HOLY PSALM OF DAVID (ZABUR) SEVEN

David writes in a time of persecution. He turns to God in prayer to rescue him, believing he has done no wrong and that his enemies are unjust in attacking him.  For all who suffer persecution for their faith, ethnicity or both, this psalm of David speaks encouragement.

1 I come to you for protection, O Lord my God. Save me from my persecutors—rescue me! 2 If you don’t, they will maul me like a lion,
tearing me to pieces with no one to rescue me.

David acknowledged in verse 4 that if he were sinning such as by paying back evil for good, or unjustly attacking those he disliked, then it would be right for God to allow his persecutors to punish him. But he argued, he is not living an unrighteous life. It is hard for people to understand why God allows persecution and suffering, but then David looked further to God’s justice, which he knew will be meted out on all, both the righteous and the unrighteous at the day of judgement. God’s justice and God’s faithfulness are fundamental to Biblical revelation and are also implied in the Holy Koran. David prays for justice and he believed God would answer his prayer of faith. And in verse eight, David prayed for that future day,

8 The Lord judges the nations. Declare me righteous, O Lord, for I am innocent, O Most High!

Jesus also believed firmly in God’s justice, but when faced with unjust persecution and death though he had done no wrong, he prayed to be delivered from it (as anyone would do), but he willingly submitted to God’s over-riding purpose to bring salvation from sin to all human-kind.

“My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine (Matt.26 v.39).” 

Though there may be no justice apparent in this life, David was confident that all who persecute and are persecuted will face God’s judgement, those who are righteous will be with God and those who are not righteous will be cast out. Jesus, God’s Holy Messiah (Christ) says a similar Word of God in one of his parables…

‘But when I the Messiah (Christ), shall come in my glory, and all the angels with me, then I shall sit upon my throne of glory. And all the nations shall be gathered before me. And I will separate the sheep from the goats, and place sheep at my right hand and the goats at my left. Then I the king shall say to those on my right, ‘Come blessed of my Father, into the kingdom prepared for you from the founding of the world. For I was hungry and you fed me; I was thirsty and you gave me water; I was a stranger and you took me into your homes; naked and you clothed me; sick and in prison, and you visited me.’....’And I the king, will tell them, “When you did it (all these things) to the least of my brethren you were doing it to me”.’ (ref Book of God, Ingil, New Testament, Matt.25 v31-46).

Here Jesus is saying that God identifies with the victims of persecution, violence and neglect; and on God’s Day of judgement, those who have mistreated others (including the followers of God’s Messiah, Jesus), will be deemed ‘unrighteous’ and will not inherit eternal life.  So, Jesus, who (in the Ingil) is described as David’s greater son, will under God, be the judge of all! Thus, those like David who are persecuted now, will then be established in honour and truth.

A poem for Psalm 7: -

Lord help us to stand in that day

Clothed in your righteousness divine

We trust in you as you in us

O give us grace to persevere!

A prayer: - Save me, Lord God, as you have promised! Amen

mjk 30/11/17 c. mikereflects

HOLY PSALM OF DAVID (ZABUR) SIX

This short Psalm reminds us that God will hear and answer even when we are ill and feeling very low.   David is both physically sick and filled with apprehension & gloom.  His joy in God has (temporally) seeped away, but he invites God to come and make him well...

1 O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage. 2 Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. 3 I am sick at heart. How long, O Lord, until you restore me?

He reasons with God…

4 Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love. 5 For the dead do not remember you. Who can praise you from the grave? 6 I am worn out from sobbing. All night I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears.

David believes God will answer his prayers, despite his misery.

A poem inspired by Psalm 6: -

I trust in You! Have mercy, Lord

Heal my body and mind.

Healed I will your praises give

I trust you will be kind!

A prayer: - Help me to walk in your way, O God!

mjk 29/11/17 c. mikereflects

HOLY PSALM OF DAVID (ZABUR) FIVE

Psalm five opens in the words (v.1-6) of a prayer,

1 O Lord, hear me as I pray; pay attention to my groaning. 2 Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for I pray to no one but you. 3 Listen to my voice in the morning, Lord. Each morning I bring my requests to you and wait expectantly. 4 O God, you take no pleasure in wickedness; you cannot tolerate the sins of the wicked. 5 Therefore, the proud may not stand in your presence, for you hate all who do evil. 6 You will destroy those who tell lies. The Lord detests murderers and deceivers

Here the Word of God through the prophet David, shows us that even though every one of us is a sinner, it is only ‘proud’ sinners who will not survive on Judgement Day (v.5).  Those who humble themselves before God, and who walk before him in the world with humble hearts, will inherit his blessings.   The wicked are those who have proud hearts and who practice deception and murder.  Jesus went further and taught that all who are filled with hatred for anyone else have already committed murder in God’s sight and cannot receive God’s forgiveness on Judgement Day.

