Caleb was so unafraid of the Giants that he actually requested Joshua
to appoint as his portion in the land of promise the mountain in which
they had their stronghold
Joshua 14:12–15
He was not dismayed by the fact that they were “men of great stature,”
He was unafraid by the fact that their cities were “great & fenced,” so he overcame them without any strain.
We are all the time thinking of our failures. What a drab topic.
When we focus on our failure we pave the way for further failure.
Defeat is automatic if we are constantly contemplating defeat.
If we keep thinking there is no way through, that thought blocks the way through.
We are courageous only by keeping God’s promises in view.
We lack the faith that characterized Caleb.
We concentrate our thoughts on the intensity of our sufferings
We focus in on the insurmountable nature of our difficulties!
We are to not fear “the sons of Anak”
the giants that inhabit the land of promise
(giants always stand in the way, always)
We are “well able to overcome.” them.
How do we overcome?
Are we trusting in ourselves, or are you trusting in the Lord?
If we’re relying on ourselves, then the giants are strong & their cities are well fortified
If we’re relying on God, the question of human resources doesn’t even arise.
If we’re relying on God, there no ground for fear as victory is assured to all who put their trust in Him.
Caleb exhorted the people, saying: “the giants are bread for us.”
What is bread? Bread is something you eat.
Bread is something that brings increased strength.
Yes they were giants “men of great stature,”
but Caleb promised that they were food for us.
He honored God’s promises,
He despised the difficulties that stood in the way of realization of the promises.
We honor God when we lightly esteems all obstacles.
We humble ourselves before God & take our stand on God’s side.
Every time we meet a difficulty,
Every time we find ourselves in an impossible situation,
We can ask ourselves:
Are we going to starve here, or are we going to eat the food that is set before us?
We rely on the Lord for victory & let His overcoming life be manifested in us,
We find fresh nourishment & increased energy in accepting as “bread” the giants that are blocking our progress.
Because Caleb accepted the giants as “bread” he had energy at the age of eighty-five.
When we have small difficulties, we become spiritually weak.
Maybe spiritual weakness is a sign of not eating up enough giants?
Spiritual Energy develops by overcome difficulty after difficulty, temptation after temptation;
Every difficulty & every temptation Satan puts in our way is food for us.
This is God’s appointed means of spiritual progress.
When we doubt God, the appearance of any great trouble strikes terror into our hearts
When we believe God, we say to all giants:
“Praise God, here is some more food!”
All our trials, without exception, are bread for us as we accept one trial after the other, we are richly nourished spiritually with a continuous increase of strength.
Give us this mountain & make the giants our portion
David is hiding in a cave & a hostile army was outside seeking to kill him!
If we were holed up in a cave, hiding from our father in law who is a
raging madman how would we respond?
God had promised David that he’d be King
But wow, major disappointment, that wasn’t coming true
Now, really, the last thing we’d be doing, really, would be writing praise songs in a cave.
But David, is singing in the cave! And he’s not singing the blues!
He’s exalting the Lord!
More then all that. The Spirit of God, through David, is teaching us how to
think & act in times when we’re holed up in a cave, when God’s promises
don’t seem true.
David, no matter what crushing extremes God allowed him to endure,
was all about reacting by glorifying God!
The Hebrew word glorify is (kabod)
It’s a loaded word that describes weight, heaviness, worthiness, reputation, honor.
It’s used of those who are individuals of substance or weight.
It’s like saying “He’s a heavyweight in his field.”
We mean, “This person has substance & must be reckoned with.”
When kabod is applied to God, it refers to His intrinsic worth.
It means that God is worthy of all honor because of who He is,
a God who is perfect in all of His attributes & ways.
To glorify God is to ascribe honor & praise to God for who
He is & for what He has done.
We’re to show forth His excellencies.
We’re to exalt Him.
To glorify God means we make Him look good
We display how good He really is through our life.
Whether, then, when we eat or drink or whatever we do,
We do all to the glory of God. 1 Cor. 10:31
So we promote O God’s glory & honor
That’s our aim in all that we do.
O Lord, Discipline us in everything
to act in such a way that others are inspired by our expressions to praise & honor
You God as You display Your character shining through our life.
Our first thought would be
Please, are You kidding us come on Lord. Have a heart.
Why on earth are You allowing this to happen to us?
