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Psalm 86 | King James Audio Bible
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Psalm 86, traditionally attributed to David, is a plea to God—a soul’s cry for mercy and guidance in times of deep need. It is a psalm that resonates with humility, encapsulating the essence of a supplicant seeking solace in the divine presence.
The psalmist begins by bowing down before the Lord, a symbolic gesture of reverence and submission. This act sets the tone for the entire psalm—a recognition of personal poverty and profound neediness in the face of life’s challenges. The plea is not merely a request for relief but an acknowledgment of reliance on a higher power.
The opening verses echo a dual sentiment—preservation and holiness. The psalmist entreats God to preserve his soul, emphasizing personal consecration to the divine. In this plea, there is an implicit acknowledgment of the sacred covenant between the supplicant and the Almighty. The soul, marked as holy, seeks salvation, revealing a trust that is anchored in unwavering faith.
Throughout the psalm, the psalmist repeatedly implores for mercy. The acknowledgment of daily cries to the Lord reflects the immediacy and constancy of the supplicant’s need. The soul, in its vulnerability, is laid bare before the divine, seeking not only preservation but also the joy that comes from lifting up one’s soul to God.
The psalmist affirms the goodness of the Lord, describing God as ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy. These attributes depict a compassionate God, ever-responsive to the cries of those who call upon Him. The acknowledgment of God’s unique qualities serves as a foundation for the subsequent pleas.
Psalm 86 unfolds as a dialogue between the psalmist and God. The supplicant calls upon God in the day of trouble, confident that God will answer. Amidst the tumultuous circumstances of life, there is an unwavering trust in the accessibility of God—a belief that divine intervention is not only possible but imminent.
The psalmist’s acknowledgment of God’s unparalleled greatness is coupled with a universal vision. All nations, created by God, are envisioned as coming to worship and glorify the Lord. The psalm transcends personal concerns to embrace a broader perspective of God’s sovereignty over all peoples.
As the psalm progresses, the petitioner seeks divine instruction, expressing a willingness to walk in God’s truth. This plea for guidance is coupled with a desire for a unified heart, one that fears and reveres the name of the Lord. The psalmist recognizes the transformative power of divine teachings in shaping a righteous path.
Psalm 86 concludes with expressions of gratitude. The psalmist pledges to praise the Lord with all his heart, glorifying God’s name forever. The soul, delivered from the depths, acknowledges the great mercy bestowed upon it.
Psalm 86 | King James Audio Bible KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily.
Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications.
In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.
Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works.
All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.
For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.
Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.
I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.
For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.
O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul; and have not set thee before them.
But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.
O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me; give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son of thine handmaid.
Shew me a token for good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me.
Psalm 86 | King James Audio Bible KJV | Love Revealed By Jesus Christ
- Humility and Neediness: The psalmist begins with a humble acknowledgment of personal poverty and neediness, symbolized by bowing down before the Lord.
- Preservation And Holiness: The psalmist entreats God to preserve his soul, emphasizing personal consecration to the divine and trust anchored in unwavering faith.
- Daily Cry For Mercy: There is a recurring plea for mercy, expressed through daily cries to the Lord, indicating the immediacy and constancy of the supplicant’s need.
- Divine Goodness And Mercy: The psalmist extols the goodness of the Lord, describing God as ready to forgive and plenteous in mercy, portraying a compassionate deity responsive to the cries of those who call upon Him.
- Confidence In God’s Response: Amidst life’s challenges, there is a profound trust that God will answer in the day of trouble, highlighting the accessibility and responsiveness of God.
- Universal Vision: The psalm envisions all nations coming to worship and glorify God, emphasizing God’s sovereignty over all peoples and transcending personal concerns to embrace a broader perspective.
- Seeking Divine Instruction: The psalmist expresses a desire for divine guidance and a willingness to walk in God’s truth, recognizing the transformative power of God’s teachings in shaping a righteous path.
- Unified Heart In Reverence: Alongside the plea for guidance, there is a desire for a unified heart that fears and reveres the name of the Lord, emphasizing the importance of inner alignment with divine principles.
- Gratitude And Praise: The psalm concludes with expressions of gratitude and pledges of praise, acknowledging the great mercy bestowed upon the soul and the commitment to glorify God’s name forever.
- Transformative Power Of Divine Intervention: Throughout the psalm, there is an underlying theme of the transformative power of divine mercy and intervention in the life of the supplicant, leading to preservation, joy, and an enduring commitment to walk in the ways of the Lord.
