Thursday
Evening Bible Study
January
21, 2016
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid
to die? Does it speak to the broken
hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision
Is the church loved? Target 3300 words
Video = 75 wpm
The English word psalm comes from a Greek word that means “a poem
sung to musical accompaniment”, or in particular, “stringed instruments”.
The Hebrew name is tehillim, which means “praises.”
The book of Psalms is the hymnbook of God’s people.
It’s also the “Him” book as well. It’s all about Jesus.
The writer of Hebrews quotes from
Psalm 40:8 when he writes,
(Hebrews 10:7 NKJV) Then I
said, ‘Behold, I have come— In the
volume of the book it is written of Me— To do Your will, O God.’ ”
The author was talking about Jesus.
We’re going to see a lot of Jesus
in the Psalms.
Soul Music
Music touches the soul. It’s “soulish” in nature. It touches the emotions.
We’re going to find every kind of emotion possible expressed in the Psalms.
For every sigh there is a Psalm.
For most of us, this is what makes
the Psalms so wonderful. We can identify. We can relate.
If we were honest, even darkest
most depressing Psalms describe the very things we go through day by day.
It is my prayer that as we continue
on this journey through the Psalms, we won’t just look at these songs
academically, with our mind, but that we may also grow as worshippers.
Psalm 34 – Deliverance from Fear
A Psalm of David When He Pretended Madness Before Abimelech, Who Drove Him
Away, and He Departed.
He Pretended Madness Before Abimelech
Abimelech can be a proper name or a title.
The word means “my father is king”.
Here it refers to one of the kings of the Philistines, a man named Achish. We’ll talk about the situation itself in a
minute.
This Psalm is another acrostic, each verse starts with the next letter of
the alphabet.
:1 I will bless the Lord at
all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
:2 My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.
:3 Oh, magnify the Lord with
me, And let us exalt His name together.
:1 I will bless the Lord
at all times
God deserves our praise and gratitude.
All the time. No matter what our
current circumstances are. Even when it’s scary.
Sometimes we are aware of reasons to praise Him. But sometimes we aren’t. He still deserves praise.
:4 I sought the Lord, and He
heard me, And delivered me from all my fears.
:4 I sought the Lord …delivered
me from all my fears
This is the main verse of the entire Psalm.
This is the reason for David’s praise.
sought – darash – to
resort to, frequent (a place), to consult, enquire of, seek
delivered – natsal
– to take away, to rescue
What was David afraid of?
David had some very real, very serious fears.
David had been running from Saul.
Saul was David’s father-in-law, his boss, and his king.
From David’s victory over Goliath to his victories on the battlefield,
David had become famous.
Even though David was a faithful servant of Saul, Saul wanted David killed
simply because he was jealous of David.
Saul had already made several attempts on David’s life, using David for
target practice at dinner, even sending agents to kill David when he went home
at night.
David was afraid of Saul. He was
afraid that one day Saul would catch him and have him killed.
(1 Samuel 21:10–15 NKJV) —10 Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul, and went to
Achish the king of Gath.
There would be a day when David would befriend Achish and even temporarily
settle down in a Philistine controlled city, but at this time, David was still
considered a dangerous man to Achish.
11 And the
servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land?
Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying: ‘Saul has
slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands’?” 12 Now David took these words to heart, and was very much afraid of
Achish the king of Gath.
Keep in mind that David is attempting to hide out in Gath, the hometown of
Goliath.
David is known throughout the land as the one who had killed Goliath.
13 So he
changed his behavior before them, pretended madness in their hands, scratched
on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva fall down on his beard. 14 Then Achish
said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is insane. Why have you brought
him to me? 15 Have I need
of madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my
presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?”
In order to keep from being killed by the Philistines, David pretends to
lose his mind. He acts crazy. He scribbles graffiti on the walls. He drools.
Some have suggested that this was a mistake for David, running to the
Philistines. Some have considered it a lack of faith in fleeing the land of Israel.
When you read this Psalm, I think you’ll see that David is
not lacking any faith, but he certainly had lots to be afraid of.
What are you afraid of?
There are lots of lists of Top
ten fears, here’s one
that I’ve seen several times:
1. Speaking in front of a group
2. Heights
3. Insects and bugs
4. Financial problems
5. Deep water
6. Sickness
7. Death
8. Flying
9. Loneliness
10. Dogs
Though we may be affected by some of these common phobias, sometimes it’s
the circumstances we are in, and we are afraid of the outcome.
Lesson
Prayer and fear
David handled his fears by seeking the Lord.
What does it mean to seek the Lord?