You anointed me as king; I didn’t choose the job. Why don’t You remove Saul?
HE’S OUR ONLY RELIANCE V.1
Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me:
We’re never clear as to why God allows threatening aggressors to harass us
Why would God have us dive into a cave being overwhelmed by our oppressors hate?
We’re taught here how to react & respond to oppressors.
We need to Glorify & magnify God.
We should compose praise & sing in the cave.
Mercy is our cry when we realize our real condition
Mercy is our call when we know who we can alone rely on
“David’s spirit rising up in prayer, is like a bell that rings out,
Just as a bell strikes & gongs on both sides” Joseph Caryl
“Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me.”
We don’t rely on human merit. We need You mercy
“Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me.”
God’s grace & mercy refers to His undeserved unmerited favor.
This is one of the most difficult concepts for our proud hearts to grasp.
We profess to know Christ. We profess to understand the concept of God’s grace.
So we can’t come to God on the basis of our own goodness:
We can’t claim: God, I’ve been extra good lately.
I’ve read my Bible & gone to church & I put money in the offering.
Now, here’s what I want You to do ….Now here’s what we’re asking for,
And really, by the way “Why this trial, God, when we’ve been so good?”
God owes us nothing. We don’t earn anything by our behavior.
We are trusting in God alone for His unearned mercy.
We’re not trusting in human merit. Our only way to approach God is through grace.
“When overwhelmed in a sense of trouble & danger
We’re pushed to come at once to the throne of God’s grace for help”
Albert Barnes
“Repetition “be merciful be merciful” shows an intensity of desire”
Joseph Parker
“Mercy is what we need; to remove our sense of guilt, to break our moral chains,
to clear our spiritual vision, to quicken & harmoniously develop all the powers
of our new nature”
Biblical Illustrator
David didn’t cry for mercy to earn the mercy of God; mercy can’t be earned.
He cried for mercy to tell God that He was his only hope.
His soul trusted in God & nothing else; there was nothing else to trust in.
“How can the Lord be unmerciful to a trustful soul?
Our faith does not deserve mercy, but it always wins it
from the sovereign grace of God when it is sincere.”
Spurgeon
HE’S OUR ONLY RETREAT
for my soul trusts in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings
will I make my refuge, until these calamities be over-past.
Being in a cave is a visual of trusting inside the shelter of God’s surrounding cover
Baby chicks take refuge under their mothers wings when predators are intimidating
He wasn’t trusting in natural means (the cave) for protection
He was trusting in supernatural means (God’s mercy)
But God used the shelter of the cave (natural means) to protect David
HE’S OUR ONLY REALIZATION V.2
I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performs all things for me.
Prayer is the language of trust. The psalms are primarily a prayer journal.
Prayer is an acknowledgment that our need is not limited, but totally unlimited.
We have constant prayer challenges.
We need the Lord’s blessings in every area & at every moment.
Prayer says to God & to everyone else around us,
“We’re dependent.
We’re not self‑sufficient.
We can’t handle situations in our own strength,
We can only make it in Your strength, Lord!”
Adrian Rogers
Please we need Your strength.
HE’S OUR ONLY REPRESENTATIVE V.3
HE DESCENDS
He shall send from heaven
This is poetic Anthropomorphic expression “human shaped”
anthrōpos (human being) + morphē (shape)
It’s a concept called anthropomorphism, of ascribing
human characteristics to a spirit beings or object
God reveals His arm Deut. 33:27
God reveals His hand Ps. 18:16; 144:7
God reveals His help Ps. 20:2
God reveals His grace & truth that He sends“from heaven,”
God is giving the realization of His wonderful, extraordinary deliverance
As Spurgeon notes:
“God is sure to find an ark for His Noahs if the floods should cover the whole earth;
and when they cannot be preserved any longer on the earth,
He will catch them away to Himself in heaven;
He will surely take care of His own:”
HE DEFENDS
and save from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah.
“He shall send from heaven, and save us.”
If there’s just one of us in danger, He’ll rend the heavens to save us:
not only from danger to our life, but from danger to our character:
“from the reproach of him that would swallow us up.”
Often, our enemies are so fierce & cruel that they’re like some huge python
With gaping jaws they want to swallow us up, they want to devour us,
They want to make an end of us, they want to make one meal of us,
if they could; but God will not allow it.
