Theme: “The Dark Night of the Soul”
In this week’s studies we learn about David’s great affliction, and how his confidence and hope in the Lord were restored through prayer.
Scripture: Psalm 6:1-10
Psalm 6 is the first of the penitential psalms, that is, psalms in which the author confesses his sin and asks God for his mercy and forgiveness.
Theme: God’s Wrath
In this week’s studies we learn about David’s great affliction, and how his confidence and hope in the Lord were restored through prayer.
Scripture: Psalm 6:1-10
In the New International Version the psalm is divided into four stanzas, which is right. But in terms of its content the psalm is best considered in two sections. In the first (vv. 1-7) David is in great distress. His whole person–body, soul and spirit–is in anguish.
Theme: The Psalmist’s Distress
In this week’s studies we learn about David’s great affliction, and how his confidence and hope in the Lord were restored through prayer.
Scripture: Psalm 6:1-10
Yesterday we looked at the first feature of verses 1-7. Today we look at the other three.
2. A loss of a sense of God’s presence.
Theme: The Psalmist’s Hope and Prayer
In this week’s studies we learn about David’s great affliction, and how his confidence and hope in the Lord were restored through prayer.
Scripture: Psalm 6:1-10
Yet, in spite of the extremely black picture I am painting, the situation was not quite as hopeless as even the psalmist thought. Nor is it as hopeless as you might think. It may be that David felt under God’s fierce disapproval and wrath.
Theme: The Psalmist’s Answer
In this week’s studies we learn about David’s great affliction, and how his confidence and hope in the Lord were restored through prayer.
Scripture: Psalm 6:1-10
The second half of the psalm, which begins with verse 8, contains such a radical change of mood that many commentators seem to be without any adequate explanation.
Theme: Defeats in the Midst of Blessing
In this week’s lessons we see that even in times of blessing, when we feel closest to the Lord, there are nevertheless areas of our lives that will cause us trouble and need correcting.
Scripture: Psalm 60:1-12
The important part of this chapter says, “In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them, and he took Metheg Ammah from the control of the Philistines.
Theme: Cast off by God
In this week’s lessons we see that even in times of blessing, when we feel closest to the Lord, there are nevertheless areas of our lives that will cause us trouble and need correcting.
Scripture: Psalm 60:1-12
We do not know specifics of the defeat that came to Israel at this time, but the opening verses of Psalm 60 portray it as a great disaster. It was so great that two powerful images are used to describe what it was like.
Theme: A Chorus of Restoration
In this week’s lessons we learn that there is no restoration of God’s favor without repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 80:1-19
Theme: The Shepherd of Israel
In this week’s lessons we learn that there is no restoration of God’s favor without repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 80:1-19
Theme: Prayer for God’s Favor
In this week’s lessons we learn that there is no restoration of God’s favor without repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 80:1-19
Theme: The Divine Planter of a Vineyard
In this week’s lessons we learn that there is no restoration of God’s favor without repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 80:1-19
Theme: “Son of Man”
In this week’s lessons we learn that there is no restoration of God’s favor without repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 80:1-19
Theme: A Life of Repentance
In this week’s lessons, we see how our entire lives should be characterized by repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 143:1-12
Theme: Looking Honestly at Ourselves
In this week’s lessons, we see how our entire lives should be characterized by repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 143:1-12
Theme: On the Basis of God’s Righteousness
In this week’s lessons, we see how our entire lives should be characterized by repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 143:1-12
Theme: Remembering and Following
In this week’s lessons, we see how our entire lives should be characterized by repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 143:1-12
In the third stanza David puts himself under an important spiritual discipline: to remember God’s acts on his behalf and for other godly people in past days. He uses three verbs to describe what he does: “I remember,” “I meditate,” and I “consider.”
Theme: The Foundation of God’s Character
In this week’s lessons, we see how our entire lives should be characterized by repentance.
Scripture: Psalm 143:1-12
Paul’s late missionary efforts centered on the cities of his world. At the beginning, when he first set out with Barnabas, he passed through Cyprus from one end to the other, and we are told almost nothing about any specific ministry in towns. But after he went to Asia Minor, which we call Turkey, he worked in some cities there, small ones at first, then larger cities. At last, when he came to Europe, his ministry was focused almost entirely on the great cities: Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and now, in this chapter on Athens, the greatest city of them all.
In yesterday’s study we read about one type of philosophy Paul encountered in Athens, which was Epicureanism. In today’s lesson we encounter a second type.
Paul’s address begins in verse 22. It is a classic. When you write a formal address or sermon, you generally begin with an introduction, have three or four main points and then a good conclusion. This is exactly what Paul does here. He has a short but brilliant introduction, followed by four clear points. His first point is that God is the Creator of all things. His second point is that God is the sustainer of all things. His third point is that God is the ordainer of all things. His fourth point is that we should seek Him. Then there is a conclusion, which says that we should repent since we have not sought God as we should. To this he appends three sharp inducements.
