May 28: David exhibits the Spirit-led reasoning of a genuine believer, in his zeal for God, his competence in battle and his self-control to set reasonable restrictions upon himself. In our day, so many are looking around at spiritual leaders who fall prey to temptation and using that as an excuse to abandon their faith; looking at men will always provide an excuse. We need to be more realistic about ourselves and keep ourselves away from carnal men and women and keep ourselves away from other forms of temptation, so that we can walk in integrity in our houses, even when we’re out of the scrutiny of others. We also need to be as up-front as possible about why we do that, as a way to admit our liability to moral failing if we are always surrounded with temptation and no scrutiny.
1 Samuel 17: In reality, the story about the lion and the bear are more incredible than the slaughter of Goliath. He caught (I’m assuming the lion) but the beard/mane? Two different words are used to indicated David’s youthfulness in this passage. One is naʿar <H5288>, which is used of the king of Heths’ son who slept with Dinah, daughter of Jacob (34:19). Another is ʿelem <H5958>, which implies puberty. “Thy servant slew both the lion and the bear” was meant to convince experienced men of war; the phrase, “The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine.” Was meant to convince the godly.
Psalm 101: This is a Psalm of David and the wording makes it sound as if it’s after he has become king. He gets to decide what kind of person serves him, v.6. He has the authority to set anything before his eyes, but as he offers this song to God, it is a pledge to set nothing wicked, to behave wisely, to walk perfectly in his house. And in that famous situation in which he did not walk perfectly, how did the temptation come? As he looked outward from his house upon the rooftop of another house. This is a great psalm to remind us to decide to surround ourselves with pure things and pure people.
Romans 6: Why is there no explicit mention of the Holy Spirit in this passage? There’s so much about reckoning, reasoning, mortifying, yielding and fruit. We can’t really do any of these things in the power of the flesh, but Paul isn’t spelling it out. It must be because before we can yield to God we must make a decision to do so. It is the Spirit’s influence to convict us to do that, but the decision is ours.
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