Timeless Biblical Truth.
When suffering a prolonged affliction, Believers never give up hope that God will answer their prayers and give them a reason to praise Him.
- Believers persevere in prayer when suffering a prolonged affliction (1-9a).
- Believers persevere in prayer until the God of their salvation answers them (1-2).
- Believers may lament that God has caused their affliction (3-9).
- Believers tell God how His answer to their petition will bring Him praise (9b-18).
- Believers tell God how their deliverance will glorify Him (9b-12).
- Believers must persevere in prayer (13-14).
- Believers must remind God of their great need in such times of devastation (15-18). “If a book is good you find something worth pondering on every time you open it no matter how many times you have read it. Nietzsche wanted cow-like readers: those who chew the cud. He was not disinterested but he was right. Good readers ruminate. To scamper through a book is like bolting your food: you miss the flavor and risk dyspepsia. There are, however, degrees of slowness. You must taste in order to assimilate. Taste is perception, assimilation understanding.” Holbrook Jackson: The Reading of Books, p. 16.
Questions for Second Milers
- Whom does the psalmist ultimately blame for his troubles?
- Why then does the psalmist pray to God for help?
- To what extent can you identify with the psalmist experience?
- Describe the psalmist condition. In what ways is he alienated from God? from other people?
- How does the psalmist seek to motivate God to answer his prayer? What does God stand to gain by his death?
- What is the extent of the psalmist’s affliction?
- What happens to your view of God and His sovereignty when you feel that He has forsaken you? Why?
- Give your own short title to this Psalm.
“ . . . to any young man or woman eaten with ambition to become a writer, I should advise first of all—‘Know your Bible.’ Ibsen said his chief reading was always in the Bible: ‘it is so strong and mighty.’ Tolstoi knew the Scriptures like Timothy; it is quite impossible to read Dostoevsky’s novels . . . without knowing the Bible. For four years in the Siberian prison, the New Testament was his most intimate friend. His greatest stories are really commentaries. Andreev, giving a list of the books that had influenced him the most, put the Bible first. Kipling’s finest poem, the Recessional, is almost as close a paraphrase of Scripture as the hymn Nearer, my God, to thee, which is a verse-translation of a passage in the twenty-eighth chapter of Genesis.” William Lyon Phelps, Reading the Bible, p. 18.
Lanny Tanton is the Pastor at The Bible Church of the Lakes in Horseshoe Bay, Texas – just outside of Marble Falls. Pastor Tanton welcomes you to our website and hopes that you’ll enjoy reading these insightful blog posts. Please contact us if you have further questions!!
