The Lord has chosen Zion

The background to this psalm may have been when David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem.  As David is the subject it’s possible it was written in Solomon’s time, possibly when he dedicated the temple.

This is a psalm that looks back to the past, comments on the present and then looks to the future, all with the aim of glorifying God.  So the psalm starts by looking back at David’s life and: ‘all the hardships he had endured’ (v1).  David was very zealous in wanting to build the temple (vs1-5).  But in the end he was told, by the Prophet Nathan, that his son Solomon would be the one to build it.  However David, rather than seeing this as a knock back, prays an incredible prayer of gratitude (2 Samuel 7:18-29).  However, David did much of the preparation for building the temple so Solomon would be able to complete the task.  So, metaphorically speaking, he did not sleep or rest until he had made: ‘a dwelling place for the Mighty one of Jacob.’ (v5).  David played a part, but the Lord’s timing is always what matters and it was Solomon who completed the task!

The next section of the psalm starts to look at the present.  Admittedly it starts by looking back at the discovery of the Ark at Ephrathah and its transportation to Jerusalem, which was not without difficulty (vs6-7 and 2 Samuel 6).  But this reminds us that David had done all that was required of him.  Through David the last of the Lord’s promises in the Covenant concerning the land had been fulfilled.  So the picture here is of God working on behalf of his people.  Some commentators note that verse 8 echo’s Numbers 10:35-36 in the way the verse starts and finishes.  Yet there’s a difference as rather than this being about God’s enemies being scattered, the second part of the verse has the phrase: ‘and go to your resting place’ illustrating that the Temple is finished.

But now the temple is built and the people can enjoy the benefits of worshiping there.  So there’s a concern to get the worship right which is illustrated in verses 9-10.  The picture of priest being clothed: ‘with righteousness’ and saints shouting for joy is used to illustrate that this is pure worship that benefits the believers as they come together and enjoy fellowship with each other and fellowship with God.  In fact this would be the Old Testament equivalent of Jesus’ comment to the Samaritan woman that true worshippers: “worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23).

But now the emphasis of the psalm changes as it looks to the future and God’s promise to David (2 Samuel 7:16).  ‘Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure for ever before me.  Your throne shall be established for ever.’  We can’t be sure what David understood by this, but it would have been a great reassurance to him as he could have been thinking: ‘Solomon’s too young, how can I know he’ll manage this kind of project?’  We have the advantage of understanding this also applies to Jesus, David’s greater son.  But what David did know was he had a part in God’s plan!

The last part of the psalm (vs13-18) focuses on the Lord’s promise.  ‘For the Lord has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place’ (v13).  Now the Lord starts to speak in the first person (v14).  He has a concern for a closer relationship with his people, one that is based on his grace and mercy.  God is proactive, he will satisfy the poor and blesses Zion.  It’s he who clothes the priests with salvation and will fulfil his promises to David (v17)!  The horn was a symbol of strength, but the phrase: ‘lamp’ is interesting as it’s used in 2 Samuel 21:17 when David was effectively retired from leading the army with the phrase: “You shall no longer go out with a us to battle, least you quench the lamp of Israel.” Here it shows the Lord’s zeal to fulfil all his promise to David and the people.

In the end the promises we see at the end of this psalm are also fulfilled in Jesus.  Just as David was a lamp to Israel, in Jesus we encounter the light of the world which is typified in his wonderful promise: “I am the light of the world.  Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).  And that’s a promise and comfort to God’s people, in any day and age!

Would you like to listen to a sermon on this Psalm?  The Lord has chosen Zion.

I have Calmed and Quieted my Soul

This is a psalm of David, but there’s no indication when he wrote it.  The subject concerns being in a humble and happy state and that in itself is interesting as David had much he could have been proud of.  Yet there had been major failings in his life.  After years of struggle and hardship, where the jealous King Saul had sought to take his life, he had become King of Israel.  For the first part of his reign he had been a godly King.  Yet after his adultery with Bathsheba which led to her husband Uriah’s murder the consequences were a troubled reign!  Perhaps David is confronting his failure and realizing it’s better to be content in one’s circumstances than to pursue ambition.  It’s possible, due to the subject matter; this psalm may have been sung during pilgrimages to Jerusalem to encourage the Pilgrims to be in the right frame of mind when they came to worship at the temple in Jerusalem.