He will send from heaven & deliver us from
the reproach of all that would swallow us up
HE DELIVERS
God shall send forth his mercy & his truth.
When hell sends its temptations to defile us,
When the world sends its persecutions to destroy us,
When our own heart wails in it’s unbelieving fears to distract & sink us,
God sends His mercy & His truth to save us
His truth is our shield & buckler
Psa. 91:4.
It is of because of the Lord’s mercy that we’re not consumed,
God’s mercies are new every morning & His faithfulness is great
Lam. 3:23
God sends His mercy to comfort & protect us
God sends His truth to confound & correct our oppressors
I’M FEELING HOWLED AT AND HUNTED V.4
My soul is among lions
Lions are very strong in biting, rending, and tearing.
Lions are loud in their roar in their infidelities & their blasphemies
Lions are cruel in their degrading reproaches & misrepresentations
I’M FEELING THE HEAT OF HATE & I LIE EVEN AMONG
them that are set on fire
It is weird when others are so steaming hot & passionate about spreading
hate about & then they tell others they love❤️ us. Really?
THEY HARBOR HELLISH HOSTILITY
even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears & arrows & their tongue a sharp sword
The arrows & swords & spears, are symbolic of the hellish artillery of unbridled tongues!
A human tongue is soft, but it can cut to the very quick;
The wounds from a cruel tongue are not easily healed.
Many of us, as long they live, carry in us the scars that were made by a slanderous tongue.
As Calvin noted
“God himself was slandered by the old serpent in the garden of Eden
It’s not surprising that we’re still slandered by the serpent’s seed”
HE IS REVEALED V.5
AS HIGHER THAN THE HEAVENS
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.
God is bigger than our problems!
Trust is only as good as its object & a trustworthy object inspires trust.
But sometimes it takes intense trials to get us to look to the Lord & discover how trustworthy He is.
When Jesus was transfigured in front of them they saw no man but Jesus only!!!
We need the eyes of our heart opened to Jesus
We need to see Christ our Lord transfigured before us
Our problems are never bigger than God
So we pray: Exalt Yourself O God! Manifest Yourself!
It drives me crazy, but our present circumstances are a slur on God Himself
Let us see You exalted over them & glorified through all we released to You Lord!
AS A HELPER IN THE HOLE V.6
They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they dig
a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.
John Phillips wrote of a pastor in one of the Soviet-occupied countries of Europe.
He had an attractive daughter who worked in the office of a Soviet collective.
The communist party secretary gave her a choice—either she become his mistress or her father would be arrested & his church closed.
Under continued pressure she gave in. When she discovered that she was going to have a child she hung herself. She left a note in her pocket explaining why she had done so.
A comrade found the letter and confronted the man with it. The party secretary tore it
up & forged another which he put in its place. The forged letter said that she had been raped by her father & could no longer stand the shame.
The dead girl’s father was arrested, his church closed & he was sent to prison for his heinous crime. In jail, the pastor was constantly beaten by other prisoners who had a special aversion to sex offenders, especially those guilty of the kind of crime of which this pastor was accused.
All this time God was silent. Why? One day a new prisoner was brought into this pastor’s cell. It was the man responsible for his daughter’s death, for the closing of his church,
for the lies & slanders on his own good name, for the torment he had experienced.
The communist had been imprisoned for embezzlement. The noble pastor, made Christlike by his sufferings, actually forgave the man who had destroyed him.
God had triumphed!
Not just in terms of a few short years of time, but in terms of all eternity.
God is sovereign.
We may not always be able to trace His mysterious workings.
We must learn to trust where we cannot trace.
HE IS OUR REFRESHING 7-11
ATTACHING US TO PRAISE
REPAIRING THE INNER PERSON
My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed:
Praise is not our natural response in a time of trial.
Our natural response is to complain and get angry at God.
We naturally become depressed, discouraged & cranky.
But even though David’s enemy had fixed a net to catch him (57:6)
David had fixed his heart (57:7) to praise God.
The repeated affirmations show that it was a matter of deliberate choice:
“I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!”
We fix our heart to praise & we fix our heart by praise.
ROUSING THE INSPIRED PRAISE
I will sing and give praise
Fix our heart on praise Lord.
