Psalm 131
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A Song of Degrees of David. It is both by David and of David: he is the author and the subject of it, and many incidents of his life may be employed to illustrate it. Comparing all the Psalms to gems, we should liken this to a pearl: how beautifully it will adorn the neck of patience. It is one of the shortest Psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn. It speaks of a young child, but it contains the experience of a man in Christ. Lowliness and humility are here seen in connection with a sanctified heart, a will subdued to the mind of God, and a hope looking to the Lord alone happy is the man who can without falsehood use these words as his own; for he wears about him the likeness of his Lord, who said, "I am meek and lowly in heart." The Psalm is in advance of all the Songs of Degrees which have preceded it; for loveliness is one of the highest attainments in the divine life. There are also steps in this Song of Degrees: it is a short ladder, if we count the words; but yet it rises to a great height, reaching from deep humility to fixed confidence. Le Blanc thinks that this is a song of the Israelites who returned from Babylon with, humble hearts, weaned from their idols. At any rate, after any spiritual captivity let it be the expression of our hearts. —Charles Spurgeon
Rejecting all self dependence
Rejecting all self dependence
No pride in the heart: “LORD my heart is not haughty (Proud),”
Heart = the inner person (Alec Motyer)
A proud heart
Uzziah
But when he was strong his heart was lifted up, to his destruction, for he transgressed against the Lord his God by entering the temple of the Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.
2 Chronicles 26
Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty,
And before honor is humility.
Proverbs 18:
“Son of man, say to the prince of Tyre, ‘Thus says the Lord God:
“Because your heart is lifted up,
And you say, ‘I am a god,
I sit in the seat of gods,
In the midst of the seas,’
Yet you are a man, and not a god,
Though you set your heart as the heart of a god
Ezekiel
Confess knowing God knows the heart
Inspection of our heart
I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
“As a partridge that broods but does not hatch,
So is he who gets riches, but not by right;
It will leave him in the midst of his days,
And at his end he will be a fool.”
“The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.
O Lord, You have searched me and known me.
You know my sitting down and my rising up;
You understand my thought afar off.
You comprehend my path and my lying down,
And are acquainted with all my ways.
For there is not a word on my tongue,
But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.
Psalm 139:1-
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
Try me, and know my anxieties;
And see if there is any wicked way in me,
And lead me in the way everlasting.
It is a still greater thing if, upon searching himself thoroughly, a man can solemnly protest unto the Omniscient One that his heart is not haughty: that is to say, neither proud in his opinion of himself, contemptuous to others, nor self righteous before the Lord; neither boastful of the past, proud of the present, nor ambitious for the future. —Charles Spurgeon
I reject all arrogance in my own sight: “Nor my eyes lofty (arrogance).”
What the heart desires the eyes look for. —Charles Spurgeon
Eyes = ambitions, objectives, desires, aims, longings (AM)
I do not get anxious and stress over things I don’t understand: “Neither do I concern (walk in) myself with great matters,”
Concern = occupied with, the outward life of daily business (AM)
Great matters = over-ambitious plans; unrealistic projects. Not a call to the trivial but to the manageable (AM)
I understand some things are beyond my wisdom: “Nor with things too profound (difficult) for me.”
“David’s point is that he did not obsess about things beyond the call and will of God for his life.” —Rhett Dodson, Marching to Zion, page 184
Wonderful = learning to live with unanswerable questions (AM)
Resting our soul in God
Resting our soul in God
Looking for peace and quite: “Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,”
Contentment can be achieved when we forsake pride: “Surely” = assured
Contentment is not found by those filled with pride
Contentment is not found by those living for possessions
Surrendering to the process of becoming mature: “Like a weaned child with his mother:”
Repeating himself: “Like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
It is not every child of God who arrives at this weanedness speedily. Some are sucklings when they ought to be fathers; others are hard to wean, and cry, and fight, and rage against their heavenly parent's discipline. When we think ourselves safely through the weaning, we sadly discover that the old appetites are rather wounded than slain, and we begin crying again for the breasts which we had given up. It is easy to begin shouting before we are out of the wood, and no doubt hundreds have sung this Psalm long before they have understood it. Blessed are those afflictions which subdue our affections, which wean us from self sufficiency, which educate us into Christian manliness, which teach us to love God not merely when he comforts us, but even when he tries us. —Charles Spurgeon
Reaching out to others with the same message
Reaching out to others with the same message
A call for all to hope in the LORD: “O Israel, hope in the LORD
A call for all to hope in the LORD: “O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time and forever
A call that deserves a response: “From this time and forever.”
Let Israel hope in the LORD from henceforth and for ever. See how lovingly a man who is weaned from self thinks of others! David thinks of his people, and loses himself in his care for Israel. How he prizes the grace of hope! He has given up the things which are seen, and therefore he values the treasures which are not seen except by the eyes of hope. There is room for the largest hope when self is gone, ground for eternal hope when transient things no longer hold the mastery of our spirits. This verse is the lesson of experience: a man of God who had been taught to renounce the world and live upon the Lord alone, here exhorts all his friends and companions to do the same. He found it a blessed thing to live by hope, and therefore he would have all his kinsmen do the same. Let all the nation hope, let all their hope be in Jehovah, let them at once begin hoping "from henceforth", and let them continue hoping "for ever." Weaning takes the child out of a temporary condition into a state in which he will continue for the rest of his life: to rise above the world is to enter upon a heavenly existence which can never end. When we cease to hanker for the world we begin hoping in the Lord. O Lord, as a parent weans a child, so do thou wean me, and then shall I fix all my hope on thee alone. —Charles Spurgeon