Considering the Bible

My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

I pray I can communicate a portion of the blessing we receive from this wonderful book.

Psalm 35

Of David.

1 Contend, O LORD, with those who contend with me; fight against those who fight against me!
2 Take hold of shield and buckler and rise for my help!
3 Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers! Say to my soul, “I am your salvation!”

This is the first of the imprecatory psalms, a psalm that speaks of violence upon the writers enemies. Imprecatory means cursing, and this psalm, along with eight other psalms (55, 58, 59, 69, 83, l09, l37 and l40) recites what was going on in the saints heart during times of trial and struggle.

Does the writing of this type of psalm give us license to pray down vengeance on our enemies? Can we model our prayers upon the scriptural example set out in these psalms?

This is a tough question for me since I tend to hear the Master’s comments when James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven

And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Luke 9:54

Of course, based on the Old Testament witness, this could be an accepted course of events. In one of the imprecatory psalms, the author speaks of smashing babies heads against rocks!

Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock! – Psalm 137:9 ESV

Wow!

But not so with the Son of God. Luke simply states that Jesus turned and rebuked them.

But he turned and rebuked them. – Luke 9:55 ESV

To call destruction onto our enemies is against the spirit of the gospel. The folks that have chosen to be our enemies are without the gospel and under condemnation. We are not to hurry them to their destiny. We need to persuade them towards the Lord Jesus. (Let us not talk of our brothers as enemies, for this is simply sin.)

In this Psalm, David is most likely running from King Saul, and seeking survival. Yet when he has opportunity to take revenge on King Saul, he relents and provides mercy. Why won’t he become the answer to his own prayer?

Again, this is why this type of Psalm gives me pause.

Can New Testament believers pray to God for their enemies destruction while showing mercy to them at the same time? This smacks of a double minded existence, where what we want and what we do are two different things. Talk of being conflicted!

Can we ask the Father in heaven to serve justice upon the enemies of the church while maintaining a clear conscious? Consider the slain souls of Revelation 6.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.

They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?”

Rev 6:9-10 ESV

Is this sufficient justification for us to cry our for vengeance on our enemies? Notice these souls are not seeking their justice, but requesting the time when God’s judgement will avenge their blood.

Are you starting to see why these imprecatory psalms give me pause?

Let’s consider the passage before us.

Verse 1 starts out with “Contend” and “Fight”. David is calling out to God to defend him, no, not to defend him but to fight for him. There is a difference. David is seeking an offensive move from God and not simply a protective, defensive stance. And yet, is this the same cry that we believers cry out as we may come under attack, pressure, or pain, and that we seek God’s ever present help?

I often don’t think of God as an offensive (as opposed to defensive, not repulsive) warrior, and that surely impacts my prayers, and most likely my general faith state.

When have you asked the Lord to fight for you, or better yet to fight with you in the deliverance of another soul, by prayer, or fasting?

When I hear of contending and fighting, I think I understand that the Old Testament saint was expressing a war like term that was related to this earth, to battle with a national or physical enemy. This is not on the Christian’s agenda. Our battle is not with flesh and blood – This is a hard lesson for me to keep focused on.

In the midst of all the requests in this portion of the psalm, for the Lord to fight for this saint, verse 3 modifies all of these requests, asking that in the middle of all of the strain and stress, his soul would know that God is his salvation. This is key to the Psalm and is a thought repeated through out the passage (v 9, 27)

As we venture through this psalm, I find I am challenged to settle back and let the Lord have the reins of the salvation He has provided. Recently I have seemingly thought it all depends on me, that I am responsible for success, for safety and for security.

I have to give these fears, doubt and burdens back to the Master and realize He is good, He is strong and He is my Salvation

How about you? Are you carrying a burden you needn’t? Are you depending on yourself for things you cannot deliver? Are you tired and worn out?

You may have the wrong yoke on!

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 11:28-29 ESV

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Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

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My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

In our previous post, I supplied an introduction to this psalm that may be beneficial for review if you have not read it. Psalms for Psome – Ps 34 – A

Lets continue with Psalm 34:19-22

19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.
20 He keeps all his bones; not one of them is broken.
21 Affliction will slay the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
22 The LORD redeems the life of his servants; none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

In our last post on this precious psalm, we spoke of the eyes and ears being towards the righteous. We spoke of the action of the eyes and ears of the Lord. The activity of the Lord towards the righteous one.

This portion of the psalm describes a specific instance where the Lord looks and listens toward the righteous one.

