Psalms 16:7: “I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
I shall not be, I shall not be moved,
Just like a tree, planted by the water,
I shall not be moved. Traditional Folk Song/Spiritual
This song is really an old spiritual sung by slaves during the 1800’s. Woody Guthrie picked it up in the 30’s to fight for the cause of the unions and then it made its way into the church in the sixties as part of the chorus explosion in youth groups and then went back into obscurity.
I recall sitting around a campfire with my church youth group singing this song, in three part harmony. I never once gave a thought as to what the message of this song was. However as I find myself now walking a road where my faith is being tested, this song has returned to me and has become my battle cry. No matter what ill wind blows, I will not be moved from my position in Jesus Christ. This old ship may be battered and broken, its mast is down, the rudder is damaged and haul is taking in water, but the rock that I am anchored to still holds.
“I have set the Lord before me.” That is a loaded statement. The word rendered as set is shavah which has the idea of being equal or being similar. Actually this is in a Piel form so it would be more like being identical to. This does not necessarily mean identical in a physical sense but to be identical in thinking. In other words David has made his heart and mind to be identical with the heart and mind of God. Always before him before anything are the desires of God. It is the heart and mind of God that is first place in David’s heart and mind. From this he will not be moved. The word for moved is mot which means to be shaken or become weak. This is in a Niphal Imperfect form. Recent discoveries from the Dead Sea Scrolls and related research has led many Hebrew scholars to believe that the Niphal form carries a reflexive nature. If that is the case you could very well render this passage as: “I have made my mind and heart to be identical with the mind and heart of God and I will not allow this resolve to be weakened. In other words, the Niphal is showing that if David weakens, it will be because he has chosen to do so.
It seems that once you make a resolve to identify with the mind and heart of God you suddenly get hit with major storms. Your whole life is rocked. You begin to think like the nation of Judah in Jeremiah 44 where they said that when they sacrificed to the Queen of heaven things were going well. Now when they seek to serve God the roof falls in. We were better off serving the Queen of heaven. When we make the resolve to identify with the heart and mind of God, the enemy will not take that lying down. He comes at us with both guns blazing. It is then that we must make the resolve to not be moved. In is then that we resolve to pick up the flag and keep moving forward and resolve not to weaken.
I was reading about the American Civil War and how the generals had all studied the tactics of Napoleon and tried to apply them to the battlefield of the Civil War. They had neglected to take one thing into account and that was that technology had advanced since the Napoleonic wars and rifles were far more accurate than the muskets used by Napoleon. If someone during Napoleon’s time aimed a musket at you, chances are the ball would miss you by a mile. However by the time of the civil war if someone aimed a rifle at you, you could expect an undesirable bullet to flesh interface. As a result the first two years of the Civil war brought horrendous casualties because the generals failed to understand that technology made Napoleon’s tactics obsolete. The point, however, is that the grunts, the soldiers themselves kept marching right into direct fire. It was during the Civil War that the phrase point blank range was coined. The soldiers knew that once they came into a certain range called point blank range, they could stop marching, kneel down aim and fire their rifle. Unfortunately, the enemy could also aim and fire his rifle at you. Whoever shot first was the winner, so to speak. That could be a pretty unnerving experience when you reach point blank range.
Oh, yes, we receive all our strength and power from God. He gives us everything we need, just as the government gives a soldier all he needs to fight a war. But there is one thing the government and even God cannot equip His soldiers with and that is the will to fight the ability to not be moved when you reach point blank range so you can take aim at the enemy who is also taking aim at you. I tell you, once you march toward the enemy at point blank range, your resolve begins to take on issues. That old barrel of the enemy’s rifle gets bigger and bigger. The problems get bigger and bigger and it is then a question of who fires first. When God marches us into point blank range of the enemies attack, it is then we can decide to run, or like David, put mot (to be weakened) into a Niphal form and resolve that we will lo mot (not be weakened), but stand our ground and take careful aim at the enemy. God will see to it that we get off the first shot.
During the Civil War, General Lee was the first general to realize that technology had changed the tactics of war and he allowed his men to take cover behind trees and other defenses and just let the Union Army walk into point blank range. Before the Union Generals woke of to the realities of the advanced accuracy of a rifle General Lee counted on the Union Army to always turn back in the face of tremendous casualties when they marched into point blank range. General Lee kept his casualties light until he came up against General Grant. General Grant did not back down in the face of mounting casualties but kept moving forward and taking aim at point blank range until his superior numbers finally forced General Lee into defeat. General Grant took horrendous casualties and criticism. Yet, General Grant kept pushing his men into point blank range until he hated the sight of blood such that he could never eat red meat. His cooks had to literal burn the meat before he would eat it. He would go privately into his tent and weep after reading the news of the casualties he took in each battle. Yet, he also knew that the only way to defeat General Lee was to keep moving forward into a wall of fire at point blank range of the enemy and flush them out of hiding so his soldiers could take careful aim.
When we resolve to be one with the heart and mind of God the enemy declares war on us. He comes along and kicks us in the rear and we look up at that wall of fire and see we have no job, or we face financial or health issues and the enemy stands over taking careful aim as he is saying: “So where is your God now?” It is at that moment we must choose to either high tail it and run or face that wall of fire at point blank range and not be moved but to carefully take aim at the enemy with our weapon which the Bible tells us is the Word of God. We will not be moved from my commitment to Him. But we will stand and take aim, even at point blank range, knowing God will give us the strength and power to shoot first.
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