A CONFLICT BETWEEN SENSE AND FAITH – Part 2

 ANCHOR OF LIFE DAILY DEVOTIONAL GUIDE For SATURDAY, 27TH MAY, 2023.

TOPIC: A CONFLICT BETWEEN SENSE AND FAITH – Part 2

MEMORIZE: “Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me.” Psalm 42:7.

SCRIPTURE READING: Psalm 42:6-11.

“O my God, my soul is cast down within me; Therefore I will remember You from the land of the Jordan, And from the heights of Hermon, From the Hill Mizar. 7 Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls; All Your waves and billows have gone over me. 8 The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, And in the night His song shall be with me-A prayer to the God of my life. 9 I will say to God my Rock, "Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?" 10 As with a breaking of my bones, My enemies reproach me, While they say to me all day long, "Where is your God?" 11 Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.”

EXPOSITION:

He complains of the tokens of God's displeasure against him, but comforts himself with the hopes of the return of his favour in due time. 

1. HE SAW HIS TROUBLES COMING FROM GOD'S WRATH, AND THAT DISCOURAGED HIM (Psalm 42:7): 

"Deep calls unto deep, one affliction comes upon the neck of another, as if it were called to hasten after it; and thy water-spouts give the signal and sound the alarm of war." 

It may be meant of the terror and disquietude of his mind under the apprehensions of God's anger. One frightful thought summoned another, and made way for it, as is usual in melancholy people. He was overpowered and overwhelmed with a deluge of grief, like that of the old world, when the windows of heaven were opened and the fountains of the great deep were broken up.  Or it is an allusion to a ship at sea in a great storm, tossed by the roaring waves, which go over it, Ps 107:25 “For He commands and raises the stormy wind, Which lifts up the waves of the sea.” Whatever waves and billows of affliction go over us at any time we must call them God's waves and his billows, that we may humble ourselves under his mighty hand, and may encourage ourselves to hope that though we be threatened we shall not be ruined; for the waves and billows are under a divine check. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of these many waters. Let not good men think it strange if they be exercised with many and various trials, and if they come thickly upon them; God knows what he does, and so shall they shortly. Jonah, in the whale's belly, made use of these words of David, Jonah 2:3 “For You cast me into the deep, Into the heart of the seas, And the floods surrounded me; All Your billows and Your waves passed over me.” (they are exactly the same in the original), and of him they were literally true, All thy waves and thy billows have gone over me; for the book of psalms is contrived so as to reach every one's case. 

 

2. HE EXPECTED HIS DELIVERANCE TO COME FROM GOD'S FAVOUR (Ps 42:8): 

Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness. Things are bad, but they shall not always be so. Non si male nunc et olim sic erit--Though affairs are now in an evil plight, they may not always be so. After the storm there will come a calm, and the prospect of this supported him when deep called unto deep. Observe, 

(a.) What He Promised Himself From God: 

The Lord will command his lovingkindness. He eyes the favour of God as the fountain of all the good he looked for. That is life; that is better than life; and with that God will gather those from whom he has, in a little wrath, hid his face, Isa 54:7-8 “For a mere moment I have forsaken you, But with great mercies I will gather you. With a little wrath I hid My face from you for a moment; But with everlasting kindness I will have mercy on you," Says the LORD, your Redeemer.” God's conferring his favour is called his commanding it. This intimates the freeness of it; we cannot pretend to merit it, but it is bestowed in a way of sovereignty, he gives like a king. It intimates also the efficacy of it; he speaks his lovingkindness, and makes us to hear it; speaks, and it is done. He commands deliverance (Psalm 44:4 “You are my King, O God; Command victories for Jacob.”), commands the blessing (Ps 133:3 “…For there the LORD commanded the blessing-Life forevermore.”), as one having authority. By commanding his lovingkindness, he commands down the waves and the billows, and they shall obey him. This he will do in the daytime, for God's lovingkindness will make day in the soul at any time. Though weeping has endured for a night, a long night, yet joy will come in the morning. 

 (b.) What He Promised For Himself To God. 

If God command his lovingkindness for him, he will meet it, and bid it welcome, with his best affections and devotions.  

[a.] He Will Rejoice In God: In The Night His Song Shall Be With Me. 

The mercies we receive in the day we ought to return thanks for at night; when others are sleeping we should be praising God. Psalm 119:62 says “At midnight I will rise to give thanks to You, Because of Your righteous judgments.”  In silence and solitude, when we are retired from the hurries of the world, we must be pleasing ourselves with the thoughts of God's goodness. Or in the night of affliction: Before the day dawns, in which God commands his lovingkindness, I will sing songs of praise in the prospect of it. Even in tribulation the saints can rejoice in hope of the glory of God, sing in hope, and praise in hope, Ro 5:2-3 “through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance”. It is God's prerogative to give songs in the night, Job 35:10 “But no one says, 'Where is God my Maker, Who gives songs in the night”. 

 [b.] He Will Seek To God In A Constant Dependence Upon Him: 

My prayer shall be to the God of my life. Our believing expectation of mercy must not supersede, but quicken, our prayers for it. God is the God of our life, in whom we live and move, the author and giver of all our comforts; and therefore to whom should we apply by prayer, but to him?  And from him what good may not we expect? It would put life into our prayers in them to eye God as the God of our life; for then it is for our lives, and the lives of our souls, that we stand up to make request.

PRAYER POINT: Lord, let your resurrection draw me closer to you in unbroken relationship[ with you in Jesus name.

DAILY BIBLE READING IN A YEAR –  Psalm 1-4.