Bible Study - 05/27/2020

Good Wednesday evening to all and may the Lord bless us as we ponder His word.

First, I must express my disappointment of not having heard from deacon Jt regarding anyone's responses to last Wednesday's assignment. I'm not sure whether you may not have realized the critical importance of the topic or have little or no interest in it.

As a reminder: I had introduced a prophetic study drawn from 1 Corinthians 15 where the apostle Paul briefly mentioned the concept of the 'Last Trumpet.' The context of Paul's 15th chapter is of course the event known as the resurrection or the rapture of the church. He says in verse 52 that this future event will happen at the 'last trumpet'. The word 'Last' indicates that there will be one or more trumpet blasts before the last. Clearly, Paul is providing for us some kind of chronological timing. Your assignment was to find out anything that you can about this most interesting verse of scripture. We know that no one knows the day or the hour of our Lord's return. Nor can anyone know the actual day or hour of the rapture. Why then did the Holy Spirit inspire Paul to talk about the last trumpet unless He wanted us to understand something about rapture timing? This is such an exciting and informative study that I would be hard-pressed to abandon it. I am therefore giving you an additional week to complete last week's assignment before we can resume its exploration or discard it altogether. Rather than 'spoon-feed' you this study, I prefer to have everyone make a conscientious and honest attempt to get personally involved in it.

Now, on to today's study:

" BE merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; And in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, Until these calamities have passed by." -

Psalm 57: 1

There are 6 psalms in scripture described as michtam - all of which are ascribed to David. Over the centuries, the true meaning of michtam has been lost but scholars agree that it may be related to another word meaning 'engraving.' it carries the idea of something worthy of permanence. For example, there are older songs, such as Nat King Cole's "O Christmas Tree", also known as "O Tannenbaum" - German for a fir-tree. The lyrics to the song were written in 1824 and tell the story of an unfaithful lover who is compared to the ever-faithfulness of an evergreen fir tree. Though never intended to be a Christmas song by any means, it gradually evolved into a Christmas classic that is today loved by all. In that sense, it is engraved or permanent. It is a "goldie oldie" as some might say. Like the 57th psalm, It is a michtam! (I'm not sure why I'm giving you all this information, but I hope you get my point)

The psalm in our discussion was penned when David was in constant hiding from king Saul. The king, despised the young giant killer because of envy of his popularity and fear that he would someday loose his crown to the young man. Incidentally, that was exactly what God had in mind for David.

At this point, please turn in your bibles to 1 Samuel 24. it's an excellent idea to read through its 22 brief verses to appreciate the conditions that drove David to hiding in a cave in the wilderness of En-Gedi located in the Judean dessert. You may continue with the following paragraph after reading 1 Samuel 24.

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I remember walking through that very area and looking at multiple hillside caves as I made my way to the spring of En-Gedi where David and his men shared a constant supply of fresh, cool drinking water. In that dry, hot, barren dessert, live mountain goats, deer and rock-rabbits. This large rodent is about the size of a fully grown rabbit and is ubiquitous in the area. While walking towards the waterfall and pool created by the mountain spring, we had to pause repeatedly as pastor Brinker stopped to throw rocks at the rock-rabbits. I explained to him that they are harmless, but he kept lagging behind our travel group as he hid behind acacia trees with huge rocks in his hand aiming at the helpless dessert dwellers.

I am reminded of the current state of our world in the reading of psalm 57:1. We too are hunkered down in our caves, hiding from the crown. (The corona virus gets its name from its crown like appearance. In fact, the Latin word corona carries the English meaning of crown). On some occasions though, we have to leave our 'home caves' to venture out to the grocery store or the doctor, or someplace else. You would imagine that David too, had to venture away from his den in order to get groceries and toilet paper. Saul with his 3000 strong was outside lurking in the shadows. Those are the times when David was most vulnerable much like we are today. We are prime and open targets and even with social distancing and face-masks, we are not guaranteed 100% immunity. No one is exempt from an attack from this lethal, invisible enemy and that's the reason we can join with David who understood that the cave was not his ultimate protection. Rather, our protection, as was David's, is our merciful God.

"Be merciful to me O God, be merciful to me! For my soul trusts in You; and in the shadow of Your wings I will make my refuge, Until these calamities have passed by."

God bless you all!