SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V9-11

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:9-11

Psa 42:9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?
Psa 42:10 As with a sword in my bones, mine enemies reproach me; while they say daily unto me, Where is thy God?
Psa 42:11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

The despair expressed here is so painful. God is my rock, I will pray to my rock, my God and ask, "why have you forgotten me, why go I on mourning? My enemy continues to oppress me, my sins overwhelm me, my grief over them is so great, I am distressed and pained because of it. My bones hurt, my body aches, my stomach is sick. These things are speaking to me over and over again doubt and unbelief, mocking me, "where is thy God? Where is he? why do you continue in this doubt if your God is here - he is not here - where is your GOD? He is gone from you."

Again we are reminded, THE PROBLEM IS YOU ARE LISTENING TO YOURSELF. YOU LET YOURSELF TALK TO YOU. But verse eleven once again demonstrates the proper soul healing procedure. Take your soul by the hand and no longer listening to it - talk to it - talk to yourself in this manner, preaching the gospel to yourself everyday.

Why are you cast down, Soul?
Why are you disquieted, clamoring and noisy-complaining, Soul?

HOPE IN GOD, SOUL. Soul, Hope thou in GOD.

I will YET after this praise GOD. There will be praise after this darkness. God is my help. His countenance, his presence, his SMILE and favor which is MINE in Christ who bought me. He will make MY own countenance SHINE IN HEALTH. Glow with Rosy robust health. He is the health of my countenance. My face will shine in joy for my God. For my saviour, his lovingkindness is ever towards me, for I belong to Christ. HE has given me to his son, and I belong to Jesus. I am his and he will never cast me away. He is able and willing to receive me, who am given to himself from the Father. It's a matter for GOD and he will bring health to my face, joy to my body. My bones will hurt no more. Soul, Hope thou in God.

SPURGEON:
Thus faith closes the struggle, a victor in fact by anticipation, and in heart by firm reliance. The saddest countenance shall yet be made to shine, if there be a taking of God at his word and an expectation of his salvation.
“For yet I know I shall him praise
Who graciously to me,
The health is of my countenance,
Yea, mine own God is he.”

SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V8

Continuing on in our look at Psalm 42

Lovingkindness a noble-lifebelt in a rough sea......

Psalm 42:8

Yet the LORD will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me, and my prayer unto the God of my life.

There is something so wonderful here - the LORD will COMMAND his lovingkindness. Do you hear that word, "command?" The Lord has a directive for his lovingkindness. My problems are overwhelming me, my body hurts, my stomach aches, my soul is cast down and disquieted within me .... BUT GOD will command his lovingkindness -- even in the daytime. Christ for me, Christ my saviour, Christ my sacrifice that satisifies the just wrath of God. Christ my mediator between God and men. Christ the friend who sticks closer than a brother. Christ fairer than the fair. Christ lovely and beautiful, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. Christ who condemned sin in the flesh. Christ given for me and in my place, delivered up for my offenses and raised again for my justification. Christ who has washed me from my sins. In Christ is lovingkindness abounding. And knowing my calling and election of God - making it sure - believing in the saviour Jesus Christ I know his lovingkindness is commanded in the daytime.

SPURGEON:
Come what may there shall be “a certain secret something” to sweeten all. Lovingkindness is a noble life-belt in a rough sea. The day may darken into a strange and untimely midnight, but the love of God ordained of old to be the portion of the elect, shall be by sovereign decree meted out to them. No day shall ever dawn on an heir of grace and find him altogether forsaken of his Lord: the Lord reigneth, and as a sovereign he will with authority command mercy to be reserved for his chosen. “And in the night.” Both divisions of the day shall be illuminated with special love, and no stress of trial shall prevent it.

IN THE NIGHT HIS SONG SHALL BE With me.

At night in bed, when my thoughts drift where they shouldn't where cares and sin overwhelm. Where in the quiet my thinking lead to my doubting there his song shall be with me. There I can find him. God commanding lovingkindness in the daytime and at night his SONG IS WITH ME.

SPURGEON:
Our God is God of the nights as well as the days; none shall find his Israel unprotected, be the hour what it may. “His song shall be with me.” Songs of praise for blessings received shall cheer the gloom of night. No music sweeter than this. The belief that we shall yet glorify the Lord for mercy given in extremity is a delightful stay to the soul. Affliction may put out our candle, but if it cannot silence our song we will soon light the candle again.

His song with me and my prayer to GOD.

God hears our prayers - his ear is open to us. He has bought us with a precious price, the dear blood of the blessed glorious only-begotten of the FATHER and he will hear his own they know his voice and he knows them.

