Sunday
Morning Bible Study
December 14, 2003
Psalm 70 - The Song of the Forgotten
Have you ever been forgotten?
Illustration
I Forgot
A guy was invited to some old friends’ home for dinner. His buddy preceded
every request to his wife by endearing terms, calling her Honey, My Love,
Darling, Sweetheart, Pumpkin, etc. He was impressed since the couple had been
married almost 70 years, and while the wife was off in the kitchen he said to
his buddy, “I think it’s wonderful that after all the years you’ve been
married, you still call your wife those pet names.” His buddy hung his head.
“To tell you the truth, I forgot her name about ten years ago.”
Illustration
The Indian Chief
An Australian travel writer touring Canada
was checking out of the Spokane Hilton, and as he paid his bill to the manager,
he asked, “By the way, what’s with the Indian chief sitting in the lobby? He’s
been there ever since I arrived.” “Oh that’s ‘Big Chief Forget-me Not’,” said
the manager. “The hotel is built on an Indian reservation, and part of the
agreement is to allow the chief free use of the premises for the rest of his
life. He is known as ‘Big Chief Forget-me Not’ because of his phenomenal
memory. He is 92 and can remember the slightest detail of his life.” The travel
writer took this in, and as he was waiting for his cab decided to put the
chief’s memory to the test. “’ello, mate!” said the Aussie, receiving only a
slight nod in return. “What did you have for breakfast on your 21st
birthday?” “Eggs,” was the chief’s instant reply, without even looking up, and
indeed the Aussie was impressed. He went off on his travel writing itinerary,
right across to the east coast and back, telling others of Big Chief Forget-me
Not’s great memory. One local noted to him that “How!” was a more appropriate
greeting for an Indian chief than “ello mate” On his return to the Spokane
Hilton, six months later, he was surprised to see ‘Big Chief Forget-me Not’
still sitting in the lobby, fully occupied with whittling away on a stick. But,
remembering his friend’s advice he greeted Chief Forget-me Not in the more
appropriate fashion. “How?” said the Aussie. “Scrambled,” said the Chief.
Well, Chief Forget-me Not might have a great memory, but frankly sometimes
it feels like God has forgotten us.
To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, to bring to remembrance.
to bring to remembrance – zakar
– (Hiphil) to cause to remember, remind
One suggestion as to why this is a song for “remembrance” is to make the
listener remember the things sung of in Psalm 40, because this Psalm is almost
an exact copy of the last five verses of Psalm 40 (Ps. 40:13-17).
But looking at the Psalm, I think that perhaps David is simply feeling
forgotten.
Feeling forgotten
Noah on the ark with all the animals. Yes it rained for forty days and
forty nights, but Noah didn’t come out of the ark on day 41. The Bible says
that the flood waters didn’t go down for six months (Gen. 7:24). I would
imagine that after six months of being cooped up on a boat with all those
animals, with no sign of land in sight, things could get kind of discouraging. But then we read …
(Gen 8:1 KJV) And God remembered Noah …
The flood began to recede. In
reality, God hasn’t forgotten us.
What do we do when we feel forgotten?
:1-5 Prayer for help
:1 Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O LORD.
Lesson #1
Wait on God
God is never in a hurry and He’s never late.
Moses – He was a special person.
God had big plans for him. Apparently Moses had some sort of a notion that God
wanted to use him to set Israel
free from Egypt.
(Acts 7:23-25 KJV) And
when he was full forty years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren
the children of Israel.
{24} And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended him, and avenged him that
was oppressed, and smote the Egyptian: {25} For he supposed his brethren would
have understood how that God by his hand would deliver them: but they
understood not.
The idea was right. The method and the timing wasn’t.
God had to take Moses through a wilderness school of 40
years before it was time.
God’s idea of time is a bit different than ours.
He said, “Behold I come quickly” … 2,000 years ago.
Moses wrote,
(Psa 90:4 KJV) For a thousand years in thy sight
are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
Our timing isn’t the same as God’s timing.
Sometimes the idea of what we think we need isn’t quite right, and it’s
going to take some time for God to tweak it until we get it right.
Sometimes we aren’t ready to receive the answer. Sometimes the refining
work that the trial is causing isn’t finished.
Sometimes the people affected by our situation aren’t ready for the change.
Sometimes we need to slow down and wait.
I understand why they call it a “waiting room” at the doctor’s office since
sometimes you can spend a lot of time “waiting”. I wonder why you are called a
“patient” though. I don’t usually feel patient when I’m waiting for the doctor.
Usually impatient.
Actually, our English word “patient” comes from a Latin word that means to
“suffer”. A person with “patience” is a person who is enduring suffering. A
doctor’s patient is a person who suffers from some illness.
Illustration
A man rushed into the doctor’s office and shouted,
“Doctor! I think I’m shrinking!!” The doctor calmly responded, “Now, settle
down. You’ll just have to be a little patient.”
Illustration
WAIT
Desperately, helplessly, longingly, I cried
Quietly, patiently, lovingly God replied.
I pled and I wept for a clue to my fate,
And the Master so gently said, “Child, you must wait”.