To cause scandal is to drive other people away from the path of faith, to cause another person to sin, to withdraw from a life of grace, to cease to believe in redemption in Jesus Christ. This is a terrible sin, and we know that it does not stop there. The evil spreads, and soon it is common practice to denigrate Christianity. We think of the millions upon millions of little ones – and this in ‘Christian countries’ – who have never been introduced to Jesus, and of all the attendant troubles they experience because their spiritual lives have not been fostered. The signs of this spiritual neglect are endemic, while when many people speak against Christianity they do not even know what it is that they are objecting to; they have become in so little time so far removed from what could have been their inheritance, the living faith [ … ]
Psalm 138, a psalm of David, opens with a declaration of wholehearted praise. The psalmist commits to singing praises before the gods, a gesture of both defiance and faith. This act, set against a backdrop of a polytheistic world, underscores the psalmist’s devotion to the one true God [ … ]
‘Death,’ says His Grace, ‘throws it all apart. For we are not as we should be. Faith requires our adjustment to God’s truth. God’s triumph in a very real sense requires in us the loss of our everything. Which, as with Mary at the other end of Jesus’s life, is God’s truth.’ The Gospel reading is of John 11: 1-45, which is a long passage, and His Grace’s homiletic theme commences in textual wilderness. Our brokenness – in this place – a family home. Our faith, our doubt, our death… The irruption – death, doubt, fear – within our precious scenes and our most intimate places. Our domesticity. His Grace speaks from the chair, as is a bishop’s prerogative, and says: ‘So much is obscure in the Gospels. We’re always reaching through them. We’re never there. Really, we never are. Our knowledge, our understanding, of the Gospels is never complete, and with each reading comes a new revelation. There are always new riches there. Just as there are between all of us, between myself and you. The Gospels are living texts. This is a part of the conversation we have with our own Christianity. It is a part of who we are in our relationship with Jesus. We are in this sense always on the brink. ‘So yes, there is plenty that doesn’t seem to make sense. As one of the order of bishops, we would be lying if we said that weren’t the case. They are not easy texts to encounter, if by that word we may signify something more than a superficial glancing off against, but rather a profound search for the word of God. The Gospels are written by people who had their own ideas, and often didn’t know what had really happened. Luke is quite explicit on this point. His is an investigation, from the explicitly claimed point of view of an historian, rather than that of a first-hand witness, who attempts, so he says, to set out an orderly account, out of the chaos, the sheer muddle, that has been handed down to him. It is possible to imagine Luke researching and composing his account after many years, when there has arisen a desire to know what exactly happened, and this implies a certain call to faith and certain demands of historicity, to historical exactitude. So in these different ways, the people of the first years of Christian faith are in the dark. There is also a decisive need to define the life of Jesus. And people didn’t get Jesus. The whole meaning of Christianity is only now beginning to take root throughout the composition. So much needs to be evangelized. The light shines almost in tentative fashion like that first star, which drew the wise men from the east to our Lord’s cradle. ‘John’s is widely held to be a very late Gospel. There are others who say that John’s Gospel might have been the first to acquire its true shape, because it most fully expresses Jesus, as we know him to be, as members of the Catholic Church. We don’t really know when any of this is being written, but we get a feel in John of a Gospel refined over many years, through a community. So there’s a lot going on there that I’d like you to think about. ‘What I would like to suggest to you is that, while within the Gospels we are often confronted with clues, guesswork, stories that have been handed down through so many people, and so in this sense we might find ourselves to be in the wilderness, this is the very desolate space itself to which we must give ourselves in order to experience Christ’s full redemption in our lives. I suggest it is for God’s glory that we do so. ‘As we become aware of ourselves, in this seminary, we find ourselves in a very secure, comfortable setting, and there are signs of Easter everywhere. Within the very fabric of these buildings, our Lord is risen; our Lord lives. But now this is our Lenten journey, where death enters, where death breaks us. We are to ride into Jerusalem in triumph, and then we are to be utterly broken, all hope gone, our hope extinguished. And really, I suggest to you, it is only by inhabiting this thought, as if we don’t know Easter is there, that our new life can follow, just when we have given up all hope, when every promise that Jesus made to us seems to have been cancelled. ‘And here now we have the story of Lazarus. I should like to suggest to you that we have a very powerful call now. In our very comfortable space, our domesticity, with all this comfort, where so very little might seem to happen each day, so it might seem to you, there is a disturbance within all of this comfort, and that is a disturbance within ourselves, and that is our call to Jesus. I think it is correct to say that our most comfortable places break in the light of Jesus from the inside, in order that we may take the necessary steps to be with Jesus. ‘Faith is not comfortable. I think that we can all receive the message of the rolling away of the rock from the tomb of Lazarus to say something of vital importance to ourselves concerning our openness to God’s love. The rock we roll away can come in all sorts of guises, but we know when we are blocked, and I firmly believe if we are truthful then we know where those blocks might be. ‘Next Sunday, which will be Palm Sunday, we process as it were to Jerusalem, to begin our Holy Week. Now as I speak to you we are on the brink. Even now, I suggest it might be very good for all of us to lay aside what we think we know, to fall apart a little, and so […]