I like the idea in the definition of “seek” to “frequent a place”. Kind of
like hanging out with God. It is often translated “enquire”, going to God and
asking for His advice and help.
For David, it certainly meant to pray.
The Bible says that we are to handle our fears and anxieties with prayer.
(Philippians 4:6–7
NKJV) —6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the
peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and
minds through Christ Jesus.
The word “supplication” carries the idea of making a
specific request.
I find that it helps to spell out the specific requests,
to tell God exactly what you think you need.
I also believe that one of the keys to receiving God’s
peace in place of your fears is to learn to pray with thanksgiving.
I don’t think this means we are supposed to thank God for
answering our prayer exactly as we asked, but that we learn to thank Him for
listening and doing what He knows is best.
If I have truly put the situation into His hands and I truly believe He
can take care of it, then I can be thankful.
And that’s when I receive God’s peace to guard my heart.
For some of us, when we face fearful times we have a knee-jerk response in
that we seek out certain people to talk to or ask for help.
I think counseling can be a wonderful thing. I believe God uses counseling. But I wonder if for some of us haven’t quite
grasped this important concept.
FIRST go to God with your problems.
Here are some great nuggets by some men who knew how to pray:
“If I could hear Christ praying for me in the next room, I would not fear a
million enemies. Yet distance makes no
difference. He is praying for me.” (Robert Murray McCheyne)
“The prayer power has never been tried to its full capacity. If we want to see
mighty wonders of divine power and grace wrought in the place of weakness,
failure and disappointment, let us answer God’s standing challenge, “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and
show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not!’” (J. Hudson Taylor)
:5 They looked to Him and were radiant, And their faces were not ashamed.
:5 They looked to Him and were radiant
This makes me think about Moses.
When he would spend time in God’s presence in the Tabernacle, he would
come out and his face would glow.
There is a sense that we too should “glow” a little as we spend time with
Him.
(2 Corinthians 3:18
NLT) So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the
glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like
him as we are changed into his glorious image.
Charles H. Spurgeon in training young pastors said to his students,
“When you talk about heaven let your face light up with a heavenly
glory. When you tell about hell, your
everyday face will do.”
:6 This poor man cried out, and the Lord
heard him, And saved him out of all his troubles.
:7 The angel of the Lord
encamps all around those who fear Him, And delivers them.
:7 The angel of the Lord
encamps …
Who is the “angel of the LORD”?
This phrase “the angel of the LORD”, or literally, “the messenger of
Yahweh”, is a specific phrase used in the Old Testament to indicate a specific person.
He made many appearances to many different people. The actual specific Hebrew
phrase appears 58 times in the Old Testament.
He appeared to Abraham when he was going to sacrifice his only begotten son
on Mount Moriah (Gen. 22).
He spoke to Moses out of the burning bush (Ex. 3:2).
He was the one who called Gideon to deliver the Israelites (Judg. 6).
He was the angel that David saw at the threshing floor of Ornan the
Jebusite on Mount Moriah, which led to the purchase of the property for the
Temple (1Chr. 21).
We believe that this “angel of the LORD” is a “theophany”, or an appearance
of Jesus in physical form before his birth. In some of the passages I just
mentioned, this “angel of the LORD” is actually called God (Gen. 16:13; Ex.
3:2-4).
Lesson
God’s Help
God helps those who fear Him.
Hezekiah and the Assyrians.
In Hezekiah’s day, the Assyrians were the big bullies on the block. They had conquered just about everything in
the world, and they had decided that Hezekiah’s kingdom was next. They started seizing city after city until
they were on Jerusalem’s
doorstep. They had the city
surrounded. Hezekiah called the people
to prayer. He asked the prophet Isaiah
to pray. God sent a word:
(Isaiah
37:35 NKJV) ‘For I will defend this city, to save it For My own
sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”
The next morning the people in Jerusalem had a surprise waiting for them:
(Isaiah
37:36 NKJV) Then the angel of the Lord
went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five
thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the
corpses—all dead.
One angel kills 185,000 Assyrians in a single night.
Illustration
Sometimes God’s rescues are a little subtler. I remember a time back in 1975 when I was
driving my Volkswagen van with a load of folks to go to a Bible Study at
Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa. If you
know anything about Volkswagen vans, you know that when you have a van full of
people, you need lots of room to brake.
They don’t stop on a dime. It was
a Thursday morning and we were going to go to Pastor Romaine’s study. I had a couple of pastors in the van with
me. We were driving on the 5 freeway
south, about to get onto the 55 freeway.
