Matthew C. Mitchell's Blog, page 28

“You Will Not Abandon Me to the Grave” Psalm 16 [Matt's Messages]

“You Will Not Abandon Me to the Grave”Lanse Evangelical Free Church :: Resurrection SundayApril 4, 2021 :: Psalm 16
I picked Psalm 16 for Resurrection Sunday because both the Apostle Peter and the Apostle Paul preached on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from Psalm 16.
The Apostle Peter preached from Psalm 16 on the
Day of Pentecost (Acts 2) when the Holy Spirit came in power, and the church was born.
And the Apostle Paul preached from Psalm 16 in a synagogue in the city of Pisidian Antioch. Paul got up to preach about Jesus Christ being raised from the dead, and one of his key go-to passages to preach about the resurrection was Psalm 16.
For the last several months we’ve been studying the Psalms together for their fortifying truth. And the last several weeks we’ve been specifically studying the Psalms of the Passion. Those psalms that–whatever else they were doing–were prophetically singing not just about King David but about King Jesus and what He did for us on that first Passion Week.
The last three psalms (69, 55, and 22) prefigured and predicted the sufferings of our Lord Jesus.
But Psalm 16 prophesied of Jesus’ glorious resurrection!
The psalm has this confident line in verse 10 prayed directly to God, “You will not abandon me to the grave.”
“Up from the grave He arose!”
But that’s getting ahead of the story. It’s getting ahead of the song.
I want us to look at the entire psalm, not just verse 10. Because there is a lot of good stuff in Psalm 16 for our hearts today.
It’s basically a song about how good we have it if we have the Lord.
In Psalm 16, there are these words that run through this song that just sound so good.
Delight.Delightful.Pleasant.Joy. Rejoicing.Rest. Refuge.Secure. Unshaken.Pleasure. Pleasures. Eternal pleasures.
Doesn’t that sound good? That’s Psalm 16!
It’s a psalm of delight and pleasure and confidence and everlasting joy.
Psalm 16 is a song that David wrote and David sang and David lived.And it’s song that Jesus sang and Jesus lived like no one else.And it’s also a song that we all can sing with our lives today.
I think David is in trouble...again.
David is in trouble a lot. 
We saw that back when we studied 1 and 2 Samuel, and we’ve seen it again and again in the Psalms.
David is in trouble, and he calls out for help.
But Psalm 16 is a little different because–instead of pouring out his troubles and concerns and fears to the Lord (a very good thing to do that he does in other psalms)–David uses this song to express his utter confidence and utter contentment in the Lord no matter what.
In this psalm, David gives many of the reasons why he is trusting the Lord in the midst of his trouble and specifically focuses on how good he has it because he has the Lord and how good he expects to have it because he has the Lord.
Listen to verse 1. Psalm 16, verse 1.
“A miktam of David. Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.”
“Yes, I’m in trouble, and I need you to keep me safe once again. And I’m trusting in you to keep me safe.” “In you I take refuge.”
So David begins with a prayer request for help in the midst of whatever trouble he’s found himself in this time. 
But the interesting thing is–that’s the last prayer request in this song!
The whole rest of the song is David celebrating why he takes refuge in the Lord and exclaiming just how good it is to belong to Him.
If I had to sum up the entire song in one sentence it would be something like this:
IN THE LORD, I’VE GOT IT SO GOOD.
Would you say that with me? “In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.”
Say that to your neighbor today: “In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.”
Write that down if you are taking notes: “In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.”
That’s basically what he sings in verse 2. Verse 2.
“I said to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’”
Now, I want you to note the pattern here. It starts with his personal commitment, and it leads to his personal contentment. Commitment then contentment.
David says to Yahweh, “You are my Lord.” Personally. “In you I take refuge.” “And I am putting all of my eggs in your basket.” “Apart from you I have no good thing.”
King David has decided that he will follow Yahweh, and he has declared that Yahweh is where it’s at. “Apart from you I have no good thing.”
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.
#1. BECAUSE I’VE GOT THE LORD’S PERFECTIONS.
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good because I have the Lord Himself in all of his perfect goodness, and He is all that I need.
If you have everything in the world, but you don’t have the Lord, you actually have nothing.
But if you have nothing in the world, but you have the Lord, you actually have everything. Amen?
“Apart from you I have no good thing.”
And the flip-side is true, too. With You, I have all kinds of good things!
Like what? Like God’s people. Look verse 3.
“As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight.”
Point number two. (By the way I’ve got 7 of these subpoints, but they’re going to come hot and fast. Stay on your toes.)
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good. 
#2. BECAUSE  I’VE GOT THE LORD’S PEOPLE.
David is praising God for the “saints,” the faithful believers in the Lord that are in the land. His kingdom citizens who are living out the covenant by faith.
And how does David feel about them? In them (v.2) “is all my delight.”
David just loves God’s people.
If you truly love God, you will also love God’s people.
Because when we come to God, we don’t come to God alone but to God’s community, the family of God, the saints that are in the land, that are in the church.
I am just so happy to be with you all this morning. It has been so hard to be so separated from you all these last twelve months! 
You are my delight. In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.
Now, in verse 4, David paints a contrast. He’s been proclaiming his total commitment to the LORD, but that is not what others may be doing. V.4
“The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods. [The ones that are not the LORD.] I will not pour out their libations of blood or take up their names on my lips.”
David says that those who exhaust themselves chasing after other gods will only cause themselves trouble and sorrow.