I’ve always enjoyed weight training.  But to be really successful at it, there are a list of do’s and don’ts.  For example, when it comes to training you train a muscle group hard!  But you don’t train it every day; in fact you allow 72 hours before you’re train it again.  Secondly you make sure that you have plenty of food, but it has to be the right kind of food with plenty or protein and the fat kept low if you want to build real muscle and not just bulk!  In the same way this psalm has a list of do’s and don’ts for those who are looking to grow spiritually!

So David starts off with a list of don’ts as he expresses things in the negative.  ‘O Lord, my heart is not lifted up; my eyes are not raised too high; I do not occupy myself with things too great and too marvellous for me’ (v1).  He is not proud and he realises that there are some things are well beyond his understanding.  There’s no indication that David had ever desired the throne, and perhaps that’s why he acted wisely and humbly early in his reign.  However, perhaps power had been seductive and he had become enamoured with the benefits of kingship in that you could get away with practically anything without it being questioned!  And that had led to his downfall!  So what we’re seeing here is that discipline is essential for believers to humble themselves so they might be used by God.

Secondly, David focuses on how the believer can achieve in this happy state that is found in verse 1.  ‘But I have calmed and quietened my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me’ (v2).  He has denied himself so that he might be content.  An unweaned child has a constant craving for its mother’s milk.  But there comes a time when the child is no longer crying out in hunger so much of the time.  It’s happy and content, but still dependent!  That’s the difference that David draws our attention to.  He has a confidence in God but he’s not independent of God.  So this is faith in action, this is a ‘do’, in that David realises faith in the Lord has to be actively entered into, and this is seen in the theme of this verse.  Jesus highlights this kind of thinking in Matthew 18:3-4. “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  Jesus shows we need to actively make an effort to: ‘become like children,’ in other words, be dependent on him, if we are to receive any real spiritual benefit!  There’s a sense of letting go and letting God, but also the believer actively seeking the Lord’s involvement in each and every area of their life.

In the last verse of the psalm David calls on Israel to put their hope in the Lord.  ‘O Israel, hope in the Lord from this time forth and for evermore’ (v3).  In a sense the psalm has gone full circle.  David’s challenge is simple.  If we want to avoid the pitfalls of pride, which are warned against in verse 1 we need to focus on the Lord.  Israel had a history of looking for solutions to their various problems in all the wrong places.  But David wants them to avoid that mistake by learning from his experience.  David doesn’t just ask Israel (and us) to give it a try; rather he is looking to what the Lord can achieve and asking the Lord’s people to actively pursue it.Because of our human nature this, as Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher, once pointed out, this is one of the shortest psalms to read, but one of the longest to learn!  Yet, if we are to be contented and happy in our relationship with the Lord, we would do well to note the do’s and don’ts of this psalm and work at putting them into practice in our Christian lives! 

My Soul Waits for the Lord

As this is one of the seven penitential psalms, it’s possible that it was sung by the Pilgrims who travelled to Jerusalem for the Day of Atonement as it would fit very well with the theme of that festival.  Some scholars have linked it to the time after Nehemiah’s reforms when, after the time he was back in Babylon, he comes back to find serious cases of spiritual backsliding.  Whatever the case, what we have here is a psalm that has the tone of someone looking to the Lord for forgiveness.

Back in my youth I was an advocate of ‘Mad’ magazine as I enjoyed its satirical humour.  In one edition they sent up the very popular game ‘Trivial Pursuit’ and one particular question particularly appealed to me.  The question was: ‘In which Star Trek episode did chief engineer Scotty save the Enterprise from certain destruction.’ The answer: ‘all of them!’ Although, as a Star Trek fan, I know that’s an exaggeration, I can’t help seeing the funny side of it as it captures the spirit of what made the program so enjoyable.  In a similar way this psalm has that spirit about it.  Looking at the beginning we ask the question: “how bad can it be?”  The Psalmist seems in the depths of despair realising his sorry state before the Lord.  But, we’re pretty sure, such is nature of the psalms that the situation will be resolved, or will be well on the way to a resolution, by the end of the psalm!