Make our heart steadfast, immovable & always abounding in You work Lord in praising;
Give us hearts of resolute purpose to praise; we will sing; we will praise;
Make us determined to live a life of perpetual praise.
Expand our hearts in the Power Of Perpetual Praise.”
Make praise the permanent pattern in our lives
Delight us that we would perpetually praise the Lord.
Whenever Robert G. Lee signed his name he wrote under it
I will bless the Lord at all times His praise shall continually be in my mouth Psalms 34:1
AWAKING US TO PRAYER V.8
EXCITING THE SPEECH
Awake up, my glory;
Awake up, my glory
Psalms 57:8
Please Lord, Don’t let lethargy set in.
O God, Don’t let us droop from exhaustion & fatigue.
Let us Praise You giving all there is of us responding to all we know of You—
Let us Praise You with all of us acknowledging
out loud to all the beauties we know of You.
Cause us to worship You Lord in spirit & in truth. John 4:24
Inspire our Worshipping to You our Lord in spirit by
letting Your Holy Spirit energize our praise to God.
Enable our Worshipping of You Lord in truth
through Your filling us in God’s Words,
Empower us in Worshipping You God in truth by liberating
us to no longer hide how we feel about You as our God.
Place us in opportunities to be boldly truthful about how we feel about You God
ENABLING THE SONG
awake, psaltery and harp
We have to wake up to our need to perpetually give praise to the Lord
Jesus is worthy of continuous reverence
The entire universe of things, living & non-living—even the rocks—
are in one great paean of praise to our Lord!
All Your works will praise You, O Lord & all believers will bless You
Psalm 145:10
The rocks, the trees, the river, the ocean, the sun, the moon & the stars—
The flowers say, “Praise the Lord.”
The beasts of the field say, “Praise the Lord.”
The rivers say, “Praise the Lord.”
The stars, like chandeliers in the sky, say, “Praise the Lord.”
“All thy works shall praise thee …”
So everything that God has created has been created to give Him praise
EXERCISING THE SCHEDULE
I myself will awake early
The four Angelic creatures have each of them six wings about him & they
were full of eyes within: and they rest not day & night, saying, Holy, holy, holy …”
Why are they saying, “Holy, holy, holy,”
Because Holy is the Father,
Because Holy is the Son our Lord Jesus Christ
Because Holy is the Spirit,
We will wake up early
They rest not day or night
How can we rest?
We have a grand opportunity every moment to venerate & adore
We worship a triune God—
Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was & is & is to come
Revelation 4:8
AROUSING US TO PUBLIC PRAISE V.9
I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.
And I beheld & I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne & the
creatures & the elders & the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand,
and thousands of thousands; saying with a loud voice,
Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power & riches & wisdom & strength,
and honor & glory & blessing.
Revelation 5:11–12
Adrian Rogers notes
“We are with multiplied millions of beings in the glory—
angelic beings—that are worshipping the Lord?”
Thousands & thousands & ten thousand times ten thousand & thousands
of thousands adoring & venerating the Lord.
Soon we’ll be singing with the voices of a hundred million
singing with our hearts swollen & brimming over in worship
“O Head once full of bruises, So full of pain & scorn,
Mid other sore abuses, Mocked with a crown of thorn;
O Head e’en now surrounded With brightest majesty,
In death once bowed & wounded On the accursed tree.
The presumption of innocence is a fundamental tenet of Western law. Yet it is increasingly abandoned in the rush to enforce orthodoxy and destroy political enemies. The mobs pile on, destroying lives, careers and reputations with gleeful abandon. They claim to act in the name of tolerance, compassion and diversity, but their commitment to these principles is purely abstract. In practice they are intolerant and cruel, and they demand total conformity.
My friend Caylan Ford has spent her career advocating for international human rights and supporting victims of religious persecution. When I began speaking out against abuses in my native China, she helped me stand up to the Communist regime’s bullying. So I was excited when she decided to run for office in the Canadian province of Alberta.
But last month she had to withdraw after she became the target of a character-assassination campaign. Her adversaries and several reporters used quotes from private online conversations to portray her falsely as a racist.