And we’ve all seen that, haven’t we? Maybe not other gods like Allah or Baal or Molech, but other gods like Money, Sex, Power, Pleasure, Security, Popularity.
Those who run after them end up in a world of hurt.
David says that he is not going to get on that treadmill. He’s not going to worship at those pagan altars. Yahweh is his Lord.
Do you need to be reminded of that today? What have you been chasing recently? And where does that lead?
David knows how futile following counterfeit gods can be.
And he knows how good it is to follow the one true God.
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.
#3. BECAUSE I’VE GOT THE LORD’S PROVISIONS. Look at verses 5 and 6.
“LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
Isn’t that wonderful?!
David uses metaphors of portion and cup which conveys like “real wealth” and “real satisfaction” and “real pleasure” (Tim Keller). And he uses the metaphor of land allotment like when the twelve tribes got their land inheritances in the book of Joshua?
“[Y]ou have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
It’s just a beautiful way of saying, “Boy, do I have it good!”
“I just love how things have fallen out for me. This line right here is in just the best place. And everything inside of it is so wonderful.”
And the point is not real estate! Not ultimately. The inheritance here is the Lord Himself and then everything else he provides.
It’s kind of like “count your blessings” like we sang back on Celebration Sunday.
But it’s more like, “I have more blessings than I can count. And the blessings I have  are more wonderful than I can describe.”
It’s better than anything.
And we who belong to Jesus know that this is true for us. There is nothing greater than knowing Him. 
Philippians 3:8, “I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord...”
“[S]urely I have a delightful inheritance.”
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good. Do you feel it?
David sure does. He goes on to say that he has the Lord’s guidance. Or we’ll say to keep up the alliteration, “The Lord’s path.”
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.
#4. BECAUSE I’VE GOT THE LORD’S PATH. V.7
“I will praise the LORD, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.”
When you have the Lord, you have the Lord’s counsel and direction. You have God’s Word hidden in your heart, and at night time as you mull it over, the Lord can speak to you through that Word hidden in your heart, and you get His direction and get set on His path.
Do you see how David is so full of contentment?
He’s so happy!
Are you happy like David is?
Now, we know that he’s not always this happy. He sure wasn’t this happy in most of Psalm 22 last week, was he?
There is a time for lament. Hard times call for hard prayers.
But total commitment also leads to total contentment when you have the Lord.
David is saying, “In the Lord, I have it so good.”
#5. BECAUSE I’VE GOT THE LORD’S PRESENCE. Look at verse 8.
“I have set the LORD always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
Now, where is the LORD in verse 8?
David sings that he has set the Lord before him. So he’s got his eyes fixed on the Lord. A very good idea! Keep your focus on the Lord.
But where is the Lord in verse 8? He also says, “Because [the LORD] is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.”
Which is it? Before beside? It’s both, right?
I think he means that the LORD is not just his goal but his guide. And his defense. He stands by David. He stands with David. He is there to help.
The Lord is present.
Notice again, the pattern of commitment then contentment.
He sets the LORD before him, that’s a commitment to put the Lord first.
And he finds the Lord beside him, that’s contentment in the Lord.
He says, “I will not be shaken.”
I don’t know about you, but I want that for my life. I am so easily shaken.
I want to be unshakable.
And that only comes with knowing the presence of the Lord. Before and beside.
But here’s how unshakable David feels. He is ready to praise God with his whole being. V.9
“Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because [and here’s our key verse for Resurrection Sunday] you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.”
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.
#6. BECAUSE I’VE GOT THE LORD’S PROMISE.
David rejoices with his heart and voice, and also his body. He feels so secure. So happy. So blessed to belong to the Lord.
And I think that David expects to be rescued once again.
Now, verse 10 is kind of tricky to interpret. And there are a lot of legitimate possibilities for how to understand it.
Some biblical scholars think that David is saying that he expects to die but not to be abandoned to the place of the wicked. That word for “grave” in the NIV is “Sheol” in Hebrew and can be translated “Hades” or even “Hell.” So in that interpretation, David is saying that he won’t be lost in hell and the “decay” in the second part of the verse (what we call the B-line) is “corruption” as in eternal corruption. 
David would be saying, “I know that you will keep my soul out of Hell.”
And that’s possible. Lots of good theologians take it that way.
But, with other theologians, I think he’s basically just saying that he doesn’t expect to die today.
He might be in trouble. He might be on the run. 
Things may be heating up for him, but David believes that God is protecting him at this point and that God will deliver him on this day.
Of course, David doesn’t expect to live on forever. But, on this day, he expects to live to see tomorrow.
“You’re not going to abandon me to ‘Sheol’ [the place of the dead] in this crisis, Lord. I don’t believe that. I believe I have your promise to get out of this.”
And the second part could mean the same thing because of Hebrew parallelism. “Nor will you let your Holy One [i.e. David as the anointed king] see decay.”
This is how good I’ve got it in the Lord. I am not dying today! I believe I have your promise on that.
Now we come to Jesus.
Now we come to those sermons of Peter and Paul when they quoted Psalm 16 in Acts 2 and 13.
If you have your Bible, you might want to turn to Acts 2, verse 22.
And see again why we are gathered here today.
Peter is preaching to the Jews on the day of Pentecost. He says: 
“Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. [“Death could not keep his prey. He tore the bars away.”] 
David said about him [And here’s our Psalm 16]: ‘'I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.'
[It turns out that Psalm 16 was about Jesus all along! V.29 of Acts 2.]
“Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. [He did eventually go into his grave and decay!] But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. [There was a greater Holy One who could fill up verse 10 in a way that David never could. David was a prophet (to what degree he knew and understood that we don’t know, but Peter says:] Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact” (Acts 2:22-32).
The last couple of weeks we’ve said that whatever David merely tasted, Jesus swallowed whole.
So David experienced betrayal. Jesus experienced betrayal like no other.David felt like he was being attacked by vicious dogs. Jesus literally had his hands and feet pierced.David felt forsaken by his God. Jesus basically was forsaken by His God on the cruel Cross.
But the flip-side is also true.
Whatever good things David was singing about in part, Jesus experienced to the fullest.
So if King David expected to not be abandoned to the grave by not going into the grave, King Jesus was not abandoned to the grave by going into it and then coming right out of it!
Walking right out of it! Alive again!
If King David expected as the “Holy One” to avoid decay because he avoided death on the day he wrote Psalm 16, King Jesus was the really Holy One” who really avoided decay by not decaying even after He actually died!
By being resurrected with a body with new properties.
With the perishable now clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
To now live in the power of an indestructible life.
“He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today!”
So nobody can say like Jesus can say, “In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.!”
Of course, He had to go through so bad to get to that good. But now He’s so good and will be forever. 
And that’s good news for us. Because it means our salvation. That’s where the Apostle Paul took it in Acts 13 when he preached a sermon on Psalm 16.
He was preaching to Jews and Gentiles in this synagogue in Pisidian Antioch, and he told the gospel story once again. Paul told them about how Jesus was crucified, buried in the tomb but then (Acts 13:30), “But God raised him from the dead, and for many days he was seen by those who had traveled with him from Galilee to Jerusalem. They are now his witnesses to our people. We tell you the good news: What God promised our fathers he has fulfilled for us, their children, by raising up Jesus. As it is written in the second Psalm: ‘'You are my Son; today I have become your Father.' 
The fact that God raised him from the dead, never to decay, is stated in these words: ‘'I will give you the holy and sure blessings promised to David.' So it is stated elsewhere: ‘'You will not let your Holy One see decay.' [That’s the promise of Psalm 16:10.] For when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep; he was buried with his fathers and his body decayed. But the one whom God raised from the dead did not see decay. Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you” (Acts 13:30-38).
You see, because Jesus died and was raised to life, we can be forgiven.
You can be forgiven. 
And even more than that! You and I can also trust the promise that we will not be abandoned to the grave forever when we die. But we, too, will be raised up, resurrected to be with Jesus Christ in imperishable immortal bodies, as well.
To experience the blessings of the Lord’s presence forever.
Forever! That’s where David goes with his last verse of this amazingly beautiful song.
After all is said and done, even beyond the grave, this is what will remain for those who have the Lord. V.11
“You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good.
#7. BECAUSE I’VE GOT THE LORD’S PLEASURES.
And they are eternal pleasures.
I can’t wrap my mind around that, but I look forward to experiencing it forever.
Talk about delight!
Talk about the boundary lines falling in pleasant places!
For all eternity: “[Y]ou will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”
It doesn’t get any better than that and yet it will never get worse!
That’s what we have to look forward to because we’ve got the Lord.
In the Lord, I’ve got it so good, and I’ll have it so good forever.
Not because of anything I have done.
Or because of anything King David has done.
But because of what King Jesus has done going down, down, down into the grave.
It looked like he was abandoned there.
That word “abandoned” in the Hebrew is the exact same Hebrew word translated “forsaken” last week in Psalm 22 and the Greek word also matches in Matthew and Acts.
Jesus felt abandoned, forsaken, into the grave.
But He also went down singing in his heart Psalm 16:10, “You will not abandon me to the grave! You will not let your Holy One see decay!”
And He did not stay in the grave.
Nor did He gather any decay.
Instead, He came back to life to give us forgiveness for all who put their faith in Him. [I hope that’s you!]
And He came back to life to give us life with him in His presence filled with joy and experiencing eternal pleasures at HIS right hand.
No longer are we talking about God being at our right hand.
Now, we are at His. Together with Jesus enjoying Him forevermore.
“Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian, lift up your voice and singEternal halleluahs to Jesus Christ the King.”
***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021 / Spring 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 96
20. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86
21. "May All the Peoples Praise" - Psalm 67
22. "A Wedding Song" - Psalm 45
23. "My Feet Had Almost Slipped" - Psalm 73
24. “Rejoicing Comes in the Morning" - Psalm 30
25. 'The Waters Have Come Up To My Neck" - Psalm 69
26. "Cast Your Cares on the LORD" - Psalm 55
27. "“My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?”

“My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?” Psalm 22 [Matt's Messages]

“My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?”Lanse Evangelical Free Church March 28, 2021 :: Psalm 22
For the last several months we have been studying together the fortifying truth of the Psalms. And for the last several weeks we have
been specifically focusing on the Psalms of the Passion [Psalm 69, Psalm 55].
The Psalms of the Passion were songs written over a thousand years before Jesus was even born and, yet upon mature Christian reflection, are obviously songs that were singing about our Lord Jesus and what He endured for us on that first Passion Week.
Psalm 22 is the greatest of the Psalms of the Passion.
You and I, as Christians, cannot read Psalm 22 without seeing and hearing Jesus. If you’re a Christian, it’s just about impossible to miss Jesus in Psalm 22.
Because Jesus Himself quoted this very psalm when He was hanging on the Cross!
Jesus clearly lived out this Psalm like nobody ever before Him or ever since.