7 Because of your unfailing love, I can enter your house; I will worship at your Temple with deepest awe.8 Lead me in the right path, O Lord, or my enemies will conquer me. Make your way plain for me to follow.

Here we are all taught that any person in this world who wants to approach the Lord God Almighty, must come to the place of worship, protected by God’s Mercy and Love, which is only on those who humble themselves and receive God’s way of being right with himself.  Such people will come and worship God with deepest awe and in submission to him, because he is worthy of such worship and because we all need to worship God in order to be able to live our best during this brief life on earth.

The prophet Isaiah teaches how this is made possible by God’s mercy afforded us through the suffering of God’s special Messiah who would be…

‘pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins ...whipped so we could be healed. All of us have strayed like sheep. We have left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet the Lord laid on him the sins of us all (ref Isa.53 v.5-6) … And because of his experience my righteous Servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for he will bear all their sins (Isa.53 v.11).

The Book of God (N.T, Ingil) teaches us that Jesus was and is God’s Special Messiah who became this suffering Servant that the prophet Isaiah spoke of, and who has become the means of God’s mercy being afforded to all who turn to Him in repentance and faith. Such people will come and worship God with deep awe and in submission to him, will be protected by God’s mercy and love. The Lord Jesus also taught that all who would receive God’s mercy must be those who show mercy to others.

The Psalm ends with the words,

11 But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy. 12  For you bless the godly, O Lord; you surround them with your shield of love.

To which all the godly will respond, ‘Amen’ or ‘Let it be so!’

A poem inspired by Psalm 5: -

You God are not pleased by wickedness:

You hate the viperous tongue.

Bring to nothing the dreams of those who

Bear a grudge or wish me ill.

Lead me Lord in righteous ways

And make clear your path for all my days.

A prayer: - Guide me, O Lord!

mjk 28/11/17 c. mikereflects

HOLY PSALM OF DAVID (ZABUR) FOUR

King David turned back to God after he had admitted his sins and God declared him righteous.  God does punish sin and David had consequences to suffer. However, God has provided his own suffering to bridge the vast chasm that exists between God’s utter holiness and our unrighteousness, and King David was able to cross that bridge by his utter trust in God’s undeserved grace.  This way of God for His Justice to meet with His Mercy is the good news told in the Ingil (New Testament) that God gave Jesus and foretold in the Tawrat (Jewish Torah), the Zabur (Psalms of David) & the Prophets (Bible: Old Testament)[1]. 

Many years before David’s sin, God had told Abram to go sacrifice his dearly loved son.  God used Abram’s obedience to provide a visible means whereby sinful people can find the mercy and forgiveness of God.  God’s angel intervened to provide an alternative sacrifice for Abram, but God declared him righteous because of his faith.  He had trusted God to raise his son from the dead (if that were necessary) for God had promised Abram that his descendent would bless the world.

The Ingil/ New Testament reveals that the anointed Christ Messiah that David speaks of in Psalm 2 is the means by which God’s righteousness is brought to all mankind ~ to those who submit to God’s chosen Messiah: this is the true submission.

So, it is that David was able to claim that God declared him innocent (v.1),

1 Answer me when I call to you, O God who declares me innocent. Free me from my troubles. Have mercy on me and hear my prayer. 2 How long will you people ruin my reputation? How long will you make groundless accusations? How long will you continue your lies?  3 You can be sure of this: The Lord set apart the godly for himself. The Lord will answer when I call to him. 4 Don’t sin by letting anger control you. Think about it overnight and remain silent. 5 Offer sacrifices in the right spirit, and trust the Lord.

Who are the godly (v.3)? They are those whom the Lord God himself buys back from sin, Satan and eternal death.  How has the Lord God accomplished this?  He has accomplished this by the life, death and resurrection of His anointed Christ Messiah.

King David (the prophet Davud) encourages us in verses 4 & 5 to trust in God and meditate quietly on him in awe and with praise and thanksgiving in our hearts.

A poem inspired by Psalm 4: -

O Lord help me to know

Your presence in my daily round

The highs and lows all serve your truth

So, give me grace to show

That in all life there is a way

Grief can be filled with hope

A prayer: - Be ever near me, Lord God. Amen

mjk 27/11/17 c. mikereflects

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[1] The Quran describes the four holy books of Islam as, the Tawrat, the Zabur, the Ingil and the Quran – Wiki 10/16

HOLY PSALM OF DAVID (ZABUR) THREE

Even King David, inspired by God to write down the Psalms for the Book of God, was not sinless.  In fact, no prophet (other than the Messiah) has ever been sinless.  This is not to say they were living in known disobedience to God.  Rather it means they were always open to the possibility of selfishness and lack of submission to God.  Hence the Islamic Hadith (tradition) says Muhammad prayed many times each day for God to forgive his sins.  Equally King David sinned badly on one particular occasion recorded for us in the Book of God.   He committed adultery and then murdered his lover’s husband.  Even though David repented and sought God’s forgiveness, God punished him for it.  One of the punishments was that his oldest son Absalom rebelled against him and David had to flee for his life.  Psalm 3 is written at this time for our comfort. 