SPURGEON:
“And my prayer unto the God of my life.” Prayer is yoked with praise. He who is the living God, is the God of our life, from him we derive it, with him in prayer and praise we spend it, to him we devote it, in him we shall perfect it. To be assured that our sighs and songs shall both have free access to our glorious Lord is to have reason for hope in the most deplorable condition.

SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V7

Continuing on in our look at Psalm 42
God's Waves and Billows

Psalm 42:7

Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts: all thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.


Q. What are waterspouts?
A. I'm thinking water shooting up from the sea terrible to behold. And John Gill writes:
By which are meant afflictions, comparable to the deep waters of the sea, for their multitude and overwhelming nature; see Psalm 69:1; these came pouring down, one after another, upon the psalmist: as soon as one affliction over, another came, as in the case of Job; which is signified by one calling to another, and were clamorous, troublesome, and very grievous and distressing;

Q. What noise do they make?
A. You can imagine the terrific rush of noise, the gushing forth, crashing with fierceness. Waters from the DEEP uniting force with Waters deep as well. Deep calling unto deep with troubles mounting as in the noise of GOD's tremendous workings in nature - his waterspouts.

Q. And to whom do they belong?
A. To GOD, they are his waterspouts.


Still praying to GOD, "...thy waves and thy billows...."

Tremendous waves of troubles are coming over me and they are thy waves, I receive them from the hand of my God. All things are of the Lord troubles as well.

And so Matthew Poole writes:
All thy waves and thy billows; thou hast sent one sharp trial or affliction upon me after another.

Are gone over me, i.e. are gone over my head, as this same verb is used, Psa_38:4. They do not lightly sprinkle me, but almost overwhelm me.

SPURGEON:
“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts.” Thy severe dealings with me seem to excite all creation to attack me; heaven, and earth, and hell, call to each other, stirring each other up in dreadful conspiracy against my peace. As in a waterspout, the deeps above and below clasp hands, so it seemed to David that heaven and earth united to create a tempest around him. His woes were incessant and overwhelming. Billow followed billow, one sea echoed the roaring of another; bodily pain aroused mental fear, Satanic suggestions chimed in with mistrustful foreboding, outward tribulation thundered in awful harmony with inward anguish: his soul seemed drowned as in a universal deluge of trouble, over whose waves the providence of the Lord moved as a watery pillar, in dreadful majesty inspiring the utmost terror. As for the afflicted one he was like a lonely bark around which the fury of a storm is bursting, or a mariner floating on a mast, almost every moment submerged. “All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me.” David thought that every trouble in the world had met in him, but he exaggerated, for all the breaking waves of Jehovah have passed over none but the Lord Jesus; there are griefs to which he makes his children strangers for his love's sake. Sorrow naturally states its case forcibly; the mercy is that the Lord after all hath not dealt with us according to our fears. Yet what a plight to be in! Atlantic rollers sweeping in ceaseless succession over one's head, waterspouts coming nearer and nearer, and all the ocean in uproar around the weary swimmer; most of the heirs of heaven can realise the description, for they have experienced the like. This is a deep experience unknown to babes in grace, but common enough to such as do business on great waters of affliction: to such it is some comfort to remember that the waves and billows are the Lords, “thy waves and thy billows,” says David, they are all sent, and directed by him, and achieve his designs, and the child of God knowing this, is the more resigned.

SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V6

Continuing on in our look at Psalm 42

Therefore Will I Remember Thee

Psalm 42:6

O my God, my soul is cast down within me: therefore will I remember thee from the land of Jordan, and of the Hermonites, from the hill Mizar.

Now again David speaking to GOD, after first taking Soul in Hand now in Prayer to GOD, "MY SOUL IS CAST DOWN WITHIN ME." What to do - I MUST REMEMBER GOD. We must Remember God wherever we are. Remember God in the school work, in the office, on the river, in the pedal boat, in the canoe, with your friends, Remember God for he is the health and healing of all your soul problems. His countenance is your HELP. Remember God in the city, the country. Remember God and in prayer pledging to remember and trust and depend upon God. WE ARE HELPLESS - but we have a great HELPER.