She was quoted as describing a double standard whereby officials and media figures assert that the perpetrators of Islamist terrorism “do not represent Islam, that Islam is a religion of peace, etc.,” and look for explanations of how they went astray. When the terrorists are white supremacists, on the other hand, “attempts to understand the sources of their radicalization or their perverse moral reasoning is beyond the pale,” and anyone who wants “strong borders and immigration control” is “painted with the same brush” as the racists. Although she called white supremacy “odious” as well as perverse, a headline on the public broadcaster CBC’s website matter-of-factly described these as “white supremacist comments.”
Such campaigns have become common. The emerging call-out culture in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere in the West bears more than a few similarities to China’s Cultural Revolution, in which writers, artists, doctors, scholars and other professionals were publicly denounced and forced by mobs to engage in ritual self-criticism. The goal is not to persuade or debate; it is to humiliate the target and intimidate everyone else. The ultimate objective is to destroy independent thought.
In China, people in my father’s generation—he was born in 1957—learned to keep their heads down and to watch what they said, even to their closest friends, for fear of being accused of thought crimes. Privacy and trust were dissolved, and informants were everywhere. Similarly, one of the most chilling aspects of Ms. Ford’s case is that the media didn’t hesitate to use private conversations to condemn her. Even if such methods can expose some genuinely bad people, is it worth living in a world where we are afraid to say what we think, even to our friends?
The presumption of innocence is a fundamental tenet of Western law. Yet it is increasingly abandoned in the rush to enforce orthodoxy and destroy political enemies. The mobs pile on, destroying lives, careers and reputations with gleeful abandon. They claim to act in the name of tolerance, compassion and diversity, but their commitment to these principles is purely abstract. In practice they are intolerant and cruel, and they demand total conformity.
Today’s China shows where this all leads. My mother and I emigrated to Canada when I was 13, and I eventually began speaking publicly against human-rights abuses. My father back in China, threatened by security agents, broke off contact with me. Beijing engages in massive, brutal repression of religious minorities, including Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline—even extending to the harvesting of human organs. That’s what happens when one party achieves a total monopoly of ideas by acting on the belief that any means are justified to destroy their opponents.
China did not become a tyranny overnight. Too many people in my father’s generation chose not to stand up for their neighbors, friends and even family members when they were under attack. They learned to obey instead of challenge, to pick sides rather than think for themselves. They assented to obvious lies because they didn’t want the mob to turn on them next.
Such practical-minded decisions to place reputation and safety above truth allowed evil to accumulate. Personal compliance became collective complicity, and China was lost to totalitarianism. Don’t let it happen here.
We should never shun the groaning of our souls. For groaning leads us to wrestle with God. And wrestling leads to intimacy which unwraps the real us & reveals the real Him This in all exercises us in worship
Wrestling is an intimate person to person activity.
The sighing & sobbing of our spirit in wrestling with God’s Spirit is life at it’s best
We’re crying for tender compassion & that God would take our side & stand up for us— I’m getting kicked around, stomped on every day.
I’M IRRATIONALLY GOBBLED UP
for man would swallow me up
We literally feel people are panting after us – like wild beasts after their prey
We plead that God would the tables on them & make their savage brutality backfire
Bring about something unprecedented & exceptional Do a thing that’s supernatural & remarkable Let the earth opens its mouth & swallows them & all that belongs to them so that they go down alive into Sheol Show everyone that these individuals have treated You Lord with contempt in treating us so raunchy
Numbers 16:30
I’M INCESSANTLY GROUND ON
he fighting daily oppresses me
Constant harassment is wearing. There’s a tormenting agony from these daily oppressors This refers to an experience of continual hounding & badgering. It’s as if they spy on our every move & it is an exasperating plague.
The media claims that there are those who want to watch our every move. They want to insert micro homing trackers under our skin. They want to launch a squadron of drones with face recognition videos to stalk and monitor each step we take.
I’M INCREDIBLY GULPED DOWN V.2
BY CONSISTENT OPPOSITION
Mine enemies would daily swallow me up:
God’s plan is to liberate us. Satans plan is to swallow us up & make us his robots.
BY COUNTLESS OPPOSITION
for they be many that fight against me,
The hordes of demonic oppressors are like swarming locusts gnawing at everything of value & worth. They nibble, they chomp, they lancinate us to a raw nothing.
