Tag Archives: Psalm 18

I am using One Year Bible Online for my daily Bible study. For today, One Year Bible Online links here. I have found that by writing this daily blog of what I see when I read these scriptures, I get more out of them. I hope that by posting these ruminations others may get some benefit as well. If you have any thoughts or comments regarding these verses or what I have written about them, please post them.

2 Chronicles 11-13:22

     When Rehoboam returned to Jerusalem he mustered the fighting men of Judah and Benjamin in order to regain control of the Northern Tribes. However, the prophet Shemaiah told Rehoboam and the gathered troops that God had said not to fight against their relatives, the rest of Israel. As a result, the troops went home. It is not clear from the passage whether Rehoboam listened to the prophet and sent the troops home, or if the troops refused to fight when they heard the prophet’s words, or some combination of the two.
     There are two things mentioned after this that are often overlooked. The first is that in addition to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, all of the priests and Levites living in the lands of the Northern Tribes moved into the territory controlled by Rehoboam because Jeroboam replaced them as the ones to lead worship and care for the centers of worship. The second is that everyone who sincerely wanted to worship the Lord from all of the tribes of Israel followed the Levites into the territory controlled by Rehoboam.
     Once Rehoboam had consolidated his control over Judah and Benjamin he abandoned the Law of the Lord and led all of his people into sin. The passage tells us that as a result, God allowed King Shishak of Egypt to conquer much of Judah. When Shishak was besieging Jerusalem, the prophet Shemaiah told the leaders of the kingdom that because they had abandoned God, God was abandoning them to Shishak. The leaders responded that God was right to do what He was doing. In response to the people of Judah humbling themselves by restraining Shishak and causing him to withdraw after looting Jerusalem.
     After the death of Rehoboam his son, Abijah, took the throne. Shortly after doing so war broke out with Jeroboam. Abijah mustered his army and had about 400,000 men. Jeroboam mustered his army and had about 800,000 men. When the armies met, Abijah called out to the men of Israel saying that Jeroboam had abandoned the worship of God, while the people of Judah were still worshiping the Lord. He continued that the army of Judah being led by the priests of God and that by fighting against them the men of Israel were fighting against God. If they went up against God, they would not succeed. In the meantime, Jeroboam had sent part of his army around behind Abijah’s force. When the men of Judah realized that they were being attacked from the front and the rear they cried out to God for help. Despite the fact that Jeroboam outnumbered Abijah’s force and had managed to outflank it, his troops were defeated soundly in the ensuing battle. Abijah followed up his victory by capturing several towns from Jeroboam. Jeroboam never regained sufficient power to challenge Abijah again.

Romans 8:26-39

Paul tells us that God has given us the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness. One example of how the Holy Spirit will help us is when we do not know how to pray according to God’s will. The Spirit will intercede for us with God. God who knows our hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit and thus will understand how what we are pleading for fits into His will and will answer accordingly.

***
     This passage suggests to me that perhaps we should strive less to spell out the details of what we are praying for and strive more to allow the Spirit to make our requests in accordance with the will of God.
***
     Paul goes on to tell us that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love Him. He has known us before we knew Him and chose us to be transformed into the likeness of His Son. If God is for us, what concern is it to us if some are against us? If God, the ultimate judge, justifies us, who can bring credible charges against us? Not only do we have God justifying us, but we have Christ interceding for us before His throne. Who or what has the power to separate us from God’s love against God’s will? Paul answers that with one of the Biblical truths that we should always hold close to our hearts: “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
***
     No matter what troubles we face in this life, we need to remember the truths which Paul expresses in today’s passage. The first is that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him. Not just in some things, in all things. God is working in every aspect of this world to bring good to those who love Him. From there we can see that we have no need to fear anything that happens in this life, whatever happens we should rejoice because it is the work of God to deliver good into our lives. How can anything, or anyone, do anything to thwart God’s plans for us? If we truly believe that God loves us, we have nothing to fear. For not only will God act for our good out His love for us, but no one and nothing is capable of interfering or reducing that love.

Psalm 18:37-50

I started reading today’s psalm and had trouble seeing a message that fit where my thoughts were today. Part of that is because it is a continuation of a Messianic theme begun earlier in this psalm that I read on previous days. However, then I came to verse 46-48:

The Lord lives! Praise to my Rock!
May the God of my salvation be exalted!
He is the God who pays back those who harm me;
he subdues the nations under me
and rescues me from my enemies.
You hold me safe beyond the reach of my enemies;
you save me from violent opponents.
And for whatever reason, I saw how this fit with what I read in Romans 8 today. I went back and re-read verses 37-45 and saw how that they fit right with “If God is for us, who can stand against us?” We need have no fear of those who make themselves our enemy. The psalmist tells us that God will give us victory over our accusers, because God has justified us.