The Lord is active in the righteous ones life, whether by conviction or by comfort, and as we walk and obey, He is active in looking out for us us, and looking towards us. Specifically this psalm defines the action of the Lord in relation to the afflictions of the righteous. He is near the righteous one that is experiencing afflictions

This psalm, more importantly speaks of one Righteous One, the Messiah.

As I have read through the Psalms, I sometimes consider how the Messiah might have related to the prophecies and promises written of Him. Lets remember that the Word of God is about the Messiah and for the Messiah. He is the all and end of every passage.

This particular psalm includes information that is an obvious reference to the passion of the Christ, to the very crucifixion of the Son of God. I am of course, referring to the prophecy of His bones not broken in verse 20. What a highly specific prophecy pointing the lost to find the truth and the saved to find encouragement!

This prophecy speaks not of an affliction, but in the limits of His suffering. Therefore the psalmist must be thinking of afflictions that do not refer to His bones. Join me as I consider a few of the afflictions of the Righteous One.

Physical Afflictions

This passage speaks of the “many afflictions” of the Righteous One. When I think of the physical afflictions of the Son of Man, I think of the crucifixion, and of the torturous physical pain of the cruel cross. The cross was the culmination of His passion and opened the most Holy Place for us to enter into.

And yet, He suffered physically prior to the crucifixion, a suffering that makes me shudder.

By his wounds you have been healed.

The scourging of the Master is a horrendous physical torture, and has been described by Eusebius as follows

“For they say that the bystanders were struck with amazement when they saw them lacerated with scourges even to the innermost veins and arteries, so that the hidden inward parts of the body, both their bowels and their members, were exposed to view” (Ecclesiastical History, Book 4, chap. 15).

Peter describes the result of His scourging in his first epistle, as our healing. Of course this represents our healing from sin, and not the temporal healing from a sickness. This is obvious for two reasons.

• Peter reaches back to Isaiah 53:5 in relating to this healing, and throughout the book of Isaiah, healing was always associated with the curse of sin.
• Physical sickness may be cured based on the mercy of God in a specific instance, and not a blanket promise that applies to physical sickness. This promise refers to the healing of the sin curse upon humanity.

The term “wound” in the Greek specifically refers to a bruise, wale or wound the trickles with blood. How understated!

As we have spoken previously, the entire Old Testament is a description of the Lord Jesus and of His mission. One passage in the Old Testament, when considering the sufferings of the Lamb of God may speak of this wounding of the Son of Man.

Then he shall kill the bull before the LORD, and Aaron’s sons the priests shall bring the blood and throw the blood against the sides of the altar that is at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
Then he shall flay the burnt offering and cut it into pieces, – Leviticus 1:5-6

When Moses refers to “the flaying” of the burnt sacrifice, I understand this is after the death of the Levitical offering. I also understand that this term is usually used of the stripping of clothes.

And yet He was the Lamb of God, and the sacrifice of His life was an offering beyond my comprehension. This is offered to the reader for their consideration and meditation

Emotional Afflictions

Let us look to two aspects of His emotional life for this present post.

Sorrow

His emotional life was littered with affliction, including the affliction of sorrow. He was referred to as a Man of sorrow, acquainted with grief.

Isaiah 53:3

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

Matthew 26:38

Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.”

Fear

He experienced fear, for He begged for the crucifixion to be removed from Him, His prayers always focused on the will of the Father, yet the struggle of His coming suffering struck fear and loathing in His heart. How could it not. He was a man of like passions as us and His life was coming to a violent death, full of pain and suffering.

Matthew 26:39

And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

Consider the reality of those last hours in the garden, of the terror He experienced, of the loneliness of His time, with His disciples falling asleep.

I can’t imagine a time when any of us will experience this type of emotional trauma.

Spiritual Afflictions

How can any of us imagine or comprehend the spiritual affliction of the Son of Man being forsaken by the Father in heaven, who had been in communion with the Son of Man constantly and continually. At no time had sin drove a wedge between the Father and the Son until the cross, where Jesus had been left utterly and completely alone, without any comfort, open to the taunts of His enemies and the apparent success of darkness and spiritual wickedness.

And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – Mark 15:34

He was forsaken on the cross. The spiritual affliction was the one affliction that Jesus questioned. He questioned the Father. He had pleased the Father constantly in His life, through all His actions and attitudes. Yet abandoned in His greatest time of need.

Victory in Affliction

Lets return to the psalm we were discussing, and remember the tone of our passage we are looking at today is one of deliverance.