REVEAL YOUR POSITION V.3-4
THE ONE IN CONTROL
O thou most High
This is a rather unusual name for God. It is the term Marom—God the lofty or the exalted One. When our enemies are exalting themselves; We ask God to exalt Himself. We’re surrounded by self-aggrandized little people. They exalt themselves above us. They look down on us as if, in their lofty view we’re nothing but miserable wretches. So we cry to our great God who alone is lifted up & lofty beyond any words.
THE ONLY CONFIDENCE V.3
What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.
To trust when there is no cause for fear is faith; To rely on God in face of real fear & danger is real faith This is trusting in the LORD with all our heart; This is refusing to lean on our own understanding. The word for understanding in this proverb is good logic. We always feel we can lean on good logic. But no. God’s logic is not our logic. These are times that are brewing where nothing makes sense.
So, in all our ways we acknowledge God our most high & He will direct our paths. He’ll show us each step to take & each word to speak.
THE OBJECT OF COMMENDATION V.4
In God I will praise His Word, in God I have put my trust;
Walking by faith in each Word of God makes us comfortable & confident Nothing encourages us like praising God’s Word. Nothing emboldens us in our conflicts & sufferings as lifting Our Lord’s words to the highest place in our thoughts. Adoring God’s Word is quieting to our soul. This is the great work of faith & trust in God’s faithfulness. His promises to us are more than all the visible things on earth, or sensible objects in the world; The beauty of His words make us forsake all earthly pleasures, possessions, and empty hopes of this scene.
THE ONE WHO GIVES COURAGE
I will not fear what flesh can do unto me.
Faith in God drives out the fear of others. Faith in God rids us from the fears of our circumstances & surroundings.
When we get really afraid we come to you in trust. We’re proud to praise God; fearless now, We trust in God. What can mere mortals do?
REALIZE MY PERPLEXITY V.5-7
THEY TWIST WHAT I SAY V.5
Every day they wrest my words:all their thoughts are against me for evil.
This horridness of snarling garrulous dogs twisting our expressions is so unsavory. There’s this inner emotional tangle of feelings. There’s the flood of others angry blithering babble against us & it is chafing.
THEY TRACK WHERE I GO V.6
They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.
It’s Satan & his demonic pantheons who lay traps for us. The demons use their useful Idiots, in our human associations, to lie in wait to ambush us by surprise.
We should never listen to the berating breath of fools. We should not fear what flesh can do to us. We need to listen to God. We know His righteousness inside by Jesus & His Word is in our hearts. We never have to fear the reproach of others. We don’t have to fear their reviling.
For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool. But My righteousness will last forever, My salvation through all generations. Isaiah 51:8
THEY TAUNT WHAT YOU’LL DO V.7
Shall they escape by iniquity? in Your anger cast down the people, O God.
This prayer format is for personal vindication. In our cry for protection we also plead for exoneration. Ultimately we want them to escape the consequences of their iniquity. We prefer a real change of heart toward God & towards us.
RECORD MY PAIN V.8-9
MY WANDERING V.8
You tell my wanderings
All our frustrations. All our emotional ups & downs. All the grief, sorrow & lamenting In all our movements God has sovereign GPS on all our gallivanting & meandering. The metsker maps of Heaven have a tracking page for each of our days.
MY WEEPING
STORE MY EMOTIONS
IN YOUR BOTTLE
put my tears into Your bottle
All our tears are treasured. Every drop of sorrow has deep value. Our sorrow is of such worth that each micro drip is stored in heavenly containers
IN YOUR BOOK
are they not in Your book?
God is aware of every hurt we experience. He is alert to each ache, every pain, every heartache & hardship we go through. He records them all with precision in divine journals. In all our afflictions He is afflicted.
Spurgeon noted: Those who dive in the sea of affliction bring up rare pearls.
They were stoned to death; they were lured with tempting offers [to renounce their faith]; they were sawn asunder; they were slaughtered by the sword; [while they were alive] they had to go about wrapped in the skins of sheep and goats, utterly destitute, oppressed, cruelly treated (Heb. 11) & God records it all in His books.
STOP MY ENEMIES V.9
When I cry unto thee, then shall mine enemies turn back: this I know;
It’s been noted that there are over 30 thousand promises in the Bible. But how do we know that my enemies are defeated?
STABILIZE MY ENCOURAGEMENT
for God is for me.
We know because God is for us. Because, He placed all our sins on Jesus Christ.