“Wait? You say, wait!” my indignant reply.
“Lord, I need answers, I need to know why!
Is Your hand shortened? Or have you not heard?
By Faith, I have asked, and am claiming your Word.
My future and all to which I can relate
hangs in the balance, and YOU tell me to WAIT?
I’m needing a ‘yes’, a go-ahead sign,
or even a ‘no’ to which I can resign.
And Lord, I’ve been asking, and this is my cry:
I’m weary of asking! I need a reply!”
Then quietly, softly, I learned of my fate
As my Master replied once again, “You must wait.”
So, I slumped in my chair, defeated and taut
and grumbled to God, “So, I’m waiting...for what?”
He seemed, then, to kneel, and His eyes wept with mine,
And He tenderly said, “I could give you a sign.
I could shake the heavens, and darken the sun.
I could raise the dead, and cause mountains to run.
All you seek, I could give, and pleased you would be.
You would have what you want—but you wouldn’t know Me.
You’d not know the depth of My love for each saint;
You’d not know the power that I give to the faint;
You’d not learn to see through the clouds of despair;
You’d not learn to trust just by knowing I’m there;
You’d not know the joy of resting in Me
When darkness and silence were all you could see.
You’d never experience that fullness of love
As the peace of My Spirit descends like a dove;
You’d know that I give and I save...(for a start)
But you’d not know the depth of the beat of My heart.
The glow of My comfort late into the night,
The faith that I give when you walk without sight,
The depth that’s beyond getting just what you asked
Of an infinite God, who makes what you have LAST.
You’d never know, should your pain quickly flee,
What it means that “My grace is sufficient for Thee.”
Yes, your dreams for your loved one overnight would come true,
But, Oh, the loss! If I lost what I’m doing in you!
So, be silent, My Child, and in time you will see
That the greatest of gifts is to get to know Me.
And though oft’ may My answers seem terribly late,
My most precious answer of all is still, “Wait.’”
~ Author unknown
:2-3 Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha,
aha.
aha – heach – aha!
(Psa 70:3 NLT) Let them be horrified by their shame, for they said,
"Aha! We've got him now!"
David is asking God to take care of his enemies.
:4 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee:
In this verse, instead of talking about his enemies, David is talking about
his friends, those who love God. He’s saying, “Let all the God-loving people be
glad for how You are helping me”
Lesson #2
Rejoice for others
Am I glad when someone is blessed by God? Am I glad when someone is rescued
or saved by God?
I would imagine we usually are.
But what if their blessing was something like a promotion, or a new car? Am
I still glad for them? What if I was wanting to get a promotion, or even that
very same promotion?
We’ve talked about David’s friend and counsellor Ahithophel, who betrayed David and joined Absalom’s rebellion
against David. At one point Absalom
asked his counsellors Hushai and Ahithophel for ideas of what to do about
David, and Absalom did not choose the idea that Ahithophel proposed.
(2 Sam 17:23 KJV)
And when Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he saddled
his ass, and arose, and gat him home to his house, to his city, and put his
household in order, and hanged himself, and died, and was buried in the
sepulchre of his father.
It seems all Ahithophel cared about was getting his own
way. He didn’t rejoice for Hushai that
his idea was chosen. Instead he hanged
himself.
The Bible says,
(Rom 12:15
KJV) Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
It requires that I get my eyes off of myself and think about others.
Feeling forgotten is worst when my eyes are on myself.
:5 But I am poor and needy …
Lesson #3
Remember Jesus
The writer of Hebrews tells us that Jesus is found in all the Scripture. He
writes,
(Heb 10:7 KJV) Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book
it is written of me,) to do thy will, O God.
You may recall that when we looked at that phrase, it was actually a quote
from:
(Psa 40:7 KJV) Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book
it is written of me,
It’s kind of interesting that Psalm 70 is also the same as the last five
verses of Psalm 40.
You can find Jesus all through this Psalm. I believe this is a prophetic
Psalm speaking the thoughts of Jesus on the cross.
:1 Make haste, O God, to deliver me
Sounds a little like, “My God, My God, why hast thou
forsaken me”
:2-3 …Let them be turned back for a reward of their shame that say,
Aha, aha.
This might not seem like Jesus on the cross, who prayed
for God to forgive the ones crucifying Him, yet it’s not all that inconsistent
when you think of how God can use confusion and shame to be the very things
that can cause us to humbly come to Him and seek forgiveness.
:4 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and
let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let God be magnified.
Those that are truly seeking God would be glad for what
Jesus did on the cross.
thy salvation – y@shuw‘ah
– salvation, deliverance; this also happens to be very closely related to
the Hebrew for of Jesus’ name, “Joshua”, or “Yahweh is salvation”.
Do you love God’s salvation? Do you love Jesus? Do you
love what Jesus did on the cross?
:5 But I am poor and needy:
Paul wrote,
(2 Cor 8:9 KJV) For ye know the grace of our Lord
Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that
ye through his poverty might be rich.
When you put your eyes on Jesus and remember what He’s done for us, you
will realize that God has NOT forgotten you.
God loves you very much.