Proverbs 19:27-29

If you stop listening to those who offer you instruction you will not only stop learning more, you will gradually lose the understanding that you already possess.

Daily Bible Study

July 23, 2013 Bible Study — God’s Way Is Perfect

July 22, 2013 AttilaDimedici

2 Chronicles 8:11-10:19

The passage tells us that Solomon moved his wife, Pharaoh’s daughter out of the palace David had built. It goes on to tell us that he built a fleet of trade ships which sailed out of ports on the Red Sea. These ships were manned by crews provided to Solomon by King Hiram of Tyre. Solomon’s trading fleet spread his fame such that the Queen of Sheba came to see him for herself. She brought Solomon many gifts of great value and Solomon gave her gifts of great value to take home with her. The passage goes on to describe the great wealth which Solomon amassed.

***
     I had said in one of these blogs about King David that David appeared to have gained his power and wealth by acting to protect merchant caravans from bandits. It even appears that part of his reason for conquest was to eliminate kingdoms which provided a safe haven for bandits which raided the merchant caravans. I came to this conclusion largely by reading between the lines and would not want to argue the point with someone who disagreed (there is insufficient evidence to prove this). However, this passage makes it clear that Solomon gained his great wealth by sponsoring trade missions. He sent out trading fleets which returned with large amounts of wealth. It would seem likely that he sent out trading caravans as well.
***
     The passage concludes with the account of how Rehoboam lost control of the Northern Tribes upon Solomon’s death. When Rehoboam went to Shechem to be crowned king, the people of Israel requested that he promise to the forced labor and heavy taxes that his father, Solomon, had imposed on the people. Rehoboam first asked the advice those men who had been his father’s advisers. They told him that he should honor the request of the people of Israel and that if he did so, the people would be his faithful servants. Rehoboam rejected this advice and turned to the young men he had grown up with for advice more to his liking. They told him to tell the people of Israel that not only would he not reduce the burdens his father had imposed, but he would increase them.
     Rehoboam took this bad advice and told the people of Israel that he would increase the burdens that his father had laid on them. As a result the peoples of the Northern Tribes refused to accept Rehoboam as their king and returned to their homes. Shortly after this Rehoboam sent out the official in charge of the forced labor to restore his control. However, the people of the Northern Tribes stoned that official to death. When the news of this reached Rehoboam, he fled back to Jerusalem.

Romans 8:9-25

     Paul tells us that if we have the Spirit of God living within us we are no longer controlled by our sinful nature. Rather we are controlled by the Spirit. He further points out that everyone who belongs to Christ has the Spirit of Christ living within him, or her. Sin has brought death to our bodies, but if the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives within us He will raise us to life as well.
     As a result, we are no longer obligated to obey our sinful nature. If we allow it to dictate our actions, we will follow it into death for eternity. On the other hand if we allow the Spirit to put to death the deeds of the sinful nature we will experience life eternal. The Spirit does not make us fearful slaves, rather it makes us the adopted children of a loving Father. As a result of this adoption, we are heirs with Christ to the glory of God. Paul then says something that is a bit scary. He tells us that while we will share in Christ’s glory, we will also share in His suffering.
     Paul tells us that the suffering we experience now is as nothing to the glory that God will reveal to us in His time. He goes on to tell us that all of creation is suffering because of the consequences of sin. The day will come when creation will be freed from death and decay along with God’s children. We are suffering as we wait for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. But we await that day with eagerness, when we will experience our adoption to sonship and the redemption, not only of our souls, but of our bodies.

***
This passage talks about the other side of the fear of God. While the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, once we learn to know Christ we discover that God is a loving father. These two aspects of our relationship with God is something that is hard to understand. God does not want us to fear Him. It is just the natural reaction that we will have when we come to truly understand who and what God is. God wants us to know that He loves us. As we come to know Him we see that He does and that He cares for our every need, just as a loving father does for his children. In the same manner, God will discipline us when we do wrong, because He knows that when we do wrong we endanger ourselves and others.

Psalm 18:16-36

The psalmist says the following about God:

To the faithful you show yourself faithful;
to those with integrity you show integrity.
To the pure you show yourself pure,
but to the wicked you show yourself hostile.
You rescue the humble,
but you humiliate the proud.
I have found this to be true. There are two sides to this. On the one hand those with the positive qualities of faithfulness, integrity and purity perceive others as having those same qualities, while the wicked perceive those who are good and powerful as hostile. On the other hand, God actually will be faithful, behave with integrity, and show purity to those who have those same qualities, while showing hostility to those who are wicked. Going on, those who are humble will find “chance”(I do not believe in chance, chance is generally the hand of God) coming to their rescue time and again, while those who are proud will find humiliation where others would find nothing of note.
Then the psalmist tells us something that should be self-evident, but too often is not for us.
God’s way is perfect.
All the Lord’s promises prove true.
He is a shield for all who look to him for protection.
If we follow the way that God has laid out for us, we will find that everything comes together for us. He will fulfill His promises, every last one of them. I will trust in the Lord and strive to follow the way that He has laid out for me.