As C. H. Spurgeon noted
He was “for us” before the worlds were made; He was “for us,” or He would not have given his well-beloved son; He was “for us” when he smote the Jesus & laid the full weight of His wrath on Him— He was “for us,” though He was against Jesus; He was “for us,” when we were ruined in the fall—He loved us notwithstanding all; He was “for us,” when we were rebels against Him, He was “for us,” when we with a high hand were bidding Him defiance; He was “for us,” or he would not have brought us humbly to seek His face. He is “for us” in many struggles; we have been summoned to encounter hosts of dangers; He is “for us” when we’re assailed by temptations from without & within— How could we have remained unharmed to the present if he had not been “for us”? He is “for us,” with all the infinity of His being; He is “for us,” with all the omnipotence of His love; He is “for us,” with all the infallibility of His wisdom; He is “for us,” arrayed in all His divine attributes, He is “for us,”—eternally & immutably “for us”; He is “for us” when yon blue skies shall be rolled up like a worn out vesture; He is “for us” throughout eternity.
And because he is “for us” the voice of prayer will always ensure his help.
“When we cry to You, then shall all our enemies be turned back.”
This is no uncertain hope, but a well grounded assurance—“this I know.” I will direct my prayer unto You & will look up for the answer, assured that it will come, and that our enemies will be defeated, “for God is for me.”
“The King of kings on our side! We’re safe with Him as our Protector! How sure our cause pleaded by such an Advocate! With God for us, nothing can be against us” Manton
FILL ME WITH PRAISE FOR YOUR SCRIPTURE V.10
In God will I praise His word: in the LORD will I praise His word.
In the face of difficulties, distresses, & drastically destructive conditions. We rely on the naked promises of God’s Word. We praise His voice in His Word. God’s Word is our ground of hope. God’s Word is what comforts our soul.
No matter how contradicting circumstances get. Even when it looks impossible. “Abraham against hope believed in hope” Rom. 4:18
We holdfast faith & take God by His Word; Our faith grows by our dependence on the Word of God, Our faith needs to develop even when things are getting crazier & uglier
“It’s Affliction that brings out graces that can’t be seen in a time of health. It is the treading of the grapes that brings out the sweet juices of the vine; so it’s affliction that draws forth submission, weaning us from the world, And training us in a complete rest in God. Use afflictions while you have them.”
Robert Murray McCheyne
FILL ME WITH TRUST FOR YOUR SAFETY V.11
In God have I put my trust: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me.
As for God, His way is perfect; the Word of the Lord is tried; He is a buckler to all them that trust in Him.
Ps. 18:30
Let everything be a confirmations that feeds & nourish faith
THE ADVENTURE OF FAITH
“At Your Word we will let down the net” Luke 5:5
THE WAITING OF FAITH
Our expectation is not answered, but we resolve to keep His promises in our heart
“He that believes doesn’t make haste.”
THE OBSTINACY & RESOLUTION OF FAITH.
We resolve to die holding the horns of the altar; we won’t be put off;
The woman of Canaan came & cried to Jesus, saying, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, You Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.”
Mt. 15:22
she cried & she cried more & more, she turned discouragements into arguments
Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him Job 13:15
“Afflictions are but the shadows of God’s wings.”
George Macdonald
THE RESIGNATION OF FAITH:
Seek first the kingdom of God & His righteousness, (not our righteousness) and all these things shall be added to you.
We Set our hearts on the highest interest. Christ’s Righteousness
THE OBEDIENCE OF FAITH.
Don’t worry Phil. 4:6, ‘Be careful for nothing;’ But cast your care on him, for he cares for us. 1 Peter 5:7
We prove our trust in God by constant prayer
Trust in the Lord at all times; pour out your hearts before Him Ps. 62:8
REHEARSE MY PROMISES V.12-13
I’M COMMITTED TO YOU
Thy vows are upon me, O God:
We’re committed to God. He’s won our hearts.
I’M CONSUMED WITH YOU
I will render praises unto thee.
We’re devoted to praise Him, thank Him & adore Him in worship no matter what
YOU DELIVER ME FROM FAILURE V.13
For thou hast delivered my soul from death:
God has broken the force & power of all our enemies, God makes the wrath of man turn to His praise
Ps. 76:11
Even the pagan mariners made their vows to God when the Lord delivered them from the storm Jonah 1:16.