Spurgeon:
Here the song begins again upon the brass. So sweet an ending deserves that for the sake of a second hopeful close the Psalm should even begin again. Perhaps the Psalmist's dejection continued, the spasm of despondency returned; well, then, he will down with his harp again, and try again its power upon himself, as in his younger days, he saw its influence upon Saul when the evil spirit came upon him. With God the song begins the second time more nearly than at first. The singer was also a little more tranquil. Outward expression of desire was gone; there was no visible panting; the sorrow was now all restrained within doors. Within or upon himself he was cast down; and, verily, it may well be so, while our thoughts look more within than upward. If self were to furnish comfort, we should have but poor provender. There is no solid foundation for comfort in such fickle frames as our heart is subject to. It is well to tell the Lord how we feel, and the more plain the confession the better: David talks like a sick child to its mother, and we should learn to imitate him. “Therefore will I remember thee.” 'Tis well to fly to our God. Here is terra firma. Blessed downcasting which drives us to so sure a rock of refuge as thee, O Lord! “From the hill Mizar.” He recalls his seasons of choice communion by the river and among the hills, and especially that dearest hour upon the little hill, where love spake her sweetest language and revealed her nearest fellowship. It is great wisdom to store up in memory our choice occasions of converse with heaven; we may want them another day, when the Lord is slow in bringing back his banished ones, and our soul is aching with fear. “His love in times past” has been a precious cordial to many a fainting one; like soft breath it has fanned the smoking flax into a flame, and bound up the bruised reed. Oh, never-to-be-forgotten valley of Achor, thou art a door of hope! Fair days, now gone, ye have left a light behind you which cheers our present gloom. Or does David mean that even where he was he would bethink him of his God; does he declare that, forgetful of time and place, he would count Jordan as sacred as Siloa, Hermon as holy as Zion, and even Mizar, that insignificant rising ground, as glorious as the mountains which are round about Jerusalem! Oh! it is a heavenly heart which can sing -
“To me remains nor place nor time;
My country is in every clime;
I can be calm and free from care
On any shore, since God is there.
“Could I be cast where thou art not,
That were indeed a dreadful lot,
But regions none remote I call,
Secure of finding God in all.”

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V5

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:5

Psa 42:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.

Q. What is it to be cast down? How sad, how low, how despairing are you my soul and why are you thus?

Q. What is it to be disquieted? The soul is not quiet, it cries, it weeps and complains, there is an uproar within, a clamour of despair and noisy tumult of soul-upsettedness. Your whole body sometimes feels the pain of it. The bones hurt, the stomach hurts, the soul cries and the body aches.

Why Soul are you cast down - why are you in such a loud tumult?

Q. TO WHOM IS DAVID TALKING NOW?

A. He is talking to his own soul, talking to HIMSELF. D.M. Lloyd Jones' book, Spiritual Depression, is to my hearing becoming more and more well known for his great exposition of this psalm. I hear Lloyd-Jones here saying: "Preach the gospel to yourself every day." Before Jerry Bridges helped us with this concept, Lloyd-Jones did and before that THE WORD OF GOD has taught us this wisdom.

David is talking to himself. As Lloyd-Jones wrote, the problem is we are always listening to ourselves. Stop listening to yourself and take yourself in hand and counsel your own soul, "Hope thou in GOD. " Preach the gospel to yourself - quiet your soul with such words - not listening to the clamorous, depressed, downcast soul, but speaking to it the GOSPEL. HOPE THOU SOUL IN GOD.

God's countenance is a HELP TO US. His near presence is a HELP to US. HIS sending his son FOR US is a HELP to us. His smile of electing Love is our HELP. WE believe in Christ he has smiled upon us and Christ is for us. Who can be against us? God who spared not his own son but delivered him up for us -- how shall he not with HIM freely give us all things. He has already given the greatest in CHRIST HIS ONLY-BEGOTTEN, all else is less, and all else is ours in CHRIST. His countenance is our help.

Spurgeon writes on this:
Salvations come from the propitious face of God, and he will yet lift up his countenance upon us. Note well that the main hope and chief desire of David rest in the smile of God. His face is what he seeks and hopes to see, and this will recover his low spirits, this will put to scorn his laughing enemies, this will restore to him all the joys of those holy and happy days around which memory lingers. This is grand cheer. This verse, like the singing of Paul and Silas, looses chains and shakes prison walls. He who can use such heroic language in his gloomy hours will surely conquer. In the garden of hope grow the laurels for future victories, the roses of coming joy, the lilies of approaching peace.

