LOCKET VERSES             WEEK 14

Though written hundreds of years ago, the first cry of this verse should be the heart cry of Christians today: "O send out thy light and thy truth, O Lord."  Our world is filled with evil darkness and deception.  All around us are evidences of evil forces that seem to hold the world in ungodliness.  The hearts of modern day Christians seem on the average to be in need of great revival.  We need the light of the Lord to break forth!  In a day when wrong is called right and righteousness is ridiculed, we need the truth of the Lord.  This verse must have been the heartfelt prayer of the leaders of all great revivals throughout Christian history.  God’s light and truth must be shining brightly in the hearts of His people, before there can be a great turning to the Lord and a renewed zeal to serve Him.  It is challenging to consider the need for revival in America, but we must realize that each revival starts with individual lives.  The question really is, not just how to start a nationwide revival, but: "How is it with my life today?  Lord, do I need Your revival in my life right now?"  The real purpose of Psalm 43 was David’s realization that he needed personal revival.  He wanted God to send forth His light and truth to pierce deep within his own heart, to root out any sin and to fill him with renewed spiritual power and purity.  The amazing thing is that David’s desired purpose for the change was not a selfish one.  It was not so he would receive further acclaims as a great king or win large numbers of battles and territories.  It was so David could be personally closer to the Lord, as evidenced by his own plea: let them [God s truth and light] lead me, let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles.  It was David’s desire to be so revived in his heart and life that he would be able to draw closer to the Lord and be in more intimate communion with Him.  Sometimes Christians cry out to God because they want something for themselves.  What we really need is to come closer and closer to the Lord, to abide with Him in His holy hill and to worship the Lord in His tabernacles.  We should not think of revival as just a big time event, reserved for special services and great moments of turning in our lives.  We need daily revival to keep us ever close to the Lord.  We need God’s light and truth applied daily to our hearts.  It is all available this morning to each one of us, all we have to do is cry out as David did.  God is well able to accomplish this glorious feat, for He is the Light and the Truth.  God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. (I John 1:5)  Jesus said: I am the way, the truth, and the life... (John 14:6)  Deuteronomy 32:4 declares: ...a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.  Daily living can become a routine that causes spiritual slumber!  We need God’s revival within!  Lord, send Your light and truth into my heart today.  If it shows sin that I have harbored or excused, help me to confess it.  Cleanse me and leave my heart sparkling clean and bright, ready to be filled with Your Holy Spirit’s power.  Use this in my life to draw me closer to You in knowledge, love and devotion.  Revive me, O Lord.

How personal God was to David!  As we repeat this verse, the question must come: Is God that personal to me? Is He my exceeding joy?  Do I call Him O God, my God and really mean it?  When we were saved, God became our personal God.  He was no longer just the Creator, the Controller and the Sustainer, He became our Savior and our Lord.  But to really think of God in the intimate way that David did, requires spiritual growth and time spent alone with the Lord.  My little granddaughter, Gloria, lives hundreds of miles away.  She has been taught to say, "I love you, Grandma," and I send her lots of presents, but it won’t be until she gets to spend time with me that she will learn to really love me in a deep, personal way.  So it is with us, God’s children, and our Heavenly Father.  We learn to say, "I love you, God," and we experience His daily blessings, but it isn’t until we spend quality time with Him, learning to really know Him and recognizing Him working in our lives everyday, that we can love Him in an intimate way.  When we grow in our spiritual devotion to the Lord, we will truly fall in love with Him.  Only then can He be our exceeding great joy.  What a contrast this is to idol worshipers who serve their gods out of fear.  We can serve our God out of love and joy!  If we lived in daily awareness of this truth, what a change that would make in our personalities and moods.  To be so filled with love for the Lord that constantly He is our joy, would bring a positive spirit into our hearts and minds that no circumstances could possibly change.  That kind of devotion means that nothing else can be more important than the Lord, for He is our exceeding great joy.  The word exceeding has the meaning of "great in degree and duration, exceptional."  He is to be the joy that transcends all others, first in quality, primary in focus.  We need to question ourselves, is our joy in the Lord exceptional, will it endure the test of time and trials, is it of the first degree of importance to each of us?  Let us pray like David today, "Lord, I will covenant with You to go to the altar of prayer daily, there to learn more of You.  As I learn more and, thus, love You more, help me to ever praise you."  Today as you think of God, consciously consider Him as Your exceeding great joy and name Him as "God my God."  At the end of the day, pause and reflect, have I grown in the Lord today?  Have I grown closer to Him?  Has choosing to allow Him to be more personal to me and to be my exceeding great joy helped me to be more loving, gentle and kind?  Has this new awareness helped me through difficult life situations?  I trust that we can all have positive answers to these questions.  Think of the possibilities.  If you have been lonely or depressed, living with God as your exceeding great joy will change all that.  If you have fears or anger, it can be a sure cure.  We claimed God as our God in salvation, now we need to live with Him as our All-in-all daily.