1 O Lord, I have so many enemies; so many are against me. 2 So many are saying, “God will never rescue him[1]!” 3 But you, O Lord, are a shield around me; you are my glory, the one who holds my head high. 4  I cried out to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy mountain. 5 I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me. 6 I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies who surround me on every side. 

This psalm teaches us that, as the Ingil[2] (New Testament) says (Rom.10 v.13), ‘All those who call upon the Name[3] of the Lord (His Messiah) shall be saved’.  Even before the coming of the Messiah, it was possible to call on the Name of the Lord.

A poem inspired by Psalm 3: -

I will fear no evil for you O Lord

Are a shield around me!

Day and night, you are my only hope!

Be there always for me.

A prayer: - O God, be my shield.

mjk 26/11/17 c. mikereflects

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[1] Because David had sinned, his enemies thought he could not be forgiven by God and that God’s punishments would have no limit.  They were wrong!

[2] Gospel in Islam – the Arabic word derives from Syriac Aramaic which comes from the Greek word for New Testament ref. Wiki accessed 10/2016

[3] The context here implies that the Name of the Lord is synonymous with the authority and power invested by God in his Messiah.

HOLY PSALM OF DAVID (ZABUR) TWO

Jews, Muslims and Christians will all unite to proclaim,

“Great is the Lord God and greatly to be praised!” (ref Psalm 146 v 1)

However, prophet David commenced Psalm two with the words: -

1 Why are the nations so angry? Why do they waste their time with futile plans? 2 The kings of the earth prepare for battle; the rulers plot together against the Lord and against his anointed one[1]… 3 “Let us break their chains,” they cry, “and free ourselves from slavery to God.” 4 But the one who rules in heaven laughs. The Lord scoffs at them.

This prophesy has yet to be completely fulfilled, however we have seen in the last century and this, various communist governments organising and driving their populations to free themselves of all vestiges of Almighty God, and to proclaim instead atheistic humanism.  Note the Book says that God has an ‘Anointed Messiah’.  Although Jews, Muslims and Christians accept this concept, it is only the Muslims and Christians that acknowledge that this person is none other than Jesus of Nazareth.

Psalm 2 continues,

6 For the Lord declares, “I have placed my chosen king on the throne
    in Jerusalem, on my holy mountain.” 7 The king proclaims the Lord’s decree: “The Lord said to me, ‘You are my son[2]. Today I have become your Father. 8 Only ask, and I will give you the nations as your inheritance, the whole earth as your possession.

This Psalm of David may be a particular problem for Muslims.  It would seem that the prophet Mohammed in later years came to believe that Christians were proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God in the limited sense of the eternal God having sexual intercourse with Mary (in the same way that the Greek gods had sexual intercourse with humans).  Such an idea is & was an anathema to both Christians & Jews and does not come from the Book of God.  In Psalm 2, David is in fact proclaiming that the Christ (i.e., Messiah) will be God’s Anointed spiritual ruler and, as other parts of God’s Book reveal, that this appointment was not to be just for his life on earth, but for all of time until the Day of Judgement.   Thus, the Messiah would come as a Jew and live for the perfect glory of God (sinless in the way no other prophet or anointed person has or will ever be) and return to sit at God’s hand of power in order to effect God’s purposes of salvation for all who truly submit. 

This one and only Messiah, appointed by God Almighty for all of time, is in fact God’s Word become flesh.  Muslims and Christians acknowledge this in the person of Jesus Christ (however Islam teaches that he will return in glory as a Muslim). All three faiths believe humans are made in God’s image, but are fatally flawed in our complete inability to live for God’s glory.  This ‘Word become flesh’ is God’s Way of enabling us fallible mortals to begin to live to please Him, and to show that by loving all mankind including our enemies as Jesus did.

Psalm 2 concludes: -

10 Now then, you kings, act wisely! Be warned, you rulers of the earth! 11 Serve the Lord with reverent fear, and rejoice with trembling. 12 Submit to God’s royal son, or he will become angry, and you will be destroyed in the midst of all your activities— for his anger flares up in an instant. But what joy for all who take refuge in him!

