Ps 31 23 Love the LORD, all his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful, but the proud he pays back in full."
We must make a distinction between an unbeliever who is unable to please God and a believer who possess the same inability but has been given the nature of God in order to overcome sin and corruption. This is why in the bible a saint is technically not a proud man. Here are some very clear examples of what I am saying. 36 11 "May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away." The Psalmist is employing a figure of speech called alteration. So we can interchange the wicked and the proud.Here the Psalmist calls and unbeliever the "proud"
We must understand that as long as we are in this body we share some of the same traits as the wicked. We struggle with the same sins. But the difference is that we no longer are identified with the wicked. It is impossible for us to be righteous and then fall again and become unsaved. So the bible makes this clear distinction so that we are not confused about our eternal salvation.
Let me say this . I have memorized these Psalms and meditated on them for 30 years. After you employ them you begin to understand the importance of the difference the names in appealing to God on behalf of His covenant people. Now do not take this personal but you must understand that anyone who has grown to this point knows how immature a person is who has not gone beyond just a superficial word study. There is a difference between using the Psalms so much that they are a second language and doing a cross reference study.
We cannot be named a proud man because when the Psalmist speaks curses against the enemy He employs the name of the enemy as "proud" .94 2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve." Now this is very serious and we must look closely at the teaching of the curse. Because most teachers avoid the teaching of the curse that puts these names in their proper context. Because the teaching of the curse lays down the clear lines that we would not see if we were looking at these words pragmatically. Its easy to take a word out of the context and use it flippantly.
Now let me talk about the relationship between justification and sanctification. Because theologians do not employ the curses as the Psalmist does they do not see how important the state of righteousness is as opposed to the state of death. Its like any teaching. You can be influenced by the predominate teaching of the day which is armininism and Catholicism and still understand the doctrines of grace. This is how a teaching can be warped so that we cross the lines of soverign grace. In my opinion because I have memorized the curses and blessings I believe that it is very easy for a person to interpret something and not understand the emotional bias that he uses in the teaching. We must understand that there is no substitution for advancing in this life by knowing the words enough to understand them like we use our English. In the christian faith what we do not know is our propensity to put our own opinions into our form of speech ... The christian life is a focus on words. Its scrutinizing the words so that we can correct the continuous self talk that we repeat that is false. This life is replacing our own patterns of thought and speaking every word under the authority of the bible.
You must understand that the Psalms teach us to challenge our own self talk. This behavior is absolutely essential in understanding and applying the bible. A person who is schooled in this discipline is like a professional in understanding the problems with people who are infants in their use of scripture. You can get to the point where you do this discipline for hours a day and you can see identify the areas where a teaching is causing the problem Teaching is self talk and self talk is the view we learn about our reality.. A person who uses the Psalms learns a totally different way of viewing the different parts of life. We learn to take a situation and put it through the Psalms ..in pronouncing in order to take the disjointed parts of our the experience and unify everything around us. After many years we are like a cartoon character who depends upon the special powers that we get from our pronouncements so that we cannot exist without the discipline. We would lose the high view that we get from the discipline.
I apologize for my propensity to always correct someone.. Its a habit of mine to hear an expression from a person and turn it over as part of the mediation in the Psalms..Its very hard for me to keep from processing the teaching without a very intent focus. My wheels are always turning so to speak.I have an excuse because my mother was a Newton...i come from a family where everyone is employing as many ideas..reading things about people etc...its what made me hungry for knowledge
We must make a distinction between an unbeliever who is unable to please God and a believer who possess the same inability but has been given the nature of God in order to overcome sin and corruption. This is why in the bible a saint is technically not a proud man. Here are some very clear examples of what I am saying. 36 11 "May the foot of the proud not come against me, nor the hand of the wicked drive me away." The Psalmist is employing a figure of speech called alteration. So we can interchange the wicked and the proud.Here the Psalmist calls and unbeliever the "proud"
We must understand that as long as we are in this body we share some of the same traits as the wicked. We struggle with the same sins. But the difference is that we no longer are identified with the wicked. It is impossible for us to be righteous and then fall again and become unsaved. So the bible makes this clear distinction so that we are not confused about our eternal salvation.
Let me say this . I have memorized these Psalms and meditated on them for 30 years. After you employ them you begin to understand the importance of the difference the names in appealing to God on behalf of His covenant people. Now do not take this personal but you must understand that anyone who has grown to this point knows how immature a person is who has not gone beyond just a superficial word study. There is a difference between using the Psalms so much that they are a second language and doing a cross reference study.
We cannot be named a proud man because when the Psalmist speaks curses against the enemy He employs the name of the enemy as "proud" .94 2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve." Now this is very serious and we must look closely at the teaching of the curse. Because most teachers avoid the teaching of the curse that puts these names in their proper context. Because the teaching of the curse lays down the clear lines that we would not see if we were looking at these words pragmatically. Its easy to take a word out of the context and use it flippantly.
Now let me talk about the relationship between justification and sanctification. Because theologians do not employ the curses as the Psalmist does they do not see how important the state of righteousness is as opposed to the state of death. Its like any teaching. You can be influenced by the predominate teaching of the day which is armininism and Catholicism and still understand the doctrines of grace. This is how a teaching can be warped so that we cross the lines of soverign grace. In my opinion because I have memorized the curses and blessings I believe that it is very easy for a person to interpret something and not understand the emotional bias that he uses in the teaching. We must understand that there is no substitution for advancing in this life by knowing the words enough to understand them like we use our English. In the christian faith what we do not know is our propensity to put our own opinions into our form of speech ... The christian life is a focus on words. Its scrutinizing the words so that we can correct the continuous self talk that we repeat that is false. This life is replacing our own patterns of thought and speaking every word under the authority of the bible.
You must understand that the Psalms teach us to challenge our own self talk. This behavior is absolutely essential in understanding and applying the bible. A person who is schooled in this discipline is like a professional in understanding the problems with people who are infants in their use of scripture. You can get to the point where you do this discipline for hours a day and you can see identify the areas where a teaching is causing the problem Teaching is self talk and self talk is the view we learn about our reality.. A person who uses the Psalms learns a totally different way of viewing the different parts of life. We learn to take a situation and put it through the Psalms ..in pronouncing in order to take the disjointed parts of our the experience and unify everything around us. After many years we are like a cartoon character who depends upon the special powers that we get from our pronouncements so that we cannot exist without the discipline. We would lose the high view that we get from the discipline.
I apologize for my propensity to always correct someone.. Its a habit of mine to hear an expression from a person and turn it over as part of the mediation in the Psalms..Its very hard for me to keep from processing the teaching without a very intent focus. My wheels are always turning so to speak.I have an excuse because my mother was a Newton...i come from a family where everyone is employing as many ideas..reading things about people etc...its what made me hungry for knowledge
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