As we’ve noted the psalm starts with a note of desperation but also realism.  ‘Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy!’ (vs1-2).  This is something that is needed today.  I often listen to Sermons from various churches, but I’m noticing more and more that there doesn’t seem to be much encouragement for self examination.  Yet the first words of Jesus recorded in Mark’s Gospel are: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15).  Now that’s a message that calls for self examination if I ever heard one!  There’s a healthy dose of realism in verse 3: ‘If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?’  The question is rhetorical, because the Psalmist knows that no one can justify themselves before a holy God!  The verse creates a picture of a courtroom setting, with witness after witness testifying against the poor Psalmist.  Yet the verse also gives us a glimmer of hope with its use of the word ‘LORD’ which is used in our translations for ‘Yahweh’ the God of the Covenant.  The Covenant was an illustration of the Lord’s love for his people.  This is something which we often miss as we often think of God’s law in terms of do’s and don’ts.  But that’s not why it was given.  Israel did not deserve or earn God’s love, yet he loved them and it was his initiative to enter into relationship with them.    ‘It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples’ (Deuteronomy 7:7).

This is typified in the next verse: ‘But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared’ (v4).  I find that verse remarkable.  The Psalmist is in awe of God.  Why?  Because he’s a forgiving God when, as the Psalmist has already pointed out, logic shows he has every right to judge!  But the nature of this verse shows how the Psalmist is overwhelmed by God’s holy and forgiving nature!  Verses 5-6 show the patience of the Psalmist.  The phrase: ‘my soul waits’ is used in both these verses and is a challenge we need to listen to when we pray.  The Psalmist fully trusts God.  His religion is not either of the heart or the mind but his whole being!  Yet that doesn’t mean that everything is resolved quickly, as the illustration of the watchman in verse 6 shows.  The role of a watchman was to warn the people of a city of impending attack and one can imagine that on a moonless night the watchman must have longed for the morning as just a glimmer of light would make his job easier.  But patience was required as the job still had to be carried out under the difficult circumstances of the night.  In a similar way the Psalmist realises patience is required when waiting upon the Lord in prayer.

The psalm concludes in a similar way with the Psalmist now calling on Israel to put their: ‘hope in the LORD’ (v7) because of his: ‘steadfast love’ and: ‘plentiful redemption.’  The Psalmist clearly sees that the Lord is the answer to both his prayer of repentance and the national need.  If the psalm was written in the days of Nehemiah when, at the end of the book, things had begun to slide spiritually, there was a need to acknowledge that and look to the Lord to: ‘redeemed Israel from all his iniquities’ (v8).  The Psalmist clearly understands there’s a sense in which in this life God’s people have never ‘arrived’.  In other words, the work of reformation and revival is always relevant to God’s people in any age or generation!  The call of this psalm is for the Lord’s people to diligently wait on him in an attitude of repentance and work for renewal in each and every generation.

Would you like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? My Soul Waits for the Lord.

Long Term Affliction

When we look back at the past we often choose to look only at the good things that have happen.  However, when we come to this psalm the writer has a completely different attitude as he looks back at a time which was far from good and then asks what he can learn from it.  But this is also, due to the call and response structure, a corporate psalm as it reflects on Israel’s state as well as the psalmist and therefore what they should learn from their situation both in the past and also present.  The answer is a great deal about the Lord’s attitude to his people!Even the most casual glance at the first two verses shows that the writer has been going through a pretty dire situation that stretches back to his youth.  This probably also acts as a reference to Israel’s time in Egypt.  I won’t bore you with the details but I was recently in correspondence with a minister over an important issue.  What’s significant is the difference between us lay in their motivation being “that’s the way the world seemed to be going today” as the justification for their actions.  Yet it really shouldn’t surprise us if we find, as Christians, that we’re often shunned by the world!  The phrase in verse 3: ‘The ploughers ploughed upon my back; they made long their furrows’, due to the nature of the psalm with both its individual and corporate view, is probably best taken metaphorically.  Just as a ploughman is systematic in his ploughing of a field, it’s probably speaking of Israel’s times of oppression by other nations and their exile in Babylon.  Yet despite this terrible oppression verse 4 shows that the Lord had intervened on their behalf as he had: ‘cut the cords of the wicked.’