At the same time, God’s people had sung this song for a thousand years before Jesus was ever born.
It was written originally by King David about an incredibly difficult time in his own life. We don’t know exactly which one, but there were many.
And it was written in such a way that believers could model our prayers off of it when we are going through difficult times, as well.
Our suffering doesn’t compare with Jesus’ of course, and yet our sufferings are real, and God’s Word teaches us how to pray when we feel. real. pain.
Psalm 22 is a lament that shows us how to pray when we feel awful like King David did.
And Psalm 22 is a prophetic song that shows us more clearly what King Jesus felt when He suffered and died for us.
And, at the very end, Psalm 22 gives us glimpse of the glory that is coming because of God’s deliverance, a foretaste of what we’re going to focus on next Sunday when we celebrate the Resurrection of our Lord.

Psalm 22, verse 1.
“For the director of music. To the tune of ‘The Doe of the Morning.’ A psalm of David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.”
I don’t know what the tune of “The Doe of the Morning” sounded like. “The Deer at Dawn.” My guess is that it started, at least, in a minor key because these are sad lyrics. 
They are raw, aren’t they?
King David must have been feeling extreme anguish to write a song like this.
He felt horrible. He felt terrible. He felt miserable.
He felt abandoned.
He felt forsaken.
And it was disorienting. Bewildering. Mystifying. 
“My God, my God, WHY have you forsaken me? WHY are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.” 
That word “groaning” in verse 1 shows up again in verse 13 to describe the roaring of a lion.
King David is “roaring” out to God. He’s crying out in a primal scream. Day and night.
But it seems like God is not answering!
Like God has blocked his number. He’s getting a busy signal. His calls are all going right to voicemail and the voicemail box is full or has not been set up. So try again later. And nobody will answer then either.
That’s how it feels.
David feels rejected.David feels abandoned.David feels forsaken.
And, of course, whatever David felt, Jesus felt even more.
King Jesus is Great David’s Greatest Son.
What David merely tasted, Jesus swallowed whole.
So if King David felt forsaken, how much more did King Jesus?!
That’s why these words were on the lips of our Savior when He was hanging on the Cross. He couldn’t think of a better quotation to make His prayer as He was crucified. 
He prayed these words in Aramaic. Matthew 27:46,“About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?’– which means [Psalm 22, verse 1], ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”
It’s not that Jesus didn’t know the answer. It’s that He felt the question like never before.
Jesus, the Son of God, in His humanity was feeling the abandonment of God as He absorbed the wrath of God because of the love of God for His rebellious people.
We call this, “The Cry of Dereliction” because of just how bad it felt for Jesus to become sin for us. The Bible says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Jesus was being treated–as if He was sin itself–with the full justice of God. 
So, of course, it felt to the Son of God like His God was forsaking Him!
With all of the unimaginable horror that would go with it.
“My God, my God, why?” 
Jesus knew the answer, but He was experiencing the excruciating pain of the question.
Now you and I have never felt this way like Jesus did.
Perhaps we’ve never felt this way like even David did.
But we’ve all felt abandoned before. We’ve all felt forsaken before.
And, I’ll bet that most of us, if not all of us, here have felt at one time or another forsaken by God.
Life hurts. Honk if you’ve had a nice light easy year with no trouble. I thought so. And this might not have been your worst year ever or your worst year yet.
How do you pray when your life feels like this? How do you pray when it feels like God has stopped taking your calls?
Two points this morning of what we can learn about prayer in pain from Psalm 22.
#1. PRAY YOUR DISTRESS.
Don’t stop talking to God even when it feels like God is not listening.
That’s what David is doing here, right? He keeps praying.
And don’t miss the key little two-letter word that’s in there 3 times in the first 3 verses. What is it?
“My.” 
He calls God, “My God.” “My God.” “My God.” That’s a relationship word.
He’s taking these terrible feelings–even terrible feelings about his God–TO HIS GOD.
He prays his distress.
One of the things that makes him so distressed is that he knows that God has been faithful to deliver Israel in the past, and it makes him wonder why He’s not doing it for David right now. Verse 3.
“Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.
But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people. All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him.’”
David feels downright inhuman. He’s been trusting the LORD like Israel in the past, but the LORD has not yet delivered him from his sufferings. And it makes him feel less than human.
Like a worm. Like the lowest of the creatures trampled under foot. Fill of dirt.
And treated like dirt by the people around him. 
Scorned. Despised. Mocked. Insulted. 
You can’t help but see Jesus here, can you?
Jesus in the garden.Jesus in the temple.Jesus in the courtyard.Jesus on trial.Jesus on the Cross.
Scorned. Despised. Mocked. Insulted. 
In fact, the gospel writers tell us that the people who were taunting Jesus when He was on the cross literally said these words, “He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.’”
They were wickedly and unwittingly fulfilling Psalm 22, verses 7&8! “Sure doesn’t seem like the LORD delights in him!”
And David experienced something similar but smaller.
And you and I have and will experience something similar but smaller, as well.
What do you when that happens?
Well, one of the things you do is you tell your God all about it.
You pray your distress back to your Lord.
I know that I would rather sing a upbeat praise song or even a comforting ballad.
How about the next Psalm? Psalm 23. Anybody like that one? Honk if you like Psalm 23.
Everybody loves Psalm 23, and with good reason.
But we don’t just need to pray like Psalm 23. We need to pray like Psalm 22.
Pray your distress.
What made it even harder for David was that God had been near him his whole life long, but now it felt like he was far away. Verse 9.
“Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother's womb you have been my God. [There it is again, “my God.”]  Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.”
Trouble is near, but God seems far.
And yet David keeps talking to Him.
And asking Him to intervene.
Verse 11 is a great prayer. It’s a plea for help, and we’ve been learning that an essential feature of godly prayer is asking God to help us when we are in trouble.
And David sure was in trouble. Verse 12.
“Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. Roaring lions tearing their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd [a broken piece of pottery], and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.”
This is bad.
This is really bad.
David says that he’s being attacked by wild animals.
I don’t think they were literally animals. I think it’s a metaphor. He’s under attack from wild people who hate him and want to take him down.
And it’s feeling right now like they are going to win, and he’s going to die.
He just about can’t go on.
His attackers are like strong bulls from the Texas of Israel, the region of Bashan where they grew their cattle big and strong. You don’t want to get trampled by one of these big old bulls from Bashan.
They aren’t just bulls. They are lions that tear open their prey, and David is their prey.
He’s their victim. And it’s got him weak and defeated and deflated and exhausted. He’s dehydrated and racked with thirst.
And Who does that remind you of?
Remember, this was written over a thousand years before Jesus was born.
But it sure sounds a lot like His crucifixion to me.
David’s enemies are not just like bulls and lions. They are also like dogs. V.16
“Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.”
For David, this might have been figurative about dog bites.
But for Jesus, sadly, it was very literal. 
“...they have pierced my hands and my feet.”
Verse 17. “I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”
The Gospel of John tells us that this was fulfilled literally in Jesus, as well.
Think about that! One of the Roman soldiers went home on Friday from work with Jesus’ clothing.
He’s emaciated. He’s shamed. He’s suffering.
And He’s praying. 
Verse 19. “But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me. Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.”
When you are in distress, pray your distress, and ask God to deliver you from your distress.
David did.
I don’t know about you, but I have learned a lot in the last twelve months about lament. About praying painful prayers to God.
God wants us to bring our whole souls to Him even when we are hurting.
Especially when we are hurting.
And we could be hurting from a whole boatload of different things.
I’m sure there is a lot of pain right here in this parking lot today.
Take it to the Lord.
Take the whole blistering mess to the Lord.
Because the God of Psalm 23 is the same God of Psalm 22.
So you can take everything to Him and tell Him everything you feel including that you feel like He is not listening.
Because you know, down deep, that He is.
David kept praying even though he felt like this.
And so did Jesus.
David prayed for deliverance, and surprisingly, he still expected it to come.
Some translations round off verse 21 by saying, “You have saved me!” or “You have answered me!” like the answer came while David was actually still writing the song.
And that’s possible. My guess is that he’s actually just anticipating it. David expects to be rescued once again even though he feels like this, and so he plans to praise God and to proclaim his deliverance.
And that’s point two of two this morning. Pray your distress and:
#2. PROCLAIM YOUR DELIVERANCE.
In verse 22, the psalm changes dramatically.
I’m wondering if there is even a key change in the “Doe of the Morning” tune right here.
Any way about it, it gets ratcheted up into a glorious praise song. Verse 22.
“I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you. [He’s no longer alone. Or at least, he expects to not be alone.] You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.”
David knows that God is listening.
It may not feel like it, but he knows.
And he expects to be delivered from his great distress.
V.24.  God “has not hidden his face from [David] but has listened to his cry for help.”
And so he plans to praise God, and he wants others to praise God, too. Like we’ve seen over and over again this year, this praise is contagious.
It goes from David to Israel and then out to the nations. Verse 25.
“From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows. The poor will eat and be satisfied; they who seek the LORD will praise him–may your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations.”
He’s not just the Lord of Israel.
He’s the Lord of the whole wide world!
This is a missionary psalm, isn’t it?
This is a psalm that starts in Israel and emanates out to the ends of the earth.
Even to Central Pennsylvania. V.29.
“All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him–those who cannot keep themselves alive. [Which is all of us. And not just then but now and forever.] Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn–for he has done it.”
You know who he’s talking about?
Well, among others, he’s talking about us.
This was written about 3,000 years ago by King David.
And it predicts us.
That people in a parking lot in central Pennsylvania who were not yet born (really not yet born! 3,000 years not born!) will hear about the righteousness of God and the deliverance of God.
How God saved David.And how God saves us.
We don’t do it.We can’t save ourselves.
But what does verse 31 say? “He has done it.”
To me, that sounds a lot like what Jesus said on the Cross when He cried, “It is finished.”
Proclaim your deliverance. 
Assuming you’ve been delivered. Verse 27 says that we have to repent. We have to turn to the Lord and put our faith in Him, bowing before Him.
To be saved, we must turn from our sins and trust in the Savior.
Jesus died on the Cross to pay for sins. He absorbed the wrath of God.
Jesus felt this forsaken so that we will never be forsaken.
“He has done it.”
Trust in Him, and proclaim His deliverance.
Now, of course, that doesn’t mean that every time you pray, you will be delivered in the way that you are hoping or on the timetable that you are proposing.
David, apparently, lived to fight another day.
You and I may not.
Jesus did not.
On the day that Jesus prayed Psalm 22, He was crucified and died.
But, and here’s a spoiler for next Sunday, He didn’t stay dead!
He came back to life to give us life.
Jesus was delivered, too.
And He also proclaims His own deliverance!
Did verse 22 sound familiar to you?
“I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you.”
Well, that gets quoted in the New Testament book of Hebrews, chapter 2.