Suddenly the traffic stopped and I knew I was going to have a problem. It all happened too quickly. All I know is that somehow we stopped. We didn’t even hit the car in front of us,
though it felt like we hit some kind of a cushion. I still wonder how many angels got bruised
that day. I’m sure many of you have stories
just like that.
Do you need help? Do you fear
God? He wants to help.
:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
:8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord
is good
I may not be the biggest gourmet in the world, but my parents raised me to
learn to try new kinds of foods.
From time to time I see children who eat nothing but hotdogs and macaroni
and cheese.
When some of these children grow up, they tend to be reluctant to try new
things, even when I know they will love it.
At least these kids are
willing to try.
God wants our relationship with Him to be one of experience.
He doesn’t want us on the sidelines critiquing everything we see other
people in the church doing.
He wants us to be men and women who have “tasted” and have “seen” just who
He is.
And unlike kids trying caviar, when we “taste” Him, we will see that He is
GOOD!!!
:8 Blessed is the man who trusts in Him!
We saw last week that there are a couple of words that can be translated
“blessed”.
One word speaks of God’s supernatural “blessing” (barak)
This is the word that simply speaks of human happiness (asher)
When you learn to trust God, to count on God, you will indeed be a happy
person.
:9 Oh, fear the Lord, you His
saints! There is no want to those who fear Him.
:9 Oh, fear the Lord, you
His saints!
This is one of the vital elements in David’s trust of God, and in God’s
deliverance of David.
Jesus said,
(Matthew 10:28 NKJV)
And
do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear
Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
People may indeed be able to cause you physical harm, but the only person
who can send your soul to hell is God Himself.
Fearing God doesn’t mean running away from Him in terror.
David has just said that there is much happiness in trusting God.
The Bible very clearly speaks of God’s great love, mercy, and grace towards
us, and of our need to love Him.
This fear has to do with understanding who I am in comparison to God.
He is Almighty and has the power to take my life, or even send me to hell,
but when I balance this with remembering His love for me, it leads me to a
profound respect for God.
:10 The young lions lack and suffer hunger; But those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
:10 those who seek the Lord
shall not lack any good thing
There is a great promise here.
:11 Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
:12 Who is the man who desires life, And loves many
days, that he may see good?
David is now going to paint you a little picture of what it means to “fear
the Lord”…
:13 Keep your tongue from evil, And your lips from speaking deceit.
:14 Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it.
:13-14 tongue … do good
Lesson
Fear and Actions
Sometimes our fears lead to us to do strange things.
I decided not to do #4.
Too much “potty” humor…
If you have a healthy fear of God, it too will display itself in how you
live your life.
Not in strange neuroses, but in healthy actions.
It will affect the way you talk to others.
You won’t say “evil” things.
You won’t speak deceitfully to others but will speak
truthfully.
It will affect what you “do” towards others.
:15 The eyes of the Lord are
on the righteous, And His ears are open to their cry.
:16 The face of the Lord is
against those who do evil, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth.
:17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord
hears, And delivers them out of all their troubles.
:17 The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears
Lesson
Weighty prayers
The “righteous” person is the person who is doing the right thing, the
person who is living according to God’s standards.
There is a principle in scripture that a “righteous” person carries weight
with God in prayer:
(James 5:16 NKJV) Confess your
trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed.
The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
And at the same time, when we have sin in our lives, we have a problem in
prayer.
When a husband is abusing his wife, his prayers are hindered:
(1
Peter 3:7 NKJV) Husbands, likewise, dwell with them with understanding,
giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs
together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.
When we let enjoy sin in our heart, our communication with God is cut off:
(Psalm
66:18 The Message) If I had been cozy with evil, the Lord would never have listened.
So what do you do if you need God to work but you’ve been screwing up your
life doing wrong things?
You need to learn to keep short accounts with God.
Confess your sins.
(1
John 1:9 NKJV) If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Confession isn’t just saying you’re sorry and getting the
golden ticket to forgiveness that gets you out of all trouble.
Confession is about agreeing with God.
You not only agree with God about your sin.
You agree that your sin was wrong.
You agree that you need to turn around.
When we confess our sins like this, God will cleanse us
from all unrighteousness.
:18 The Lord is near
to those who have a broken heart, And saves such as have a contrite spirit.
:18 near to those who have a broken heart
I believe this is talking about having a broken heart over our sin.
I may think that because I’m a sinner, God won’t hear me.
But when I’m broken over my sin, He’s VERY near, and He will hear.
(Isaiah 57:15 NKJV)
For
thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in
the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive
the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous, But the Lord delivers him out of them all.
:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous
Learning to live a correct, righteous life doesn’t make you exempt from
difficulty.