Several years ago, I heard a liberal Jewish rabbi talk about his thoughts on God.  He was a modern deist, a person who believes that there was a powerful "God" who started everything in our universe and set things in motion, but now just observes.  This rabbi was speaking after the San Francisco earthquake and said, he just could not bring himself to believe that God knew anything about the quake, that it was just a chance happening.  He even mentioned that as the quake struck, he had just left a building that seconds later collapsed.  He had started to say, "Thank You, Lord," but related that he had stopped himself, realizing that the "God" he wanted to believe in had nothing to do with his life being spared.  He then went on to talk about this God of his.  I called the man an anthropological deist - a poor sad man who made up an idea of God in his own mind.  He was an educated man who could not see past the qualities of limited man to an infinite God.  He tried to sound like an intellectual, but only sounded very foolish.  David would have been either very upset or quite amused that a famous Jewish man could speak in such a way.  It was obvious that he did not even know the Old Testament Scriptures which are supposed to be the foundation of his faith.  If he did, he would have known that God is the God who is in control.  He is the Almighty God of Creation and He is the only controller of life and death.  I am so glad that I can declare with David, the great Jewish monarch and writer of so many Psalms, that God is my King!  How really wonderful it is to know that nothing is a chance happening, that God is really vitally involved with our world and with each one of us.  Even though very difficult things happen, and events are hard to understand sometimes, we can be assured that God is in control and that He is the King of the universe.  Equally as amazing is the fact that when we recognize God for who He really is and come to Him in salvation, that He becomes our King.  He rules over all, it is true, but in an intimate, personal way He only reigns and rules in the hearts of those individuals who have come to Him in believing faith.  It is also uniquely true that somehow His absolute rulership is only evidenced in the life of a believer who has totally submitted to the Lordship of Christ in his everyday life.  If we lived in an ancient land where the king had absolute rule, we would be very careful to obey him.  God is the King of our lives and we should serve Him with reverence, holy fear and complete obedience.  Notice God’s kingship in the verse.  David asks the Lord to command deliverances for Jacob (meaning for the nation Israel).  Only God the King can command such a thing.  The Lord can also command deliverance for each one of us.  When we are surrounded by the enemy of our souls, when trouble and trials are ready to overwhelm us, we can call out to the Lord to command deliverance for His own.  Are you serving the Lord as the King of your life today?  Is He being allowed to rule and reign in your heart?  Is your every desire to serve Him as best you can?  Let Him be King of your life today!  How wonderful to live in the kingdom of His dear Son and know that our King is just and righteous, that He always acts with the welfare of His subjects in mind.  What peace there is to live in such a land, the heavenly kingdom of our Lord.

David had many things happen to him that would have caused some to become bitter and curse God.  Instead, his faith remained strong, and even grew in the difficulties.  Enemies pursued him, friends turned against him, he was made a reproach, and yet he says: "we have not forgotten Thee."  No matter what happened, David knew that God was still God.  He knew that he had no excuse to deal falsely with God’s covenant promises.  Even if others turned against the Lord, or dealt treacherously, David had decided that he would not!  His faith was strong, and so was his commitment to the Lord.  God seeks such people to serve Him today.  There are many "fair weather" Christians, who quickly turn cold when the winds of trials blow their way.  We need to be different and unique, the kind of Christians that will stand true for their Lord, even in the storms of life.  Down through the ages, we have a wonderful heritage of Christian brothers and sisters who endured persecution and martyrdom, yet stood true for the Lord.  Jesus endured all for us on the cross, yet He never forgot us.  Even as He suffered, He knew our names and the purpose of the plan to redeem us.  He never forgot His covenant with us.  He had promised to die for our sins and He did.  Now all He asks of us is to live for Him, no matter what.  Sometimes the circumstances happening to us, that we consider so major at the time, actually seem small when we are able to look back upon them in time.  Some of the events we consider tragic, are often part of a greater plan of victory for our lives.  Yet at the time they are happening, the devil seems to be able to whisper to us, "Don’t trust the Lord, He really doesn’t care for you."  It is amazing how small a circumstance will cause some to turn away from the Lord.  A personal disagreement in a church will keep some Christians from worshiping the Lord anywhere for the rest of their lives.  Unresolved problems between individuals result in transferring those human errors and sins of disobedience to feelings about God, Himself, who is perfect in all His dealings.  Tragedies and reversals in life situations cause some to draw closer to the Lord, but are allowed by others to be the "reasons" for bitterness and rebellion.  Instead of looking inward for our own sin and upward for comfort and guidance, we often let situations control our lives instead of the Lord who alone can bring victory from despair.  How very sad the human condition often is.  Instead, as saved children of God, we should have testimonies of victory and obedience.  We need to covenant in our hearts today that no matter what, we will never desert the Lord.  When all this is come upon us, regardless of what "this" is, we need to take a stand and say WE WILL NOT FORGET THE LORD!  We must be totally persuaded in our minds that the Lord will always keep His promises to us.  Equally, we need to ask the Lord for the strength to keep all our promises to Him.  Have you promised Him something, renewed devotion perhaps, the giving up of a bad habit, or something quite private between you and God?  Have you kept the promise or do you right now need to renew it?  Our God is a covenant keeping God, let us be a covenant keeping people.  "Dear Lord, help me to be a Christian of deep commitment to You.  Don’t let me be a shallow Christian whose devotion is dependent on circumstances.  I know that in my life many unexpected things will happen, some will be joyous, but many will be grievous.  Help me to decide today that no matter what happens, I will always trust You and turn to You as the Sustainer and Controller of my life.  Even when I do not understand the reasons why, help me to always trust and love You.  Give me the resolve to deal truthfully with Your covenant promises to me as a born again child of the King!"