• vs 17 ..the Lord hears and delivers them out of all thier troubles
• vs 19 ..the Lord delivers Him out of them all
• vs 22 ..The Lord redeems the life of His servants

Deliverance of the Righteous One resulted in His resurrection, His deliverance from a life that experienced afflictions. How this must have buoyed up the Master in the midst of His trials, in the midst of His afflictions.

As the Master meditated on these passages, His purpose and mission became clearer and clearer, though full of affliction. He saw His way through it for the sake of the will of the Father, and to provide life for us.

Let us consider the Masters afflictions and understand that the Word provided Him, not only the promise of afflictions, many as they were to be for His life, but also the promise of deliverance.

As followers, we can enter into these promises.

For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me.” For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Romans 15:3-4

Today, many of us shall encounter various degrees for affliction. These afflictions are opportunities to follow Him in them. These are gifts from the Father and are provided for our training as we grow up into His likeness.

May Jesus become greater in all our lives! Praise Him for His loving sacrifice!

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Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com

My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

In our previous post, I supplied an introduction to this psalm that may be beneficial for review if you have not read it. Psalms for Psome – Ps 34 – A

Lets continue with Psalm 34:15-18

15 The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry.
16 The face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
17 When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.
18 The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Much could be said about the fact that David ascribes physical descriptions of the King of glory, and some folks have carried it to it’s literal conclusion. This isn’t a proper way of considering this description, other than in it’s application to the Lord Jesus, as He walked amongst us.

David was describing the God of Heaven in ways he could understand and communicate to others, but he certainly was not stating that the Father above had arms and fingernails.

What I would like to consider is the action going on in the verses, what the eyes are doing, what the ears are doing, what the face of the Lord is doing. You see, the term “towards” is ‘el, and is sometimes referring to motion.

The eyes of the Lord are moving toward the righteous. He is not passive, but looking to the righteous, looking to those who follow after Him.

Have you ever longed to be with someone, waiting for them to come home, for the door to open and to come in for the night? Have you prepped a supper for someone to come home to, to enjoy together? To sit with and converse? Is this the attitude that David is describing here in this passage, of the Lords eyes looking towards us, of actively seeking the best for the loved one?

In the next portion of the couplet, the psalmist speaks of “His ears being open to their cry. H7775 (šavʿâ) speaks of the cry of help, and the translators of the ESV have inserted “are open” as being understood from the previous couplet.

When reading the Old Testament, I think some times verbs were not inserted into the passage if they were to be understood by the reader from a previous use in the passage. If this is true, (I am no Hebrew scholar by any stretch of the imagination!), the Lords ears are of the same “attitude” as his eyes, in this passage in relation the the cries of help.

In a crowded room, with conversations buzzing, if my wife or a child, on the other side of the room, mentions my name, I hear it. If it is a cry for help, I am moving towards them before their cry is out of their mouth. My ear is towards them, friends. My ear is towards them.

Yet, to have the face of the Lord against you is some serious stuff. In the life of the righteous, He provides life everlasting. To those who do evil, He will cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.

To have the face of the Lord against you will result in the life lived being forgotten. To be of nothing. To be a fact that is not considered on this earth. To be without any weight or substance in on this planet. There may be other consequences of “doing evil”, but in this passage, it is that they are forgotten.

Consider the impact of another’s face. With the slightest movement of a minor muscle with the face, one can discern and anger or a delight, a sorrow or a joy.

The face communicates the heart, and for the face to be spoken of in this passage, denotes the entirety of the persons attitude. For the face of the Lord is against evil doers does not seem to provide much hope for the one doing evil. Repentance and faith in the loving heart of the Father, found in the sacrifice of His dear Son is the only remedy.

He has placed before us life and death. Choose life. Repent of your hatred of Jesus and trust Him as your Lord and Savior.

Our final verse in this post speaks of the Lord’s response to the “evil doer” as he repents from his acts of evil.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

To be brokenhearted is to be near to the heart of God. To be crushed in spirit is to be near salvation.

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Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

Follow Considering the Bible on WordPress.com

My wife and I are reading through the Psalms in our evening reading and occasionally a nugget of the Psalms jumps out of the page. Don’t you love it when, after years of reading the “Old Book” passages become alive, reinforcing old teachings or simply warming your heart.

This is the book of Psalms, and it is rich.

In our previous post, I supplied an introduction to this psalm that may be beneficial for review if you have not read it. Psalms for Psome – Ps 34 – A

Lets continue with Psalm 34.

11 Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12 What man is there who desires life and loves many days, that he may see good?
13 Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.
14 Turn away from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

Let’s remember the context of this psalm. David acted like a wild, insane man in front of the Lord’s adversary, in order to avoid the possible consequences of a terrible decision.