HELPS or SALVATIONS:
Albert Barnes in his Notes points out that the word "Help" as found in the original Hebrew is in the plural and wonderfully explains as follows:

"For the help of his countenance - literally, “the salvations of his face,” or his presence. The original word rendered help is in the plural number, meaning salvations; and the idea in the use of the plural is, that his deliverance would be completed or entire - as if double or manifold. The meaning of the phrase “help of his countenance” or “face,” is that God would look favorably or benignly upon him. Favor is expressed in the Scriptures by lifting up the light of the countenance on one. See the notes at Psa 4:6; compare Psa 11:7; Psa 21:6; Psa 44:3; Psa 89:15. This closes the first part of the psalm, expressing the confident belief of the psalmist that God would yet interpose, and that his troubles would have an end; reposing entire confidence in God as the only ground of hope; and expressing the feeling that when that confidence exists the soul should not be dejected or cast down."

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V4

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:4

When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.

There were better times before - the thinking of the joy I had then in worship and praise with like-minded worshippers of GOD, with a multitude that kept holyday. Really kept it - in true worship to God. The VOICE OF JOY was there, I had joy in the Lord then. Now tears are my meat - but then Joy. And remembering these things I pour out my soul in me.

What is this: "pour out my soul in me?" Matthew Henry describes it thus: "his soul was poured out in him; he melted away, and the thought almost broke his heart. he poured out his soul within him in sorrow, and then poured out his soul before God in prayer."

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V3

Continuing in our study of Psalm 42

Psalm 42:3

My tears have been my meat day and night, while they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?

Tears are meat! Tears are meat? What does this mean? How can tears be meat? Daily King David partakes of tears? Daily they are his meal, no food but this - my tears. So distressed that the only meat to eat is the tears I cry.

I'm thinking, like David's enemies taunting him, "where is thy God?" our own sins and doubts and unbeliefs say the same thing - they speak words of an enemy ringing and banging in the inner ear..... "where is thy God?" Oh God - come to me, satisfy my thirst, quiet my enemies. I pant for thee.

Spurgeon:
When a man comes to tears, constant tears, plenteous tears, tears that fill his cup and trencher, he is in earnest indeed. As the big tears stand in the stag's eyes in her distress, so did the salt drops glitter in the eyes of David. His appetite was gone, his tears not only seasoned his meat, but became his only meat, he had no mind for other diet. Perhaps it was well for him that the heart could open the safety valves; there is a dry grief far more terrible than showery sorrows. His tears since they were shed because God was blasphemed, were “honourable dew,” drops of holy water, such as Jehovah putteth into his bottle. “While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God?” Cruel taunts come naturally from coward minds. Surely they might have left the mourner alone; he could weep no more than he did - it was a supererogation of malice to pump more tears from a heart which already overflowed. Note how incessant was their jeer, and how artfully they framed it! It cut the good man to the bone to have the faithfulness of his God impugned. They had better have thrust needles into his eyes than have darted insinuations against his God.

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V2

Continuing in our look at Psalm 42

Psalm 42:2

My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?

Repeating again, first in verse 1 "panting soul" now in verse 2 "thirsting soul" thirsting for GOD.
OH GOD SATISFY MY THIRST - FOR YOU I THIRST. Spurgeon writes how violent thirsting really is:
“Thirsteth.” Which is more than hungering; hunger you can palliate, but thirst is awful, insatiable, clamorous, deadly. O to have the most intense craving after the highest good! this is no questionable mark of grace. “For God.” Not merely for the temple and the ordinances, but for fellowship with God himself. None but spiritual men can sympathise with this thirst.

And as an encouragement and emphasis - "THE LIVING GOD." Again Spurgeon writes:
Because he lives, and gives to men the living water; therefore we, with greater eagerness, desire him. A dead God is a mere mockery; we loathe such a monstrous deity; but the ever-living God, the perennial fountain of life and light and love, is our soul's desire. What are gold, honour, pleasure, but dead idols? May we never pant for these.

When shall I come and appear before GOD? God seems so distant now - my thirst is not satisfied by grows - when shall I be in the presence of God again?

Spurgeon: "“To see the face of God” is the nearer translation of the Hebrew; but the two ideas may be combined - he would see his God and be seen of him; this is worth thirsting after!"

A SOUL FEEDING - SOUL INSTRUCTING SONG V1

Continuing our study in Psalm 42

Psalm 42:1
As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

This is how David felt. King David, the same that killed Goliath, the same called a man after God's own heart. He felt just as a deer very thirsty, parched and panting after water, cool fresh water. The deer, dry to the bone, running all night from the hunter perhaps, fleeing the wolf, now spent and thirsting to the point of PANTING is how DAVID SAYS, speaking in prayer to GOD, HIS OWN SOUL PANTS AFTER GOD. God my soul pants for thee! I'm thirsting for you my GOD.