This verse is a very familiar one to me, and very special indeed!  Whenever I gave my testimony during the time we traveled as missionary speakers, I began with Psalm 45:1a: My heart is indicting a good matter: I speak of the things which I have made touching the king.  I am so thankful that I can claim the Lord as the King of my life and my Savior.  It was not always so.  For many years I went to a church that relied on ritual and ceremony instead of the truth of the Scriptures.  It was not until I was eighteen and a half years old that I learned the facts of the Gospel, that Jesus Christ had died for all my sins so that I could receive the forgiveness of God as I came to Him in faith, trusting Christ as my Savior.  I learned that all the "churchianity" in the world will not give you peace.  Only a personal relationship with Jesus Christ can do that.  At the moment of my salvation, Jesus Christ became the King of my life!  Throughout the rest of my life, it is my desire to give Him the praise for the good and wonderful things He has done for me!  What a privilege it is to be a child of the King, a royal person and citizen of Heaven.  Oh, how often we take that fact for granted.  If we kept it ever before us, we could never live like the rest of the world, but would live like the royalty we are.  To be the child of the King gives us both privileges and responsibilities.  We must never forget the importance of that truth!  A royal princess spent much time being taught how to be a proper representative of her station in life.  The Holy Spirit is constantly training us to be royal princesses for our Heavenly King.  We are not only His ambassadors in this world, but His children and part of His royal household of faith.  Our heart and tongue can always be assured of indicting good matters concerning our Lord.  It should be our prayer that the epistle being written of our life will contain events and characteristics that would indict good things about us as children of the King.  Too often Christians do not speak forth the "good matters" about the Lord.  The only time some mention that they are Christians is at church.  To the world, we should constantly be indicting, bringing forth the evidence, that our Lord is a wonderful God.  Is your heart indicting a good matter today?  Are you proud to hold the royal banner high and proclaim for all to see that you serve the King of kings and Lord of lords?  Sit still for a moment and think over your testimony of salvation and remember the moment you claimed Jesus as your King.  Think of all the good things He has done for you and then think of what good things you need to do for Him out of devotion and love.  Let your tongue be a ready pen telling the story of your King.  King Jesus is a gracious ruler, full of wisdom and justice.  How happy we should be to be a part of His eternal kingdom.