Peter wrote,
(1 Peter 4:12 NKJV)
Beloved,
do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as
though some strange thing happened to you;
Paul wrote,
(2 Timothy 3:12
NKJV) Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer
persecution.
Yet living a righteous life does insure one thing.
God will deliver me one way or another.
:20 He guards all his bones; Not one of them is broken.
:20 Not one of them is broken
This is prophetic, speaking of Jesus.
On the day that Jesus died on the cross, the Roman soldiers were told to
speed up the pace of the executions, so they went to break the legs of each of
the men being crucified.
When they got to Jesus, they saw He was already dead, and they verified the
death by piercing His side with a spear and saw the blood and water that came
out.
John recorded,
(John 19:36 NKJV) For these
things were done that the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of
His bones shall be broken.”
:21 Evil shall slay the wicked, And those who hate the righteous shall be
condemned.
:22 The Lord redeems the soul
of His servants, And none of those who trust in Him shall be condemned.
:22 The Lord redeems the
soul of His servants
As we said in the beginning, this Psalm is an acrostic, with each verse
starting with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet.
Except for one place, where two consecutive letters (he, waw) are found in two consecutive phrases in verse 5, making it
look like he skipped a letter between verses 5,6.
That means that the alphabet actually ended at verse 21, making verse 22
stand out in the Hebrew. It’s an extra
verse.
This is a special verse.
Lesson
Not condemned
redeems – padah – to
ransom, redeem, rescue, deliver
This is the word used in the book of Exodus to describe what God did during
the night of the Passover.
When each family killed a lamb and spread the blood on the doorposts of
their house, the firstborn of each family was “redeemed” (Ex. 13:15)
(Exodus 13:15 NKJV) —15 And it came to pass, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us
go, that the Lord killed all the
firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of
beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord
all males that open the womb, but all the firstborn of my sons I redeem.’
Their lives were spared because the lamb took the place of the son (Ex. 13:15). They had been rescued with
lamb’s blood.
God knows how to “redeem” your soul.
He’s paid the price for your sin.
His Son was the Lamb of God, who came to take away the sin of the world
by dying on the cross.
If you trust in the Lamb, you will not be condemned.
Jesus said,
(John
3:16–18 NKJV) —16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did
not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world
through Him might be saved. 18 “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not
believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the
only begotten Son of God.
Illustration
There was a little boy visiting his grandparents on their farm. He was
given a slingshot to play with in the woods. He practiced in the woods, but he
could never hit the target. Getting a little discouraged, he headed back for
dinner. As he was walking back he saw Grandma’s pet duck. Just out of impulse
he let the slingshot fly, hit the duck square in the head, and killed it. He
was shocked and grieved. In a panic, he hid the dead duck in the wood pile,
only to see his sister watching. Sally had seen it all, but she said nothing.
After lunch the next day Grandma said, “Sally, let’s wash the dishes.” But
Sally said, “Grandma, Johnny told me he wanted to help in the kitchen. Then she
whispered to him, “Remember the duck?” So Johnny did the dishes. Later that
day, Grandpa asked if the children wanted to go fishing and Grandma said, “I’m
sorry but I need Sally to help make supper.” Sally just smiled and said, “Well,
that’s all right because Johnny told me he wanted to help. She whispered again,
“Remember the duck?” So Sally went fishing and Johnny stayed to help. After
several days of Johnny doing both his chores and Sally’s he finally couldn’t
stand it any longer. He came to Grandma and confessed that he had killed the
duck. Grandma knelt down, gave him a hug and said, “Sweetheart, I know. You
see, I was standing at the window and I saw the whole thing. But because I love
you, I forgave you. I was just wondering how long you would let Sally make a
slave of you.”
Has Satan been using your guilt to make you his slave?
God too sees your sin.
He knows all about it. He’s
waiting for you to get to the point where you’ll come to Him and confess
it. He’s waiting for you to get tired of
having Satan beat you up.
Songs
C F
C
I will bless the Lord at all times
G G7
His praise shall continually
C
be in my mouth
C F
My soul shall make her boast
C
in the Lord
G G7
The humble shall hear thereof
C C7
and be glad
F C
O magnify the Lord with me
F C
And let us exalt His name together
C F C
I sought the Lord and He heard me
G G7 C
And delivered me from all my fears
I Will Bless The Lord / Words & Music by Vep Ellis /
© 1967 Lillenas
Publishing Co. / IWillBle.doc
Am
The Lord redeemeth
Em
The soul of his servants
Am
And none of them
Em
Who trust in him
Am Em Am
Shall be desolate
The Lord Redeemeth / Author unknown / © unknown / Psalm34.doc