新视域的力量
重大的心灵战役

经文
诗篇六十九1-12
1(大卫的诗,交与伶长。调用百合花。)神啊,求你救我!因为众水要淹没我。
2我陷在深淤泥中,没有立脚之地;我到了深水中,大水漫过我身。
3我因呼求困乏,喉咙发干;我因等候神,眼睛失明。
4无故恨我的,比我头发还多;无理与我为仇、要把我剪除的,甚为强盛。我没有抢夺的,要叫我偿还。
5神啊,我的愚昧,你原知道;我的罪愆不能隐瞒。
6万军的主─耶和华啊,求你叫那等候你的,不要因我蒙羞!以色列的神啊,求你叫那寻求你的,不要因我受辱!
7因我为你的缘故受了辱骂,满面羞愧。
8我的弟兄看我为外路人;我的同胞看我为外邦人。
9因我为你的殿心里焦急,如同火烧,并且辱骂你人的辱骂都落在我身上。
10我哭泣,以禁食刻苦我心;这倒算为我的羞辱。
11我拿麻布当衣裳,就成了他们的笑谈。
12坐在城门口的谈论我;酒徒也以我为歌曲。
信息分享
诗篇第七十三篇的诗人,与我们分享了神是良善这个信念后,接着便告诉我们是甚么令他远离信仰,以致他的心灵充满这种不幸的疑惑:「至于我,我的脚几乎失闪;我的脚险些滑跌。我见恶人和狂傲人享平安就心怀不平」(诗七十三2-3)。
这里开始了资深传道人司布真所说的「一场重大的心灵战役,一场属灵的马拉松,一场艰难但打得好的仗,在其中几乎被打败的最终却完全得胜。」诗人似乎因为他生命中的经验与圣经的教导有明显的矛盾而感到困扰。圣经教导说神善待那些清心的人。诗人说他妒忌那些狂傲的人,因为邪恶的人似乎比敬虔的人更富足,这令他十分难过。以前有人告诉他,如果你公义,神便会照顾你,令你富足。可是,诗人的事情却似乎并不太顺利,以致当他将自己的情况和那些似乎很富足但并不敬虔的人相比时,他几乎想放弃自己的信仰。
你会不会正处于类似的境况中?你的信心是否正受到你身边的事情所动摇,以致你甚至想要放弃?如果是,那么主今天对你说的话是:要坚持下去。虽然你此刻身处一条黑暗的隧道,但神会带领你经过,祂永不会失败,永远不会。
「要坚持下去……神永不会失败」
进深研究
王上十九1-21;诗三十一10,四十二5-6、11
1 以利亚到了甚么境况?
2 神怎样对待他?
祈祷
天父,感谢您今天向我所说的话。求您帮助我不要以眼前的事物作结论,而要定睛仰望您,因为您是最终得胜的。我要怀着安静的信心来等候您的话成就。阿们。
The Power of a New Perspective
"A great soul battle

Bible reading:
Psalm 69:1-12
1 Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.
2 I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me.
3 I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.
4 Those who hate me without reason outnumber the hairs of my head; many are my enemies without cause, those who seek to destroy me. I am forced to restore what I did not steal.
5 You, God, know my folly; my guilt is not hidden from you.
6 Lord, the Lord Almighty, may those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me; God of Israel, may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me.
7 For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face.
8 I am a foreigner to my own family, a stranger to my own mother's children;
9 for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.
10 When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn;
11 when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me.
12 Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards.
Message
Having shared with us the conviction that God is good, the psalmist now proceeds to tell us what caused him to move away from that belief so that his soul became filled with such desolating doubt: "But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked" (Psa. 73:2-3).
Here begins what Spurgeon described as "a great soul battle, a spiritual marathon, a hard and well-fought fight in which the half-defeated became in the end wholly victorious". The psalmist seems bothered by the apparent contradiction between what he had been taught in the Scriptures - that God is good to those who are pure in heart - and his experience in life. He was envious, he says, of the arrogant and deeply upset over the fact that the wicked appeared to be more prosperous than the godly. He had been told that when you were righteous, then God would take care of you and prosper you. Obviously things had not been going too well for the psalmist and when he compared his situation with that of the ungodly who appeared to be so prosperous, he came close to giving up his faith.
Am I talking to someone who is in a similar situation at this moment? Is your faith so badly shaken by what you see around you that you are tempted to give up? Then this is the word of the Lord to you today: hold on. It is a dark tunnel you find yourself in at this moment, but God will bring you through. He never fails. Never.
"Hold on...God never fails"
Prayer
Father, thank You for speaking to me today. Help me not to form my conclusions from what I see around the immediate but from what I see above, in You, the Ultimate. I wait in quiet confidence for Your word to come to pass. Amen.
Further study
1 Kings 19:1-21
Psalm 31:10; 42:5-6, 11
1. What point did Elijah come to?
2. How did God deal with him?
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