One day when You return for Your glorious reign
In Millenial splendour
Your power to display;
I
will kneel and confess Your greatness;
I
will join the heavenly throng in song,
And
I will sorrow for the lost
For
whom You suffered for so long.
- Cathryne Allen
I have written about King
David extensively over the years but it seems I am not finished yet. I watched
an AI generated film about him yesterday and it was done so well that I don’t
know who I cried about more, the David who rose to the throne or the David who
fell from it.
The fact remains that
David’s accomplishments are astounding. His name comes from the ancient Hebrew
root word dod which translates to a beloved person, love, a friend….pronounced
Dah-veed in modern Hebrew. As a youth, he was said to be a man after the
Lord’s “own heart” and as a man, he spoke by the Spirit and had many
revelations (1 Samuel 13:14).
In his rising to the
throne he conquered his enemies by his supplication to God for help and
protection ‘not fearing what man can do to him’ (see Psalm 55:11). He was
fearless in his dedication to his people by his awe inspiring way he believed
in the cause in Israel when he, a mere
shepherd boy, slew Goliath, considering him of no regard, a mere ‘uncircumcised
Philistine, who dared to defy the armies of the living God’ to whom he stated
without fear: “I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the
armies of Israel whom thou hast defied…...and I will smite thee and take thine
head from thee….that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel” (1 Samuel
17:26,45,46). All the earth, indeed…..
The zeal with which he
lived his early years is absolutely mind blowing. What tears at my heart the
most are the psalms he wrote as a reflection of his incomparable love for the
God of Israel. His faith gave him a
prophetic voice to testify of Christ who would one day sit on his throne. Apostle
Peter testified of this fact in Acts 2:22-36. Psalms worthy of notice to this
end are:
·
Psalm 16 (thou wilt not leave my soul in
hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption);
·
Psalm 22, which closely matches details of
the Crucifixion, including “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (v 1); “they pierced my hands and my feet” (v 16); “They
part my garments….and cast lots” (v 18);
·
Psalm 110, which Jesus and the apostles
use as messianic, including “The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right
hand” (v 1); the prophecy of Christ as “a priest for ever after the order of
Melchizedek” (v 4);
·
Psalm 41, often connected with betrayal: “mine
own familiar friend…hath lifted up his heel against me” (v 9), which Jesus
quoted at the Last Supper (John 13:18);
·
Psalm 69, linked to the suffering of
Christ: “in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (v 21);
·
Psalm 118, used repeatedly in the New
Testament about Christ: “The stone which the builders refused is become the
head stone of the corner” (v 22) and “blessed be he that cometh in the name of
the Lord” (v 26).
David did three things for temporal Israel that typify what Christ will do for spiritual Israel:
Firstly, following Saul's death, Israel's
kingdom was divided in two for seven years. The tribe of Judah accepted David
as their king and the rest of the tribes of Israel were ruled by Ishbosheth,
one of the sons of Saul, whom Abner, Saul's commanding general set up as the
new king (2 Sam 2:8-9).
Despite being anointed as Israel's king, by Samuel, the prophet,
David refrained from taking action against Ishbosheth in honour of the covenant
he made with Jonathan not to retaliate against Saul's family when he came to
power. Following Ishbosheth's murder David showed great wisdom and judgment by
executing the two men responsible (see (2 Samuel 3). This brought him into
favour with the tribes under Ishbosheth and ultimately united all twelve tribes
into one nation under the ultimate leadership of God.
Secondly, David succeeded in winning the whole extent of the
promised land for the covenant people. For the first time the chosen people of
the Lord controlled the whole land promised to Abraham's posterity nearly a
thousand years earlier.
Thirdly, David established Zion or Jerusalem as the spiritual and
political center of Israel. Under David's reign Israel reached its golden age.
Never before had Israel achieved such heights of power nor did they ever again.
(Old Testament Student Manual, Book 1 p 291)
David was anointed to sit on the throne of Israel and to establish the royal family line that would produce the King of Kings who would one day sit ‘on the throne of his father David’ (Luke 1:32-33). My question is this: was David chosen to be an example of the good King who was to come or was he chosen to show that no king can be as good as the King that was to come????? The answer is obvious, no king can be as good as the King that is yet to come because that King would never and will NEVER fall. I often think our present day governments will with their weakness and corruption accentuate the blessing that the King of Kings will be when He comes to govern the world.
“Even so, come Lord Jesus” (Revelation
22:20).
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Did Your heart break
As on the cross You hung
Knowing many lambs will go astray?
Did You know they will reject
Your blood and all You had to pay?
And still You hoped
And still You sorrowed
Over Your godly fears
For all they’ll have to suffer
To pay the ransom for
Your sacred tears.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
“Our
God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and
it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from
above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints
together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
(Psalms 50:3-5)
Psalm
50 reads more like a revelatory instruction to Jehovah’s saints than a song of
praise. It accentuates thanksgiving and praise of God above the animal
sacrifices of the day. Psalm 51 goes further to explain that the sacrifice God
wants from us is that of a ‘broken and contrite heart’ (vs 15-17).