Why had he acted in such a way?  Quite simply because of who he is.  He’s ‘Yahweh’ the Covenant God.  In other words, he’s the God who keeps his promises to his people.  In Deuteronomy 30:5 Moses reminds the Israelites that despite their rebellious nature, the Lord will redeem them as he will: ‘bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it.  And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.’  What a great promise that was for the Lord’s people when they found themselves under pressure.  The New Testament equivalent is found when Jesus promises that he will build his church: ‘and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16:18).  In other words, he will build it come what may!  Verse 5 reminds us if anyone picks a fight with the Lord’s people, they’ll be picking a fight with him!

The last part of the psalm encourages the Lord’s people to develop a God’s eye view of things.  When I preached this psalm the heating had failed and it was winter. The danger would have to been to see things very negatively as after all it was an evening service, there weren’t many of us and the church was freezing cold!  However, as I pointed out, to the few who were there, we are uniquely blessed.  We were coming together as a forgiven people in fellowship with the Lord and each other.  We were hearing God’s Word and therefore had the chance of being encouraged by it as we have the unique gifting of the Holy Spirit.  We have a direction in life and a future most people don’t have.  If you asked most people what their ambition was, if they’ve thought about it in the first place, they might say it’s to get the kids through college without exhausting their retirement fund, and that would be the sum of all their ambition and hope for the future!  But for believer’s, because of all the Lord has done for us, we are uniquely blessed both now and in the future!This is not the case with those who are against God’s people.  ‘Let them be like the grass on the house stops which withers before it grows up’ (v5).  In the Ancient Near East the roofs of houses were made with branches and then covered in mud.  When it was damp grass would have grown on them but when the sun was out it would be scorched and then died.  The picture is of these people being completely spiritually dead where the Lord was concerned.  The conclusion the Psalmist comes to is whatever the difficulties he and Israel have been subjected to ultimately the Lord looks after his people.

The plight of the Psalmist and his conclusions about the Lord’s faithfulness reminds me of what Paul writes to the Corinthians to encourage them.  ‘We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies’ (2 Corinthians 4:8-10).  What an encouragement for the Lord’s people then, and today when they are facing tough and difficult times.  In everything, whatever the circumstances The Lord’s promises to his people remain the same.  Why is this?  Because he remains the same!

Would you like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? Long Term Affliction.

Blessed are those who Fear the Lord

It doesn’t surprise me that teaching about blessing is very popular in Christian circles.  Let’s face it those like Joel Osteen have made very successful ministries out of it.  At first glance, Psalm 128 looks like prime material for Joel Osteen and his outrageous use of Scripture!  But is that really the case, as the question we should ask is what’s real blessing and how’s it achieved?

The context of the psalm is found in verse 1.  What we see here is not unconditional blessing but blessing for everyone: ‘who fears the LORD, who walks in his ways.’  Some years ago, at my first church, I was approached by a church that wanted to use our building for a series of events.  I was given a book called ‘You cannot Fail!’ by the representative of that church.  After reading the book I realise there was no way we could let them use our buildings as, among other things, the book suggested that if you made a vow to the Lord, he must fulfil anything you asked!  Basically, it was saying you could twist God’s arm, which is as outrageous as it is blasphemous!  But that’s not what this psalm is saying.  This is about honouring the LORD, Yahweh the Covenant God by following his Law.  The Covenant was based on God’s love for Israel as he had delivered them from Egypt before he asked anything of them (Deuteronomy 5:6).  So rather than forcing his hand by mechanical obedience the blessings of the Covenant came about through the mutual love of God for his people and their love for him based on his deliverance!

A generation of Sunday school teachers have watered down the phrase: ‘The fear of the Lord’ by telling children that to fear God means to respect him.  But that’s never the context we find in scripture as it means to be in awe of him.  Hence this would encourage his people to keep themselves from sin as they realised he was holy, so there would be consequences if they sinned as their relationship with him would be damaged (Exodus 20:20).  And it’s this that gives the psalm its context!