David will now teach us the fear of the Lord, per verse 11. But David, you are a failure in this, since you feared man in place of God in this act of shame.

But you see, that is the point! He did not let his failure consume him. Yes he failed, yet he knew his strength was not in him but in the Lord! His confession of being a “poor man” (vs 6) speaks of his humility, his admittance of inability and his dependence on the One who is able to deliver.

Many years ago I ran across a book called “Failure – The Backdoor to Success”. Never read it, and don’t know what it was teaching, but the title has stuck in my cranium for some reason. Most likely because I have had much failure in my life. Yet my failures have been some of the greatest teaching times in my life, as I confronted and learned from them.

David had failed, and yet he had the humility to admit it (in front of his fighting men) and to refocus on the LORD, and specifically on the correct object of fear. How wonderful that in the middle of some of our greatest failures, the Lord is able to shine forth and lead on!

He begins with a question that ultimately consumes each of us.

Who wants a Good Long Life?

David’s life was looking like it was going to be “short lived”, if we remember his circumstances. Still being followed by a murderous King Saul, and shaming himself in front of the Lord’s enemy, he was a man that was a heartbeat away from death.

And yet he offers counsel. Counsel that informs us that the Fear of the Lord is a learned condition. A habit of behavior that we are to exercise in our lives in order to realize, and live in, the fear of the Lord.

1. Our Communication

• Clean up your speech
  • This world freely spews forth whatever is brewing in their heart, with a bit cleansing to be “socially acceptable” This is not to be the believers method of communication! Paul is clear in that our speech is to be always gracious.
    • Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

• Don’t lie
  • It is not merely the manner in which we communicate, but also the content of our message. Whether it is seemingly inconsequential chit chat or the presentation of the Lord Jesus to another, the content is to be open and truthful, understanding our own weaknesses.
  • Colossians 3:9 ESV – Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices

2. Our Actions

• Turn from evil
  • Early in my faith, I was struggling with the concept of how faith relates to repentance, and as the anal spreadsheet fella that I was about to become, compiled all the verses in the New Testament ( and eventually the Old Testament) and tried to analyze the relationship of belief with repentance. Although it was highly instructive for a young believer, to this day one finding still resonates in my thoughts.
    • Repentance is spoken of towards the covenant person much, much more that to those outside of the covenant.
      • 2 Corinthians 7:9-10 As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting. For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.
    • Remember that the root meaning of repentance is “a change of mind” and that as we study the Word throughout our lives, we are to expect to find areas in our lives that are in opposition to the will of God. We are to “change our minds” concerning our behavior!

• Do good
  • Often in the raising of our children, I would be the parent that would say “no”. My favorite (and only) wife would be the one who would come along and encourage the positive side of the coin, that of doing good instead of simply stopping some bad practice. Repentance (changing my mind) is not sufficient on it’s own in order to enjoy life, but that every void that is created with a turning from evil, that void needs to be filled with acts of “doing good”
  • I also love that David did not define “doing good”, since the background of the future kings message is that of the fear of God in relation to the will of God, that is the moral code of Moses. He was truly a man after God’s own heart, and not simply a rule keeper!
  • Jesus often used the term “do good” in His teaching. How liberating that He gives such freedom in our following Him. He does not define “doing good” with some limiting action, such as only on a specific day, or only to a specific group of people, or only in a specific place.
    • Luke 6:27 But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you

3. Our Desires

• Seek peace
  • What is the difference between seeking peace and pursuing peace? Our last couplet spoke of two sides of a coin, but this couplet directs us to our desires in relation to others.
    • To “seek” peace is not simply an occasional thought of friendliness to those who are irritating our lives, but according to strive after peace, to crave it, to seek it to find it.
    • Of course, all though we are instructed to seek peace in our behavior, the final result is dependent on two parties. This is the truth Paul speaks of in Romans
      • Romans 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

• Pursue peace
  • As mentioned above, seeking and pursuing peace seems, at first glance to be the same instruction for the one learning the fear of the Lord, but I am beginning to see that David may have meant this last phrase as a magnifier of the intent of seeking peace!
  • To “pursue” has multiple definitions within one of the study websites I refer to, but I find it illustrative to consider “pursue” occasionally includes the idea of hostility. It describe a greater passion than may be described simply by the term “seek”.
    • Romans 14:19 So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.

How badly do you want a “Good Long Life?”

David gives instruction, and we do well to heed his wisdom.

Communicate graciously, live righteously, and chase after good relations with all.

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Thanks again for coming to visit. I hope you found something of interest in this post and would appreciate a comment, to begin a discussion.

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