If the rulers of this earth are advised to submit to God’s Messiah, do you not suppose that the earth’s peoples are also advised to submit before it is too late?    This submission to the Lordship of God’s Messiah is enjoined on Christians as on Muslims and Jews and all who hear the message of this Psalm of David.   We all need to submit to God’s Messiah, for he is the means that God has chosen to save us from the natural corruption of mankind and to bring those who submit to heaven.

A poem inspired by Psalm 2: -

O Lord God you have established

Your salvation, your Messiah

King David's greater son Jesus.

Let the nations bow their knee

O Lord our God as we proclaim.

Your saving love for everyone!                                              

 mjk 25/11/17

A prayer: - O God, bring your peace to this world. Amen

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[1] The term Anointed One, David is referring to the God’s Messiah (prophesied by Moses).  The term ‘Anointed Messiah (v2)’, ‘Christ (NT Greek)’ and ‘Son v.7)’ are all equivalent & refer to the same person.

[2] The term Son used here is the ancient Middle Eastern usage by an Emperor referring to a vassal king

HOLY PSALM OF DAVID (ZABUR) ONE

PSALM (ZABUR) 1

1 Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, or stand around with sinners, or join in with mockers. 2 But they delight in the law of the Lord[1], meditating on it day and night.

These are the opening words of the first Psalm of David (Islamic, ‘Zabur’) in God’s Book (described by the prophet Muhammad in the Qur'an as ‘The Book’ and by Christians as ‘The Bible’).  And Jews, Muslims & Christians all echo the truth of these words and claim that they define a devout man or woman of their particular faith.   The laws of God, which David spoke of here, are in fact the first five books of the Torah (Arabic, Taurat). These laws together with the other Jewish Scriptures (viz., the Prophets, Psalms and Wisdom books) and the Christian NT books (viz., Arabic, the Ingil/ Ingeel), have been adopted by Christians as part of the ‘Word of God.’ Whereas Islam acknowledges that these are all the true scriptures that God told Muhammad ‘had gone before’ him (Surah 10 v.94 see end notes), Islam now teaches that the Bible is corrupted and only the Quran can be relied on to give the correct version of their content. The Dead Sea Scrolls (found in the 1930’s) however have demonstrated that the Hebrew scriptures have remained unaltered since around 300 BCE and so we can be fairly confident that the Greek version of the Psalms of David (Arabic, Zabur) and the other scriptures at the time of Muhammad (640 CE) were the same as they are today. The five books of the Torah are not just the laws given to Moses for Israel, but are also the story of Creation, Abraham and the patriarchs, as well as the story of God bringing the Israelites miraculously out of Egypt and enabling them to possess the ‘promised land’.   Again these ‘laws’ will have different, but vital meaning for Jews, Muslims and Christians today.

The author and man of God who became King David (the Muslim prophet, Davud), then declared that the truly devout give out healing, refreshment and joy to those around them.

3 They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do.

This ‘fruit’ comes from God’s Spirit working within them, regardless of the ‘seasons’ of their lives.  David is saying that ‘godliness’ does not wither under the circumstances of life, but draws water from God’s Word.

The first Psalm ends with the words: -

4 But not the wicked! They are like worthless chaff, scattered by the wind. 5 They will be condemned at the time of judgment. Sinners will have no place among the godly. 6 For the Lord watches over the path of the godly, but the path of the wicked leads to destruction.

Again, all devout Jews, Muslims and Christians echo the truth of these words.   The pity is that many Jews, Muslims and Christians will deny this truth about all faiths other than their own!  Although the Old Testament clearly teaches that godly Gentiles are acceptable to Yahweh, there have been Jews who have persecuted them.  And although the New Testament teaches that some who have never heard of Christ will be saved, many Christians have not believed this.  And although the Qur’an clearly teaches that Christians and Jews who follow the Book are acceptable to Allah, many Muslims are not willing to face this and later traditions have negated the truth of these Quranic texts (Surah 2:62 ; 3:113). 

As for the Laws of God (v.2), they show up how desperately we all need God’s enabling power to live by, for, as God’s prophet Paul proclaimed, “All have sinned and fallen short of the standard that God’s eternal glory demands.” (The Book, Romans 3 v.23).

A poem inspired by Psalm 1: -

The good are under your care O Lord 

Teach us to swim against the tide 

That careless humanity floats in.

Produce good fruit in us we pray

We hear your word, we seek your way, 

Our roots your living waters draw in.

A prayer: -  O God, may I be a fruitful tree for you.

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[1]  David is here referring to YHWY (Hebrew) which translates into English as ‘The Lord God’ and into Arabic as ‘Allah’. For clarification of this please read the Forward.  For the rest of this book I will use the word ‘God’ to mean ‘The Lord God,’ or YHWH (in Hebrew) or ‘Allah’ (in Arabic).