However, there are benefits which are noted in the middle section of the psalm.  The picture is of a content and happy family as: ‘You shall eat the fruit of the labour of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your children will be like olive shoots round your table’ (vs2-3)  Vines and olives were essential to Israel’s economy.  So the picture is of a godly an industrious family who are materially blessed.  I don’t advocate the ‘Wealth, Health and Prosperity Gospel’, but think about it, if you live to please the Lord you won’t waste your time and money on ungodly pursuits.  You will enjoy God’s gifts rather than over indulge in them and you will be prudent with your money rather than gamble it away!  This is also a picture of a happy marriage as the wife is happy and content in the home, in stark contrast to the wife of Proverbs 7:11 who: ‘is loud and wayward; her feet do not stay at home.’  The metaphor of the vine has sensuous connotations which are very apparent in the Song of Solomon 7:7-8!  The picture we are left with is a home that is happy in every area, even the most intimate ones!

Psalm 128 with its theme of blessing and the family may have been sung together with Psalm 127 at the end of one of the festivals in Jerusalem.  It’s circular in nature as it comes back to the theme of blessing in the last two verses.  However, we must note that the word: ‘may’ is used in both verses 5 and 6 noting that God’s blessing can never be assumed, but it can be asked for.

So what expectation of God’s blessing can the Christian look forward to today?  In Mark 10:17-30 Jesus meets a young man who wants to know what he must do to inherit eternal life.  When Jesus points to the keeping of the Law, the young man in a rather blasé way insists he’s kept it.  But Jesus pinpoints his weakness; he won’t put God before his riches.  Jesus then points out how worldly wealth can be a momentous distraction as people get attached to that, as the most important thing in the life, rather than concentrate on preparation to be part of God’s kingdom. This leaves the disciples perturbed, but Jesus points out nothing is impossible for God.  Peter then points out that they have left everything to follow him.  Jesus responds with words that show us the kind of blessing can expect today.  ‘Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life”’ (Mark 10:29-30).

Would you like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? Blessed are those who Fear the Lord.

Unless the Lord Builds the House

When I was growing up I was fascinated by ancient Egypt.  It all seemed so old to me.  So imagine my surprise, when reading about the Pharaoh Tutankhamen, I discovered that by the time he was on the throne the great pyramids at Giza would have been seen as objects of man’s folly.  Poets would have compose poetry pointing out the folly of the Pharaoh who had built them as he was practically forgotten and they had long since fallen into ruin!

When we come to Psalm 127 the subject of folly takes up the first part of the psalm.  The psalm is attributed to Solomon and if, as I believe, he was the author of Ecclesiastes the psalm has some parallels with its themes of wisdom and folly. The psalm is in two parts, the first deals with folly of leaving God out of one’s life, the second to the benefits of including him.

The folly of the situation is very apparent in the first verse.  ‘Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.’   What emerges in verse 2 is the waste of time and effort that is put into such a project as: ‘It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.’  The picture is clear; if we leave the Lord out of our endeavours they will amount to nothing in the long run!  What Solomon is highlighting is the danger of putting our faith in things or activity, rather than involving the Lord in all we say and do!  When we had the local school children come to the church one of the questions they asked me was what was the most important part of the church?  I told them it was the pulpit because that’s where ‘the Word of God’ was read and taught.  But I added the proviso that it was only the most important part of the church if those things were done as if they weren’t then it might as well chop it up for firewood.  God would not be involved and anything said would be a waste of time and effort!

But now we come to the second part of the psalm which shows the blessing of having God involved.  At first it looks like the psalm goes off at a tangent with its emphasis on children! But the word: ‘house’ in verse 1 can be rendered ‘household’ in the Hebrew which provides us with a connection to verse 1.  Solomon highlights the difference of including the Lord at the end of verse 2 with the words: ‘for he (God) gives to his beloved sleep.’  It’s possible Solomon is putting his mark on the psalm here as in 2 Samuel 12:24 we read that the Lord named Solomon: ‘Jedidiah’ which means: ‘beloved of the Lord’.  But the key thing is this verse leads us into the second part of the psalm.  Children were seen as important in the Ancient Near East as they were their parent’s security, in the absence of social services, in their old age.  Hence they are used to illustrate blessing.  The phrase: ‘He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate’ possibly refers to a false accusation being made and the father being dragged before the Elders of the town at the town gate where all the business was done in those days.  He has the blessing of having children who would defend him in his old age.

Jesus’ hearers would have been reminded of this psalm when he preached the parable of the ‘Wise and Foolish Builders’ (Matthew 7:24-27).  The parable gives a simple comparison; we can either ignore Jesus’ words which would be like building a house on sand which will eventually fall down, or we can take his words to heart and have the security of a person who lives in a house built on a firm foundation.  That’s the security of trusting in the Lord and involving him in everything we say and do!