And guess who it says is singing that song?
If you guessed, “Jesus,” you guessed right!
Hebrews 2:11-12. Jesus is not ashamed to call [us family] “He says, ‘I will declare your name to my brothers; in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises.’”
Even Jesus proclaimed His deliverance.
Deliverance from death.
I can’t hardly wait for us all to come back next Sunday and sing about it and proclaim our deliverance and praise our deliverer!

***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021 / Spring 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 96
20. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86
21. "May All the Peoples Praise" - Psalm 67
22. "A Wedding Song" - Psalm 45
23. "My Feet Had Almost Slipped" - Psalm 73
24. “Rejoicing Comes in the Morning" - Psalm 30
25. 'The Waters Have Come Up To My Neck" - Psalm 69
26. "Cast Your Cares on the LORD" - Psalm 55

“Cast Your Cares on the LORD” Psalm 55 [Matt's Messages]

“Cast Your Cares on the LORD”Lanse Evangelical Free ChurchMarch 21, 2021 :: Psalm 55
Last weekend, we began a short series of sermons within our series of sermons on the psalms.
We began to focus on what we’re calling the “Psalms of the Passion,” that is psalms that were written a thousand years before Jesus was even born but upon mature Christian reflection obviously were singing about the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ.
These songs had meaning for King David and the other faithful believers who sang them when they were first written, but they also foreshadowed and prefigured great King David’s greatest Son, King Jesus and what He went through in His passion.
Last time, we looked at Psalm 69 which is probably the most quoted psalm in the New Testament. Today, I want us to turn to Psalm 55 which is only quoted directly, as far as I can tell, one time in the New Testament and that’s in 1 Peter chapter 5, not the gospels.
But Christians for centuries have heard the voice of Jesus as they have read Psalm 55, especially as they contemplate how Jesus must have felt when He was betrayed.
Because Psalm 55 is a song about betrayal.
King David was under attack. He was threatened on every side. And it was scary!
But the worst part of his experience recounted in this song was that it wasn’t a faceless enemy that was behind the attacks on David and his city. 
His enemy had once been his friend.
Have you ever been betrayed? We’ve all tasted betrayal on some level. 
King David experienced it on an excruciating level.
King Jesus experienced it on a crucifying level.
What do you do when betrayal happens to you?
Well, here’s the title of our message for today. It actually comes from the end of Psalm 55. It’s in verse 22. It’s the bottom line. It’s the bedrock at the end of the day of what we should do when something like this happens to us:
“Cast Your Cares on the LORD.” 
Cast Your Cares on Yahweh, the Triune God of the Universe.
Now, that sounds nice. It’s obviously right. Christians all know this, don’t we?
But might sound trite or too easy. Or too nice. Or too pretty.
It might sound like a little meme with a pretty background with a flower or a tree picture with it that you post on social media.
“Cast your cares on the LORD.”
But we’ll see as we read Psalm 55 that that word “cares” is describing an awful reality. Real burdens. Real pain. Real heartache and anguish.
From which David never actually escapes in this psalm! When the song is over and the record stops playing, it still hurts.
Which makes the call to cast your cares more meaningful, not less. And the promise that goes with it, too.
Let me show you what I mean. Let’s get into Psalm 55 together and see and feel for ourselves these “cares” that David was experiencing. 

Psalm 55, verse 1.
“For the director of music. With stringed instruments. A maskil [a teaching psalm] of David. 
Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me. My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught at the voice of the enemy, at the stares of the wicked; for they bring down suffering upon me and revile me in their anger.” 
You can hear from the git-go how much David is struggling.
This is a prayer. He goes right to God from the start.
“Listen to my prayer, O God, do not ignore my plea; hear me and answer me.”
That’s where to go. But these are the prayers of a man at peace who is experiencing joy and tranquility and blessing.
This is a man besieged.
And think about these words being sung by and prayed by Jesus, too.
“My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught at the voice of the enemy, at the stares of the wicked; for they bring down suffering upon me and revile me in their anger.” 
He’s surrounded. He’s under attack. He hears his enemies’ voices. He feels their stares. He feels their anger. There is violence coming at him.
And how does he feel? 
Look at verse 4.
“My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death assail me. Fear and trembling have beset me; horror has overwhelmed me.”
This is terrible!
Have you felt like this?
What did you do when you felt like this?
I have only two major points of application to make from Psalm 55 for us to learn today. And here’s the first one:
#1. TELL HIM.
When you feel these kinds of feelings, when you experience this kind of distress, when you are afraid with these kinds of fears, make sure you tell God how you feel!
All too often we have the idea that we have to get ourselves all cleaned up to pray. We have to get ourselves all composed and at peace and calmed down to present our prayers before the Lord.
Does David sound calm?!
Remember Jesus praying the Garden of Gethsemane?
How He fell down on His face? How He sweat drops of blood? How He asked that the cup be taken from Him?
David wants out.  David wants to check out. He doesn’t even want to be king any more. Not if it means this. He wishes that he could just get away from it all. Verse 6.
“I said, ‘Oh, that I had the wings of a dove! I would fly away and be at rest–I would flee far away and stay in the desert; Selah I would hurry to my place of shelter, far from the tempest and storm.”
That sounds kind of pretty, “wings of a dove,” but he’s basically saying that he wishes he could get out of his contract.
He is done. He’s over it. “I wish I didn’t have to do this any more.”
Have you ever felt like that? How many times have we said "I'm over this" in the last year?