Third, Paul says that God not only sustains the universe but that he also guides the affairs of men. Verse 26: “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.”
Paul ended his sermon on Mars Hill with a few inducements to repentance.
We want a good life, but most of us are willing to endure things that are not so good, so long as we are in control of the situation. We will bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things—we will willingly submit to great hardships—so long as we are doing the submitting and retain ability to manipulate the difficult circumstances to our ends.
A great deal had been accomplished in these sin-hardened brothers of Joseph, accomplishments vividly detailed in Genesis 42. But there is a proper break between chapters 42 and 43, since however much had been accomplished, it is still the case that the sin against Joseph would never have been fully brought out into the open, have been confessed and then forgiven were it not for the continuing hand of God in the events now narrated.
I see three kinds of necessity in verses 1-14. First, there is the necessity of nature, expressed in this case by the great famine. Instead of abating, as the brothers may have fondly hoped it would, the famine grew worse. The text says, “Now the famine was still severe in the land” (v. 1).
Does the pattern of necessity that God imposes on His people really bring changes? It did in this story. We see two changes: first, in Judah, and second, in the patriarch Jacob himself.
We pointed out yesterday that Jacob had learned his lesson about trying to wrestle against God at the Jabbok. Now, we see his attitude toward another God-ordained necessity he must submit to.
What awakens the human conscience and draws a man or woman to Jesus Christ? In Reformed circles it is customary to say that it is mostly a sense of need occasioned by awareness of sin. We know sin by the law. So we say that a person must first be slain by law before he can be resurrected by the Gospel. That is good theology. Yet in actual experience it is more often the case that an awareness of the great love of God is the decisive factor.
The story begins with the brothers’ fear, the same fear that had gripped them when the return of their silver had first been discovered. At their father’s insistence they had brought double the money on this journey, the first part to pay for the grain already purchased, and the second part to pay for a new supply. But when they presented themselves in Egypt and were immediately invited to eat with Joseph at noon, they suspected a plot against them.
If you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, you are in the same position as Joseph’s brothers at this point in the story. You have sinned against your elder brother, the Lord Jesus Christ, by denying His claims and refusing His proper lordship over your life. He has used means to awaken you to your need and bring you to an open confession of sin. But you have gone only so far as God’s tactics have forced you to go; even though He has been most loving and gracious toward you, you have not acknowledged His hand in these benefits.
Romans 2:4 puts the matter of God’s common grace to you and others in the form of a question: “Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience?” The answer is, of course you do, unless you have repented of your sin and turned back toward God through faith in Jesus Christ. By nature human beings are filled with ingratitude. By nature you show “contempt” for God’s kindness. Yet it is precisely this kindness that God is using to bring you to repentance.
There are no such excuses for us. We know there is a God; the Bible says that only fools deny it (Ps. 14:1). We know that all we are and have come from God’s hand; the Bible says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17). When we stop to think about it, we even know that God sent the Lord Jesus Christ to save us by giving His life in our place. But do we acknowledge this? We do not, unless God awakens our consciences and turns us from our manifest ingratitude.
We have been looking at the work of God in the lives of Joseph’s sin-hardened brothers. Twenty-two years before these events they had sold their innocent and unsuspecting brother into slavery, and all the years since then they had lived with their terrible secret. No one knew—not Jacob their father, not Joseph’s younger brother Benjamin, certainly not their wives or children. But God knew, and He was working in them to expose their sin and bring genuine healing to their lives.
To understand Genesis 44 we must put ourselves in the brothers’ shoes as they started out from Egypt that final morning. They had gone to Egypt with gloomy apprehensions, fueled perhaps by the even gloomier apprehensions of their father. The last time they had been in Egypt, the prime minister had been suspicious of them. He had called them spies and had refused to believe their word about their family, particularly their testimony about their youngest brother Benjamin who had been left behind in Canaan. More than this, he had demanded proof that they were speaking the truth.
Jesus stands ready not only to expose but to forgive, not only to condemn but to cleanse and restore to useful service.
In yesterday’s study, we concluded with the idea that before forgiveness and cleansing can occur, Jesus must first reveal to us the depth of our sin and the reality of our impending judgment. When a person is exposed to this divine logic for the first time, it sounds wrong. It sounds as if a person who has undergone the experience of the brothers must now be broken psychologically and must be as useless to God and others as a brainwashed prisoner. But God’s ways are not our ways, and actually the opposite is the case.
Yesterday, we ended by wondering how the brothers might respond to the silver cup being found with Benjamin. How might they try to save themselves? What story would they perhaps make up to tell their father? Thanks to the work of God, none of these thoughts was now in the brothers’ minds. Years before they had willingly sold Joseph. Now there is not one of them who did not wish that the cup had been found in his sack rather than in Benjamin’s. And they did not abandon him!
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