Something is wrong for King David - he is thirsting as one who cannot be satisfied and the only satisfaction to refresh his soul is to drink deeply of GOD.

To add to these thoughts from Spurgeon's Treasury of David I found the following:
As after a long drought the poor fainting hind longs for the streams, or rather as the hunted hart instinctively seeks after the river to lave its smoking flanks and to escape the dogs, even so my weary, persecuted soul pants after the Lord my God. Debarred from public worship, David was heartsick. Ease he did not seek, honour he did not covet, but the enjoyment of communion with God was an urgent need of his soul; he viewed it not merely as the sweetest of all luxuries, but as an absolute necessity, like water to a stag. Like the parched traveller in the wilderness, whose skin bottle is empty, and who finds the wells dry, he must drink or die - he must have his God or faint. His soul, his very self, his deepest life, was insatiable for a sense of the divine presence. As the hart brays so his soul prays. Giro him his God and he is as content as the poor deer which at length slakes its thirst and is perfectly happy; but deny him his Lord, and his heart heaves, his bosom palpitates, his whole frame is convulsed, like one who gasps for breath, or pants with long running. Dear reader, dost thou know what this is, by personally having felt the same? It is a sweet bitterness. The next best thing to living in the light of the Lord's love is to be unhappy till we have it, and to pant hourly after it - hourly, did I say? thirst is a perpetual appetite, and not to be forgotten, and even thus continual is the heart's longing after God. When it is as natural for us to long for God as for an animal to thirst, it is well with our souls, however painful our feelings. We may learn from this verse that the eagerness of our desires may be pleaded with God, and the more so, because there are special promises for the importunate and fervent.

Geneva Bible - Genesis Chap 10

Reading Through the Geneva Bible in One Year - click here for intro. In which I post from It's Notes a few of those which I marked of particular interest with sporadic comments.

(Experimenting today with the layout of the notes. Green font indicates scripture verse from Geneva bible. Blue Font indicates Note from Geneva Bible. The verse is larger than the note. My comments on why I chose this particular note of interest in largest font of all. Red Font when quoting others.)

Gen 10:9
He was a mightie hunter before the Lord. wherefore it is saide, (1) As Nimrod the mightie hunter before the Lord.

(1) His tyranny came into a proverb as hated both by God and man: for he did not cease to commit cruelty even in God's presence.

In all my previous readings of Genesis I never caught the idea that Nimrod became a proverb. Which is really fairly clear from this verse. This is why they say, "As Nimrod the mighty hunter." People become proverbs. "He is a Hitler." "Don't become someones ... insert name of annoying acquaintance," As in parents speaking to children advisingly, "Don't become someones Tom Smith." Or "Do become someones Martha Jones," when her character and service of love is worthy of emulation.

Gen 10:21 Unto (1) Shem also the father of all the sonnes of (2) Eber, and elder brother of Japheth were children borne.

(1) In his stock the Church was preserved: therefore Moses stops speaking of Japheth and Ham, and speaks of Shem extensively.

(2) Of whom came the Hebrews or Jews.

The Geneva note-makers always catch my attention at their notice of the church. Also, John Owen in his book, Biblical Theology, makes an extensive case which I like for "sons of Eber" to ascribe this man, Eber, as the name giver to the Hebrew People, as opposed to other theories.

In regards to the idea that there was NO CHURCH of God until Acts Chapter two, Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote: (Spurgeon acknowledges One People of God.)

Distinctions have been drawn by certain exceedingly wise men (measured by their own estimate of themselves), between the people of God who lived before the coming of Christ, and those who lived afterwards. We have even heard it asserted that those who lived before the coming of Christ so not belong to the church of God! We never know what we shall hear next, and perhaps it is a mercy that these absurdities are revealed at one time, in order that we may be able to endure their stupidity without dying of amazement. Why, every child of God in every place stands on the same footing; the Lord has not some children best beloved, some second-rate offspring, and others whom he hardly cares about. These who saw Christ's day before it came, had a great difference as to what they knew, and perhaps in the same measure a difference as to what they enjoyed while on earth meditating upon Christ; but they were all washed in the same blood, all redeemed with the same ransom price, and made members of the same body. Israel in the covenant of grace is not natural Israel, but all believers in all ages. Before the first advent, all the types and shadows all pointed one way—they pointed to Christ, and to him all the saints looked with hope. Those who lived before Christ were not saved with a different salvation to that which shall come to us. They exercised faith as we must; that faith struggled as ours struggles, and that faith obtained its reward as ours shall[22] [emphasis ours].