Would you like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? Unless the Lord Builds the House.

Restore our Fortunes O Lord

Sometimes I wake up in the morning aware that I’ve been dreaming and knowing it was a dream where much has happened, even though I can’t remember it in detail.  When we look at Psalm 126 we get the impression that the Psalmist has experienced something very similar and he too would struggle to put everything into words as his feelings are far too profound.

Some have surmised that this is a psalm about the ending of the exile as in some versions verse 1 is rendered: ‘When the Lord brought back the captives to Zion’ (NIV).  However, the more literal translation is: ‘When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion’.  The key thing is that this is a psalm about restoration which means it could be linked to the events of the books of Ezra or Nehemiah or the rebuilding of the temple in Haggai and Zechariah’s time.  One thing we can be sure of is that this is a psalm of unmitigated joy as the Psalmist struggles to find the right words and medium to express himself (v2).  He’s overjoyed because he’s someone who clearly doesn’t take God’s blessing for granted!  We need to note that times of extraordinary and miraculous blessing are not the norm for God’s people.  Yes, we see remarkable and miraculous happenings during the exodus and the conquest of the Promised Land.  But for a lot of that time things were pretty ordinary from day-to-day in Old Testament times.  It could be that the Psalmist troubled by the state of the nation has been praying for a revival, and now it’s here!

Now revival is happening among the Lord’s people others are noticing.  The second part of verse 2 notes that: ‘then they said among the nations “the LORD has done great things for them.”’  When I was studying ‘Revival and its Results’ at college it was interesting to read contemporary secular accounts of various revivals.  Very often they would try and explain it away, but they couldn’t ignore it and they certainly couldn’t pretend it wasn’t happening!  But the challenge here is also for God’s people to acknowledge that.  So in verse 3 the phrase at the end of verse 2 is now rendered as: ‘The LORD has done great things for us; we are glad.’  The Lord’s people also acknowledge the Lord’s great work!

But whatever the Lord’s people were involved in, and whatever blessing had already been given, it was very necessary for them to request blessing to continue the work of restoration, and this is what the Psalmist now does.  The Negeb was a dry and desolate place.  Yet it was prone to flash floods which would transform it.  The Psalmist now prays for the equivalent of that in blessing (v4)!  But verses 5-6 also show how realistic the Psalmist is.  He realises that any revival of God’s people’s fortunes must start with them.  The phrase: ‘those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy!’ (v5) illustrate that repentance is often the way that the Lord starts to revive his people and indeed that is seen in their history.  Nehemiah’s great reforms started with a serious prayer of repentance (Nehemiah 1:6-8).  If the Lord is going to pour out greater measures of blessing by his Spirit, his people have to be ready for it!

It’s been said there’s three ingredients that are vital for revival to happen.  The first two are prayer and preaching, which is what we’d expect.  Perhaps it is the third that is a greater challenge for the church today, and that is the purity of God’s people!  As there is more and more of a tendency towards easy-believeism in the church today, this is the area that believers need to be challenged on if we are to stand any chance of seeing the extraordinary work of revival in our church and nation today!

Would you like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? New Years Sermon: Restore our Fortunes O Lord!

The Lord Surrounds His People

In the first film of the ‘Lord’s of the Rings’ trilogy, ‘The Fellowship of the Ring’ the scene is brilliantly set.  By using a voiceover and showing us images of the Shire (the place where the early part of the story takes place) Peter Jackson, the director and one of the writers, sums up everything we need to know in one line.  “Time moves slowly in the Shire, if it moves at all.” In this way, he quickly sets a scene of permanence and security which the book takes many pages to do.

In the same way the Psalmist achieves the same atmosphere in the first part of this psalm.  ‘Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides for ever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people, from this time forth and for evermore’ (vs1-2).  One can imagine the faithful Pilgrims looking at the mountain Jerusalem was built on and thinking of the LORD’S (‘Yahweh’, God’s Covenant name) promises to his people.  Apparently, the mountains surrounding Jerusalem hid the city.  So the picture is one of protection and security and reminds us of the blessings in the covenant (Deuteronomy 28:1-14) which were promised to the Lord’s people if they were faithful.