Proverbs 19:26

I can think of nothing to add to today’s proverb: “Children who mistreat their father or chase away their mother are an embarrassment and a public disgrace.”

Daily Bible Study

July 22, 2013 Bible Study — Will We Humble Ourselves and Pray?

July 21, 2013 AttilaDimedici

2 Chronicles 6:12-8:10

Solomon continues his closing prayer by asking God to watch over the Temple and hear prayers said towards it (I believe that this is the origin of the idea of facing towards a holy place when praying). He acknowledges that the Temple cannot possibly contain God, since not even the heavens can contain Him. Solomon then asked God that when people sin and suffer for their sins, if they turn to God, confess their sins and repent of them, he asked that God forgive them and return them to His favor. Solomon asked that God extend His mercy not only to the people of Israel, but to anyone from any land who turned to God and sought to serve Him.
God responded to Solomon’s prayer and gave Solomon a message that is as important for the Church today as it was for the people of Israel. “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”

***
Things are bad in the world today and getting worse. The answer is not to point to those who have never accepted Christ and blame them for their sin. The answer is for those of us who are called by Christ’s name, those of us who are Christians, to humble ourselves, admit our sins, turn from them, pray, and seek God’s face. We need to seek to do God’s will, not our own. The Christian message is not one for me to tell you what you should be doing differently. The Christian message is for me to look at my life and see what I should be doing differently. This does not mean that we do not tell people the consequences of sin and encourage them to stop sinning. It just means that law is not the answer. Law does not stop people from sinning. Only God’s grace can do that. We will not stop sinning because of our own goodness, or because of the strength of our will. All we can do by the strength of our will is substitute one sin for another. It is only by God’s grace that I will stop committing sin.

Romans 7:14-8:8

I did not read this part of today’s reading before I wrote what I wrote about the Old Testament passage, but Paul touches on exactly the point I made at the end of that. We want to do what is right, but we don’t. We don’t want to do what is wrong, but we do. It is human nature to want to do what is right, what God commands. But it is also human nature to be enslaved to sin. But God has given us a way out. We can die to the law through Christ and allow the Holy Spirit to control us, rather than sin. If we continue to think about sinful things, we will be controlled by sin. On the other hand, if we are controlled by the Holy Spirit we will think about spiritual things.

***
There are two ways to deal with our nature. The most common is to redefine what is right and what is wrong. In order to stop feeling bad about themselves for doing things that they know are wrong, people tell themselves that those things are not wrong. They tell themselves that it is the people who say that it is wrong who are doing wrong. The other is to admit that we are powerless to do what is right and turn control of our lives over to God. The latter is much harder. It is hard to not attempt to snatch control of our lives back, always forgetting that when we do that all we are doing is choosing the master who makes us do that which we do not wish to do.

Psalm 18:1-15

The beginning of this psalm is very familiar to us.

I love you, Lord;
you are my strength.
The Lord is my rock, my fortress, and my savior;
my God is my rock, in whom I find protection.
He is my shield, the power that saves me,
and my place of safety.
I called on the Lord, who is worthy of praise,
and he saved me from my enemies.
All of this is wonderful and lovely, and true. I think of God in these ways all the time. The psalmist goes on to explain why he said those things. He tells us that he was on the verge of being destroyed and of death. Then he tells us: But in my distress I cried out to the Lord;
yes, I prayed to my God for help.
He heard me from his sanctuary;
my cry to him reached his ears.
The psalm goes on to describe how God reacted when He heard the psalmist’s cry for help. This is the God who will save us as well if we turn to Him. Then the earth quaked and trembled.
The foundations of the mountains shook;
they quaked because of his anger.
This is the force that God will expend for us when we call on His name, a force that causes the earth itself to tremble in fear. I am reading this psalm and writing this commentary on it and I almost missed how it fits into the theme today’s other passages have for me. What led to God coming forth with the force that the psalmist tells us caused the earth to tremble? Why, the psalmist told us that to, he humbled himself and prayed. If we humble ourselves and pray, we will see God burst forth onto this earth with a force that will cause the very mountains to shake.

Proverbs 19:24-25

If you strike a mocker, someone naive and/or simple-minded may learn to be shrewd. But all it takes for those who are wise to learn is a simple correction of their mistakes.

Fact and Fantasy

Tag Archives: Psalm 18

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