When all things go to ruin, when everything looks collapsed, We don’t degenerate & warped away from God, We don’t wrench & distort ourselves out of God’s arms, We bind ourselves to Him again, We renew our commitments
Josiah enter into a covenant with God, & caused the people to stand to oath,’
2 Chron. 34
His yoke is easy & His burden is light
That word “delivered” is literally “plucked.” We’ve been snatched away from surrounding danger. We’re being grabbed out of treachery
We’re plucked out of the flames into the land of the living
Alexander Maclaren wrote:
“The really living are all who live in Jesus & real light of life is the sunshine that streams on those who live in Christ.”
The way out of fear, despair & loneliness is basking in God’s sunshine, We deepen our life by looking into the face of Jesus Christ.
“Oh, when we are journeying through the murky night & the dark woods of affliction & sorrow, it is something to find here & there a flower broken, or a leafy stem bent down with the tread of His foot & the brush of His hand as He passed & to remember that the path He trod He has sanctified & thus to find lingering fragrance & hidden strength in the remembrance of Him as “in all points tempted like as we are,” He is bearing grief for us, bearing grief with us, bearing grief like us.”
Alexander MacLaren
YOU DELIVER ME FROM FALLING
wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling,
When David came down to Goliath, Goliath said: Come to me & I will give your flesh to the vultures & to the beasts of the field.
David was as good as dead. This was a moment of truth. David had just infuriated a giant of a man & if God deliver David’s feet from falling everything was over. Jesus came to the Giants of Satan, the giants of sin & the giants of death Our Savior’s feet never slipped an inch. The giants have been slain.
YOU DELIVER ME TO FUNCTIONALITY
that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
God is the source of life God is the preserver of life All things are dependent on God for life.
The lives of all are in the sovereign hand of God
Job cried:
Remember, I beg You, that
You have made me as the clay & will You bring me into dust again? You have clothed my skin & flesh & will You bring me to nothing? If You visit me my spirit is preserved
God has determined the number of our years God has determined the number of our months & days, God has fixed the bounds of our life,
There is no man or devil that has power over life but God
God’s power & goodness is the source of our constant preservation. God preserve our lives. We are weak, feeble & all creation is foolishly careless. God continues His amazing faithfulness in the various seasons of the world.
He must preserve the animal creation, He nourishes, feeds & clothes the human species, all plant life is preserve by Him He delivers from the snares, the arrows & the multiple means of death. He constantly governs the winds & the waves, and all the endless elements.
He watches over every individual person every moment. He strengthen every nerve & guide every motion of every body He monitors all the motions, affections & decisions of the mind.
He must guide every step we take & determine every circumstance of life.
“Providence is wonderfully intricate. We want to see through Providence, But we never will, our eyes aren’t good enough. We want to see what good that affliction is to us; but we won’t, we must believe it. We want to see how it can bring good to our soul; we may be enabled; but we can’t see it now; we must believe it. We mustHonor God by trusting Him.
As Iron sharpens iron, so one sharpens the face his neighbor
Proverbs 27:17
It used to be common to see the host at a table sharpening the carving knife by drawing each side of the cutting edge against a hardened steel rod with fine ridges.
Just as the action of iron against iron sharpens, so the interchange of ideas with each other makes us acute in our thinking.
In an environment of sharing with each other
We can sharpen our perspective
We can lift our thinking to a broadened breadth of view
Grappling with challenging questions sharpens our wits
Friendly interaction hones our character & personality
Faithful are the wounds of a friend
Proverbs 27:6
We need to be surrounded with those that are honest with us
There are always those who are destructive on what they assume to be our flaws & faults;
But a true friend knows how to be honest with our blind spots
A real friend is artful in compassionate constructive criticism.
But the kisses of an enemy are deceitful & profuse in destroying our credibility & reputation
Judas gave a sign to the mob in advance to help them distinguish Jesus from the disciples;
the sign was a kiss.
The universal symbol of love was to be prostituted to its lowest use.
As he approached the Lord, Judas said, “Hail, Master!” then kissed Him profusely.
Two different words for kiss are used (Matt. 26:48, 49).
The first, in verse 48, is the normal word for kiss.
But in verse 49, a stronger word is used, expressing repeated or affectionate kissing.
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