It’s normal to feel that some times.
Great King David felt like that.
Even the Greatest King Jesus felt like that!
The question is what do you do when you feel like that?
Tell Him.
That’s part of what it means to cast your cares on the LORD. It means to cry this stuff out to Him!
It’s not wrong to want out. And it’s not wrong to tell the Lord you feel that way.
“I wish I wasn’t here” is a faithful prayer for a Christian to pray when the attacks are on the way.
And while you’re telling Him how you really feel, you can also ask Him to fix it. That’s what David does in verse 9.
“Confuse the wicked, O Lord, confound their speech [mix-up their signals, block their channels, so they aren’t successful in their wicked plans], for I see violence and strife in the city. Day and night they prowl about on its walls; malice and abuse are within it.  Destructive forces are at work in the city; threats and lies never leave its streets.”
Things are bad. And they aren’t getting any better. The threat is constant. David wants the Lord to scramble the communications of the wicked just like He did at the Tower of Babel so that these gangs of insurrectionists will not be triumphant in destroying Jerusalem. There is no escape in sight.
But here’s the worst part. Verse 12.
“If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it; if a foe were raising himself against me, I could hide from him. But it is you, a man like myself, my companion, my close friend, with whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship as we walked with the throng at the house of God.”
“It is you!”
Those are the worst three words in this song.
I think that a lot of the psalms are like Country Music Songs. Country at its best gets at the human experience (often of loss) in short memorable lyrics with images and licks that stick with you.
I think Hank Williams could have done something good with “Wings of a Dove.”
And I think that Johnny Cash could have done something like verses 12 through 14 with the song title, “But it is you.”
Betrayal is a special kind of pain.
Because we have opened ourselves up to our friends and loved ones. We have made ourselves vulnerable.
That’s why divorce is so excruciatingly painful. Because you have opened yourself up and showed all of your vulnerabilities to someone who now hurts you.
David was betrayed by his son Absalom. And he was betrayed by his counselor Ahithophel. This could be about either of them or someone else from his inner circle.
Whoever it was, it was someone really close to him.
A peer, a buddy, a “church friend.” They used to worship in the temple together!
And now this?!
Notice that David directly addresses this traitor in the song. It’s just like a Country Song, isn’t it? “You did this. And it hurts.”
And think about Judas. 
How close had Judas come to Jesus?
Jesus had washed his bare feet.
Now, just like week, we can be surprised or embarrassed by the imprecatory prayers such as verse 15.
But they are simply righteous requests for the Lord to make things right.
They are prayers for God to bring justice. To fix things. To right wrongs.
David is not asking for his own imperfect justice. And he’s not taking vengeance in his own hands. He is asking God for justice. Verse 15.
“Let death take my enemies by surprise; let them go down alive to the grave, for evil finds lodging among them.”
If they are going to be like that? If my old friend has become my new enemy, then let him get swallowed up like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in the desert.
If they are unrepentant, “evil finds lodging among them,” then, Lord, bring them down!
Tell Him. Ask Him. Call upon the Lord to fix things. Verse 16
“But I call to God, and the LORD saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice. He ransoms me unharmed from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. God, who is enthroned forever, will hear them and afflict them–[Selah] men who never change their ways and have no fear of God.”
Do you see what David is doing?
He is calling out to the Lord for help.
He does this again and again the Psalms. We said that last week. We’ll see again and again.
The Psalms are full of the cries for help. Turning to God with our problems. Telling Him how we feel, what we are going through and what we need.
How often do you do that?
I believe that one of the things the Lord has done in many of our hearts in the last twelve difficult months has been teaching us to really pray about how we feel.
To really tell God how it is in our hearts.
And to really cry out to God to bring change.
How often do we do that?
David says that he does it (v.17), “Evening, morning, and noon.”
That’s probably a way of saying, “All day long.”
But it’s not a bad idea to set a timer on your phone and stop to pray several times a day.
“Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.”
Do you hear that note of confidence? He still is distressed, but he’s also trusting. That’s going to be our second and last point of application for Psalm 55.
#2. TRUST HIM.
David has experienced the deliverance of God time and time again, and he expects it again once more. V.18
“He ransoms me unharmed [literally, “shalomed” at peace] from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me. God, who is enthroned forever, will hear them and afflict them–men who never change their ways and have no fear of God.”
Again, they are unrepentant. They are unchanging in their opposition to David and to God.
Well, it turns out that God is unchanging, too!
He is enthroned forever. He is “King Forevermore!” His throne will not budge.
Remember when we read that back in Psalm 93 this Fall?
“Your throne was established long ago; you are from all eternity.The seas have lifted up, O LORD, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves.Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea– the LORD on high is mighty.”
Nothing changes that. Nothing!
Not even the betrayal of our closest friends. Verse 20.
“My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant. His speech is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart; his words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords.”
How about that for lyrics of a country song?
I’ll bet Dolly Parton could do wonders with “smooth as butter” and “soothing than oil” yet “war is in his heart” and his words are “drawn swords.”
A two-faced back-stabber.
That’s what he was.
That’s what Ahithophel was.That’s what Judas was.That’s what the traitor in your life was.
What are you going to do about it?
Yes, you can confront them. David did in this song!
But more than that, you can tell the Lord about them and what they did to you.
And then you can cast your cares upon Him. Verse 22.
“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.”
That’s no small thing!That’s no trite thing!That’s not a platitude for some plaque somewhere.
That’s taking your real pain and burden and casting your cares off of your back and onto the Lord’s back.