Yet verse 3 strikes an ominous note.  ‘For the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous, least the righteous stretch out their hands to do wrong.’  The Lord may be good to his people, but his people have to be vigilant!  It’s possible this Psalm was written at the time of Nehemiah’s reforms.  He faced opposition from without (Nehemiah 4) but also from within.  Some Israelites were oppressing their fellow countrymen by lending money and charging impossibly high interest so the work of rebuilding the city’s walls was being hindered (Nehemiah 5).  Even when the work was completed and the people had been instructed in God’s law and his covenant, after being away, Nehemiah came back to find that God’s law was being broken and the covenant ignored by some of the people (Nehemiah 13:4-31)!

I can’t remember the number of times people have said to me: “that used to be such a good Bible teaching church 20 years ago!”  So what’s happened?  Did a bunch of heretics suddenly take over its leadership overnight?  Of course not!  If that happened the faithful would notice!  Rather, the teaching of the gospel had been slowly eroded, until one morning the faithful woke up and realise they’re part of a church where the gospel has been lost!  The sad thing is: ‘the righteous’ end up being part of a corrupted church!  So the Psalmist, being a realist, calls on the Lord’s people to be vigilant and guard the truth.  The most chilling words in the New Testament are found in 1 Corinthians 10:1-6.  Here Paul reminds the Corinthian church of the immense blessing that the Israelites experience during the exodus, yet concludes: ‘Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness’ (1 Corinthians 10:5 NIV) as a warning to a proud church!

But the Psalmist takes nothing for granted.  The blessings of the first part at Deuteronomy 28 are followed by a series of curses (vs15-68) warning the people what will happen if they fail to keep their part of the covenant!  So the Psalmist prays for, and doesn’t take for granted, the Lord’s blessing to the faithful.  He prays for protection from those who would try to infiltrate the Lord’s people with bad ideas and he prays for peace (vs4-5).   As God’s people had to then, the church today must guard against false teaching.  Maybe we’ve been privileged with good gospel teaching over the years.  If so, let’s thank the Lord and be humble enough to ask for his continual protection!

Like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? The Lord Surrounds His People!

Our Help is Found in the Name of the Lord

The phrase: “it could have been so much worse” is one that suggests that by some stroke of luck things have turned out much better than they should have done.  But there’s a real   sense in this psalm that David is saying: “it should have been so much worse”.  The difference being, luck was not involved, but God was, and that made the difference!

A possible translation for the phrase ‘Songs of Ascents’ is ‘marching song’ which fits very well with the military theme of this psalm.  It may have been sung with the call and repeat theme we often see in military films featuring American soldiers and their sergeant.  The psalm has two themes and the first is relief.  It’s likely this was written during the early part of David’s reign.  He’s now the undisputed King of Israel, but when Israel’s old enemy the Philistines heard about it they: ‘went out to search for David.  But David heard of it and went down to the stronghold’ (2 Samuel 5:17).  This was a major threat to the nation and David had to retreat!  So there’s a real sense of relief that God has acted in the way he has.  But there is also a theme of praise because God has acted to redeem his people, and proved faithful in an impossible situation.

But what can a psalm like this teach us today in the difficulties we face?  I believe there are three things.  Firstly, David throws down a challenge to the people; will they acknowledge the Lord’s intervention?  The phrase: ‘when people rose up against us’ (v2) suggests a surprise attack!  So the situation was desperate and the people have to acknowledge that if they are to understand the nature of the Lord’s intervention.  Despite David’s undoubted charisma and military expertise he wants them to look to the Lord, not to him!  That’s important for believer’s to do when they see answers to their prayers; otherwise we can get a very unrealistic view of our own abilities!

Secondly, the believer has to acknowledge the desperate nature of certain situations!  In verse 4 the picture David uses is of the flash floods which were common in the desert regions around Israel and could be devastating.  David was never going to be ‘Man of the Year’ in Philistine’s eyes and this verse makes it very clear the Philistines only had one thing in mind, the annihilation of David and Israel!  Yet the outcome was very different.  The language of 2 Samuel 5:20 suggests that the Lord’s intervention was, either literally or metaphorically, like the Philistine army being swept away by a flood!  David was in a defendable position, but defendable positions can be besieged and sooner or later he was going to have to come out and fight.  So he enquired of the Lord (2 Samuel 5:19).  It was such a desperate situation that only the Lord could turn it around.  When we face issues that seem too big and difficult we need to acknowledge that.