Just a little glimpse of Heaven and the royal kingdom of our Lord, given to us here in Psalm 45.  Much of the description seems to be imagery, but the reality is of an actual future event when the Bride of Christ, the Church, is brought before her King in His royal palace.  Picture the Lord on His throne in all His glory.  He is the perfect King, full of righteousness, truth and grace.  God the Father has anointed Jesus King with the oil of gladness above all others.  (Isn’t that a pretty thought: The oil of gladness.  It gives a pleasant indescribable quality of realization in our hearts of the absolute joy of the Father in His Son and the honor given to Him for the accomplishment of our redemption.)  The oil has spilled down over His beautiful garments, and the smell of fine perfumes and spices fills the throne room.  Look at the walls of the palace, purest ivory.  No wonder they sparkle and shine in Heaven’s clear light.  And now comes the marriage procession for the King...the daughters of Zion, the children of Israel, rejoice to be attendants at the event.  Then comes the chosen one, the called out Church.  She is cautioned not to consider where she came from, but to only think of the King and where He has brought her.  Even on earth we need to be like that, forsaking those things of our past that were associated with sin and the world from which we were saved, to live totally for our Savior.  Have you ever thought about how much the Lord loves you?  Look at verse 11: So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty; for he is thy Lord...  Don’t ever feel like a person of little worth, dear Christian friend.  The King of all glory desires you!  Because of His love, it is easy to follow the command: Worship thou him.  Look at the Bride, all glorious, dressed in gold and fine needlework, a thing of beauty.  No wonder Jesus desires His people to be pure and holy, a spotless Bride.  Listen to the music and shouts of joy: With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought.  Think of the excitement: They shall enter into the king’s palace.  I can remember preparing months for my children’s weddings...think of it, we have a whole lifetime to prepare for this Heavenly wedding that awaits us!  What glorious promises of honor are made to us, our children will be made princes and princesses in all the earth.  No matter what our earthly heritage was, our Heavenly reward will be fantastic!  The last verse can be thought of in two ways.  The first is rather startling!  It could be God speaking to the Bride saying: I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: therefore shall the people praise thee for ever and ever.  Think of it, God Himself shall honor His church and the people of it, in such a glorious way!  It is amazing that you can feel humbled and exalted at the same time by that thought!  The second understanding would be that the Psalmist is speaking this to the Lord, after having viewed the future that awaits us.  Just a glimpse of Christ in Glory...but oh, doesn’t it make you want to praise Him, too.  Doesn’t it inspire you to invite others to join in the great scene as you declare Jesus’ name and His saving power to the lost.  Think of the ivory palaces today...think of the King in all His Glory...think of yourself standing before Him.  Each day here on earth is a day of preparation to meet our Bridegroom in His throne room.  Let us live today in the excitement of a betrothed young woman, preparing to look the best and be the best for her promised bridegroom.  She lives in total fidelity to that person, all her life activity is centered around the future event.  Surely we can live that way for our coming Lord.

This verse is certainly one of the verses that most Christians should commit to memory.  It should also always be read with the first part of verse two that follows, Therefore will not we fear.  How wonderful to be able to think of the Almighty God of the universe as our personal helper!  He is my refuge and strength, He is my present help in trouble, and I have nothing to be afraid of!  Psalm 46 goes on to declare that though the waters roar and the mountains shake, though the earth be moved...our God is in the midst of us...He is in control.  Least we be tempted to fear, verse 10 speaks to our hearts, Be still and know that I am God.  On Day 94, I mentioned the shallow statements made by a rabbi after the San Francisco earthquake.  I would most sincerely like to share Psalm 46 with him!  My God is God!  It is too bad that other people do not know God for who He really is.  He is not some weak imaginary phantom, HE IS GOD!  No matter how faulty a person’s view of God is, it does not change God.  It only changes what a person can know to be true in their hearts and denies them of the fullness of His working in their lives.  It does not take just a denier of God to suffer such a loss.  Even Christians can fail to have the fullness of the Holy Spirit’s comforting and enabling power if they do not fully acknowledge God in all His power.  If someone does not believe that God can help them in trouble, they certainly are going to be continually afraid.  If they do not run to God as their refuge, where else will they run?  Perhaps to the wrong place.  Praise the Lord, we can know and be certain that God is our refuge and our strength.  I have no strength in myself, only the true power of God can give me victory.  I know I need the refuge that the Lord only can give to me.  Everyday, I need His encircling care.  The smallest little remark can send an arrow into my heart.  Lord, I need Your refuge, without You I would be wounded on the battlefield.  God is a VERY PRESENT help in trouble.  Trouble comes upon me so suddenly often times.  Lord, sometimes I don’t even see trouble coming and then suddenly I am in the middle of it.  I am so glad that I can call out to You even after I am in the midst of that trouble.  It makes no difference to You.  You are very present to help me at all times and in all situations.  Nothing is too hard for the Lord.  Hebrews 13:6 says: So that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.  We can be bold, we can have confidence...the Lord is our helper.  No one and no thing is more powerful than Him.  Have you been trying to do things in your own strength?  Have you sought refuge in things or persons other than God Himself?  Before trouble overtakes you, claim Psalm 46:1.  What a comfort and peace it will bring.  Be still in your heart, let all fears and trembling subside and know God for who He really is.  The Lord of hosts is with us: the God of Jacob is our refuge. verse 11.

In view of our thoughts this week, a beautiful hymn came to mind:

Ivory Palaces

My Lord has garments so wondrous fine, and myrrh their texture fills;

Its fragrance reached to this heart of mine, With joy my being thrills.

His life had also its sorrows sore, For aloes had a part;

And when I think of the cross He bore, My eyes with teardrops start.

His garments too were in cassia dipped. With healing in a touch;

Each time my feet in some sin have slipped, He took me from its clutch.

In garments glorious He will come, to open wide the door;

And I shall enter my heav’nly home, to dwell forevermore.

Out of the ivory palaces Into a world of woe,

Only His great eternal love...Made my Savior go.

(Oh how much He loved you and me!)