe states “The totality of God’s written revelation is not just true—it is truth.”  He goes on to state “The Bible is not a magic book that conveys divine life to anyone who picks it up and reads it.  God’s living Word communicates His life and power to those who read it, meditate on it, and obey it because the love God and His Word.  When Jesus raised the dead, it was through speaking the Word (Luke 7:11-17; 8:40-56; John 11:38-44; see John 5:24), and His Word gives us life today when we find ourselves in the dust (25).”

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  There are times in my life, and I suppose in the lives of others when we look for truth.  Pilate looked for truth when Jesus was on trial before Him, and the sad fact is that he was looking Truth right in the face.  I can know for certain that when I read the Word of God that it is not just true, but it is Truth.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Remember that the Word of God is not just true, but is the Truth.

 

Memory verses for the week:  1Cor. 13:1-7

 

            1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong, or a clanging cymbal.  2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love it profits me nothing.

            4 Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly, it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into an account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

9/20/2012 10:48:26 AM

A Primer on Prayer (Ps. 119:145-152)

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 9/19/2012 7:45:04 AM

 

My Worship Time                                                                                 Focus:  A Primer on Prayer

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                             Reference:  Psalm 119:145-152

 

            Message of the verses:  “145 Qoph. I cried with all my heart; answer me, O LORD! I will observe Your statutes. 146 I cried to You; save me And I shall keep Your testimonies. 147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I wait for Your words. 148 My eyes anticipate the night watches, That I may meditate on Your word.  149 Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your ordinances. 150 Those who follow after wickedness draw near; They are far from Your law. 151 You are near, O LORD, And all Your commandments are truth. 152 Of old I have known from Your testimonies That You have founded them forever. “

 

            In his introduction to this section Dr. Wiersbe writes “The writer prayed throughout this entire psalm, but in these verses he concentrated on prayer and cried out to God day and night.  From his experience, we receive some basic introductions about successful prayer.

 

            Pray wholeheartedly (vv. 145-146):  “I cried with all my heart; answer me, O LORD! I will observe Your statutes. 146 I cried to You; save me And I shall keep Your testimonies.”

            From verses 2, 10, & 58 of this psalm we learn that we must seek God with our whole heart, and in verses 34 & 69 we learn that we must obey the Lord with a whole heart.  John Bunyan wrote “In prayer, it is better to have a heart without words, than words without a heart.” 

            The golden altar of incense that was in the temple represents prayer, and it is also spoken of in Revelations 8:3-4, “3 Another angel came and stood at the altar, holding a golden censer; and much incense was given to him, so that he might add it to the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar which was before the throne. 4 And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand.”  This can teach us that the devotion of the heart is what ignites our prayers, and this enables us to present our requests to the Lord; we are praying wholeheartedly.

            We see at the end of verse 146 that the psalmist states what seems to be a bargain with the Lord when he states “save me and I will keep Your testimonies.”  Dr. Wiersbe points out that the psalmist was “dedicating himself to God to obey Him no matter how He answers his prayers.”  He then writes, “Before we can pray as we ought, we must pray for ourselves that God will give us a heart ignited by the fire of the Spirit.”

 

            Pray without ceasing according to the Word (vv. 147-148):  “147 I rise before dawn and cry for help; I wait for Your words. 148 My eyes anticipate the night watches, That I may meditate on Your word.”

            We see two important elements of successful prayer in this section.  When we read 1Thes. 5:17 sometimes we wonder how we can “pray without ceasing,” but that is the first element of successful prayer that we find here.  Dr. Wiersbe states to ‘pray without ceasing does not mean to walk around muttering prayers.  It means to ‘keep the receiver off the hook,’ so that nothing comes between the Father and us.”

            We see from this section that the second element of successful prayer is the Word of God, and this should not surprise us at all, for apart from the Word of God we have no idea of knowing God’s will.  We have mentioned that there may be only three verses in this entire psalm of 176 verses that do not mention the Word of God and so we must conclude that the writer was devoted to the Word of God and prayer for as you read this psalm it reminds us of a very long prayer.  Dr Wiersbe points out that “we must balance the Word and prayer in our devotional life and ministry, for all Bible and no prayer means light without heat, but all prayer and no Bible could result in zeal without knowledge.”  "If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you (John 15:7).” 

            It was evident from Acts 6:4 that the early church leaders dedicated themselves to prayer and the study of the Word, and the kept this in balance.  Dr. Wiersbe points out that “when we meditate on the Word, the Father speaks to us, and when we pray, we speak to the Father. We need both instruction and intercession if we are to be balanced children of God.”

 

            Pray as an act of Love (v. 149):  “149 Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; Revive me, O LORD, according to Your ordinances.”

            Jesus told His disciples that if you love Me you will keep my commandments and from this we learn that love and law do go together.  I think that sometimes we think that our prayers are only like the prayer that Peter prayed “Lord save me” when he was sinking into the water, but as parents we would not only want our children to speak to us if they want something or if they have some sort of crisis, and so does our heavenly Father.  In this we learn that prayer is more than asking, but loving as we can see from this psalm that the psalmist had a great love for the Word of God and the God of the Word.  I have spoken many times about the 15^th chapter of John and abiding or remaining in the Lord in order to get our marching orders from the Lord, but we also will love the Lord more and more when we abide or remain in His Word and in Him, for we can not help but love the Lord more as we study His Word, for by doing this we will better see who He is.

 

            Pray with your eyes open (vv. 150-152):  “150 Those who follow after wickedness draw near; They are far from Your law. 151 You are near, O LORD, And all Your commandments are truth. 152 Of old I have known from Your testimonies That You have founded them forever.”

            We see in this section that the enemies of the psalmist were drawing near and so he wanted the Lord to draw near to him.  An example of this is found in the book of Nehemiah when he and the people of Jerusalem were rebuilding the wall and the gates of the city.  Daniel had prophesied that this would be a time of trouble in the ninth chapter of his book, and Nehemiah instructed the worker to watch out for the enemies along with working on the wall.  They were to watch and pray.  We also see this when Jesus was praying in the garden and His disciples were falling asleep because they were not watching and praying.  Dr. Wiersbe writes “We are soldiers in a battle and we dare not go to sleep while on duty.”  We are to watch and pray.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  I see from this section that the psalmist seems to be praying without ceasing, and we have discussed what this means.  This is something that I desire to practice for I know that I am in a battle and in order to win the battle I need to be, at all times, in touch with my Commander.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Watch and pray with my eyes open.

 

Memory verses for the week:  1Cor. 13:1-7

 

            1 ¶  If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

    4 ¶  Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5  does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6  does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7  bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

 

9/19/2012 8:44:37 AM