Finally, the believer needs to acknowledge that the Lord is faithful.  I can’t help thinking that David, as he invokes God’s covenant name (Yahweh), is thinking of Deuteronomy 28:7.  ‘The Lord will cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you.  They shall come out against you one way and flee before you in seven ways.’  I suspect he was also thinking of Deuteronomy 20:4: ‘the Lord your God is he who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies, to give you the victory.’   The point was even if David and Israel were facing the most desperate situation, and verses 6-7 certainly imply that, the Lord would remember his promises to them and to David!  This is why reading the Bible each day is so important.  It’s not about gaining great theological head knowledge, but knowing, in our heart, that God is faithful and we can entrust difficult times to him.  Then we can join with David and say that it’s the Lord who makes a difference and put our confidence in him! 

Like to hear a sermon on this Psalm? Our Help is Found in the Name of the Lord.

Our Help is in the Name of the Lord.

Psalm 123 was obviously written during a time of trouble for Israel.  But what was the cause of this trouble?  Some have surmised the Psalm was written during the Assyrian King Sennacherib’s threat against Jerusalem in the reign of King Hezekiah (see Isaiah chapter 36- 37).  Others feel that it may have been written during Nehemiah’s rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem’s when he and the people were constantly under threat.  In the end, the time doesn’t particularly matter.  The key thing is that God’s people are under threat are now being ridiculed for their apparent weakness.

My wife Tracy and I love the old ‘film noir’ pictures.  I recall one in particular called ‘Key Largo’ where  Edward G. Robinson plays a notorious gangster who holds guests, the proprietor and his daughter hostage at a hotel on Key Largo.  One is the guests is played Humphrey Bogart.  So the scene is set, we have a hero and a villain and it is just a case of when Humphrey Bogart’s character will act.  That’s very much the case in this psalm.  The Psalmist see’s that God’s people are under threat, but he never doubts that the Lord will act at some point!

In verse 1 the Psalmist looks to the Lord: ‘To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!’  This conveys two things, firstly the Psalmist is giving God his rightful place, and secondly he’s expecting the Lord to intervene.  This is given added emphasis in verse 2 where he uses the illustration: ‘as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.’  In the Ancient Near East hand gestures were important in the relationship between a servant and their master as they were used for summoning the servant for service.  So this illustrates the writer is expectant and alert to the fact that God will act.  He doesn’t know when or how, but he expects it and is watching for it as he’s also expecting to play a part in the Lord’s solution to the problem.  But the illustration of the master – servant / maid – mistress relationship also illustrates his complete dependence on the Lord.  In the last part of verse 2 the writer uses the term: ‘LORD’ which in the original Hebrew text is rendered ‘Yahweh’, the covenant name of God.  And that’s significant as the covenant was made up of God’s promises to Israel, all of which he had kept!  So it illustrates the Psalmist’s supreme confidence, he expects God to answer his prayer!

But the Psalmist does more than just expect God to act.  He requests mercy from the Lord in the face of all the contempt and ridicule that he and others are facing.  I think it’s harder to face ridicule of the Gospel message rather than objections and opposition.  If someone objects to something you say, you can at least reason with them.  But when people just want to make stupid jokes about something that’s precious to you, that’s harder to deal with as it’s far more hurtful!  So the Psalmist is doing the wisest the thing he can, he petitions the Lord in prayer. We could make the mistake of thinking that the psalm ends on a negative note.  After all, the problem is not resolved as we have no indication that the Lord has answered his prayer.  But if we take that approach I believe we’ve missed something very important.  In effect, the writer of the psalm has bypassed the problem.  He has gone over the heads of those who taunt God’s people and appealed to one far greater than the most powerful of enemies as he is: ‘enthroned in the heavens!’ (v1).  The Psalmist looks to the Lord, focusing on him and expecting to be part of the action that he will take.  This is the attitude we to need to adopt in the face of opposition if we are to be effective in our service to the Lord in an age of ridiculed and cynicism!

Would you like to listen to a sermon on this Psalm? Our Help is Found in the Name of the Lord.