Psalm
51 was written by King David following that fateful visit of Nathan the prophet
who exposed David’s sin with Bath-Sheeba. It is one of the most heart wrenching
story of the Old Testament. After giving David a touching story of a poor man’s
lamb being taken away by a rich man to sacrifice for a single meal of a
traveller, David was outraged and claimed that the rich man needs to be put to
death but Nathan simply replied ‘thou art the man’ and outlined the seriousness
of what David had done despite all the blessings he had received at God’s hand (see
2 Samuel 12:1-14). It humbled David to the dust.
The
word (Hebrew root dkh) translated as “contrite” means “to crush”,
therefore, “a broken or contrite heart or spirit is one that is crushed,
smashed, broken to pieces…The symbolism of our smashing or breaking or crushing
our hard, wilful heart into pieces and offering the result to God is significant,
because a smashed heart no longer exists in a recognizable or retrievable form….It
is at this point that the Lord can replace our now broken, offered heart with a
new one” (see Ezekiel 36:26). (Dana M. Pike, “3 Nephi 9:19-20: The Offering of
a Broken Heart” in Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture)
I
think David understood this principle well when he pleaded with God: “Hide thy
face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean
heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:9,10)
When
the Saviour comes to judge His people, He will require the spirit of repentance
from us. Placing our sins on the altar of sacrifice is the ultimate we can give
and if our hearts are pure and sincere, forgiveness will be HIS to give and He
will be glorified for the salvation of our souls.
Before
the birth of Christ, animal sacrifice was required in expectation of His
sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ fulfilled this requirement and in itself
denotes a broken and contrite heart offered in the Garden through His submission
and humility and upon the cross through His willingness of extreme suffering. How little is asked of us
in comparison to the greatest sacrifice of all!
I gave you my all:
My heart, my body, my soul.
I paved the way
And conquered death.
Come and take my hand;
Eat and do not hunger,
Drink and do not thirst.
I am in your midst;
I am the only,
I am the last,
And I am the first.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
You assure me
As your potter hands keep moulding me
Of who I will one day be,
But I see the kiln burning
And the heat of it is frightening me.
The exacting fire of faith
Is asking too much of me
I tremble at the grand design of life
And all that it wants from me.
I want to be spared,
I want to believe In Your faith in me,
But I am so weak in this doom of humanity
I want to escape the fires awaiting
me.
You tell me You endured
The hell fires of suffering;
As the clay in me begins to burn and
I am sacrificed as Your holy offering.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Book
Five (Psalms
107-150): Celebrates restoration, features the Songs of Ascent, and ends in
massive praise.
“O
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” (107:1)
“Christ
has, on occasion, been rightfully angry with backsliding Israel, but that has
always been brief and temporary – “a small moment”. Compassion and mercy always
return and prevail in a most reassuring way. The mountains and the hills may
disappear. The water of the great seas may dry up. The least likely things in
the world may happen, but the Lord’s kindness and peace will never be taken
from his covenant people. He has sworn with a heavenly oath that he will not be
wroth with them forever.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant [1997],
290)
The
final chapters of the book of Psalms gives a clear understanding to the reader
that Judah had learnt well about sorrow in its’ captivity: “By the rivers of
Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion” (137:1).
These chapters are grounded in God’s mercy and
hope of the nation’s restoration: “Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the
Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem
Israel from all his iniquities” (130:7,8). In remembering past deliverance from
their enemies and bondage, the reliance on the Lord’s mercy became foremost in
their minds. Psalm 136 is so heavy on gratitude that every one of 26 verses
ends in “for his mercy endureth for ever”.
Judah
was delivered from the Babylonian and Persian captivity in two colonies between
515 B.C. and 458 B.C. The temple was rebuilt and Jerusalem’s restoration began and
became what it is today. Not all the Jews chose to return to their land,
however, and so began a voluntary world-wide dispersion referred to as diaspora
which endures to this day.
“The
Lord never intended for Israel and Judah to remain scattered. Isaiah prophesied
that “the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant
of his people…and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together
the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:11-12).
Psalm 147:2 reads: “The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the
outcasts [diasporai] of Israel.” Nephi added this significant idea to
the teachings of the restoration of the Jews: “After [the Jews] have been
scattered…even down from generation to generation….they shall be persuaded to
believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement” (2 Nephi 25:16).
“Elder
Wilford Woodruff, issued an epistle to the world on 22 February 1879 and, in
part, addressed himself to the dispersed of Judah: “For the fulness of the
Gentiles has come in, and the Lord has decreed that the Jews should be gathered
from all the Gentile nations where they have been driven, into their own land,
in fulfilment of the words of Moses their lawgiver. And this is the will of
your great Eloheim, O House of Judah, and whenever you shall be called upon to
perform this work, the God of Israel will help you. You have a great future and
destiny before you and you cannot avoid fulfilling it; you are the royal chosen
seed, and the God of your father’s house has kept you distinct as a nation for
eighteen hundred years, under all the oppression of the whole Gentile world.
You may not wait until you believe on Jesus of Nazareth, but when you meet with
Shiloh your king, you will know him, your destiny is marked out, you cannot
avoid it.” (Old Testament Student Manual Enrichment: The Persian Empire, the
Return of the Jews, and the Diaspora; In Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford
Woodruff, pp 509-10)
The
Messiah will come. He will descend on the Mount of Olives with the nail prints
in His hands and His feet and the Kingdom of Judah will come to know that there
is no Saviour beside Him; none else in heaven
above, or earth beneath, or waters beneath the earth, nothing, nobody, nowhere,
there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus Christ
whereby man can be saved (Isaiah 43:10-11; 45,5,6,14,18,22; 46:9; Deut 4:35,39;
5:8; 1 kings 8:60, 2 Nephi 2:8; 25:20; 31:21; Moses 6:52; D&C 76:1)
Then they
will say:
We are Israel, Thy chosen seed
Who in times past disregarded Thee
But now through Thy infinite love
We are gathered to Thee.
In Thine mercy Thou has sought to gather
us
In Thine heart Thou hast chosen to
cherish us;
In Thee is deliverance from our barren
years
In Thee is mercy for our penitent tears.
All that is unspoken
And all that is unseen
All that I feel
In the depths of my soul
I long to give to Thee.
And all that You ask of me
And all that I am
I will place
On the altar of sacrifice
for Thee.
I give You my all
Like You gave Your all
Because hearts
Can give no more.
-
CATHRYNE
ALLEN