And finding that even if the pain doesn’t subside, the Lord will sustain you.
Because if you belong to Him, you will never fall.
That doesn’t mean you won’t ever die. 
Jesus sang this song to the fullest and He died after being betrayed. 
But He didn't fall.
And He didn’t fail!
And His faith didn’t fail. He trusted God to the end. And God raised Him up from the dead. Resurrection Sunday is just two weeks away!
This is verse that is quoted in 1 Peter chapter 5, verse 7: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.”
What David is singing in Psalm 55 is that even if your closest friend lets you down...
More than lets you down! If you closest friend turns on you and betrays you, can you know that the LORD will never let you down!
The LORD will never betray you!
He will NEVER let the righteous fall.
He will not just carry your burdens.
He will carry you.
“Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you...”
That’s the promise.
The promise is the God will, in His perfect timing and in His perfect way [God will,  fix everything and bring perfect justice. V.23
“But you, O God, will bring down the wicked into the pit of corruption; bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days. But as for me, I trust in you.”
That’s the way to end, isn’t it?
Remember, David is still scared.
He still feels everything from verses 1 through 21!
All of the fear.All of the anguish.All of the pain of betrayal.
But he also is confident that God will fix everything.
And so he trusts Him.
Can you say that, too?
“But as for me, I trust in you.”
***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 96
20. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86
21. "May All the Peoples Praise" - Psalm 67
22. "A Wedding Song" - Psalm 45
23. "My Feet Had Almost Slipped" - Psalm 73
24. “Rejoicing Comes in the Morning" - Psalm 30 
25. 'The Waters Have Come Up To My Neck" - Psalm 69

“The Waters Have Come Up To My Neck” Psalm 69 [Matt's Messages]

“The Waters Have Come Up To My Neck”Lanse Evangelical Free ChurchMarch 14, 2021 :: Psalm 69
I sure was wrong one year ago when I predicted that we would probably be no longer worried about the "new coronavirus" in just a few months! 
Good thing “I am not a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, and I work for a non-profit organization” (as Walt Kaiser would say). I was wrong about that one.
It has been quite a year for the whole world in dealing with this pandemic. And it’s been quite a year for our little church. It’s been really hard, but God has been really good.
For 52 Sundays now we have provided one of these videos for use in worship at home. We finished the Gospel of Matthew, then we went through the Letter to the Philippians, and then we settled into the Fortifying Truth of the Psalms. 
And, Lord-willing, we’re going stay there in the Psalms for a little bit longer. They are so rich and so sweet and so good for our hearts!
During this season of the church’s year, we tend to focus on the Passion of Jesus, on that crucial last week before His crucifixion. We focus on Jesus’ sufferings and what He went through for us on the Cross.
And there are a number of Psalms, written a thousand years before Jesus was even born, that predicted, prefigured, and foreshadowed Jesus’ passion.
For the next 3 Sundays, I want us to look at “Psalms of the Passion.” Psalms that, upon reflection, obviously are singing about the suffering of our Lord Jesus.
And the first one will be Psalm 69. Psalm 69.
Psalm 69 is probably quoted more than any other Psalm in the New Testament. If the New Testament were hyperlinked with little blue text underlines every time there is a quote, there would probably be more links to Psalm 69 than any other Psalm in the Psalter. You’ll hear the echoes as we read it.
As we read Psalm 69, we can’t help but hear and see the Lord Jesus.
That’s how the apostles felt as they wrote the New Testament. Again and again they said, “This psalm is about Jesus.” 
And it’s also about us. Psalm 69 is a prayer song for us to use as a model when we need help and are under hateful attack.
King David was under attack from his enemies. He was experiencing overwhelming persecution, and he felt like he was going to drown.
Last time, in Psalm 30, we read about a time when David had been pulled up from almost drowning. This time it feels like he’s just about to go down for the count.
He says that “The Waters Have Come Up To My Neck.”
And he calls out to the LORD for help. 

Psalm 69, verse 1.
“For the director of music. To the tune of ‘Lilies.’ Of David. Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God.”
I wonder what the tune “Lilies” sounded like? It’s the same tune as Psalm 45, that beautiful wedding song that we studied a month ago. David used it for this song as well, which is more of a lament, a sad song.
David clearly is suffering, isn’t he? The waters are up to his neck, and there is no place to put his foot to keep his head above water. He’s floundering and going to drown. And he’s been yelling for help, and nobody is coming. His throat is parched and his eyes are going blind searching for God’s rescue.
You get the sense of someone lost at sea and about to die a watery death.
But all of that is just metaphorical. He’s not literally drowning in the water. He’s under attack from hateful persecutors. Verse 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.”
Do you get the picture?
David is the victim of injustice, of slander.
He’s got irrational enemies with no good reason to hate him, but yet they do.
And they are seeking to destroy him. Can you feel it?
They have claimed that he’s stolen something. We don’t know what. Perhaps they are saying that he stole the throne from Saul. Or that he’s embezzling funds that were meant for the building of the temple for his own use. Or that he’s stealing from the people with excessive taxes to buy the building materials for the temple.
We don’t know what their slander was. But we know that David was paying for it!
He was suffering for it, even though he was innocent of the charges.
Sound like anybody you know?
Nobody was ever hated like Jesus was hated for no good reason.
There’s no good reason to hate Jesus, but He sure was, and He sure is.
And Jesus suffered for crimes He did not commit. That’s what Passion Week is all about.
Now, David is not claiming to be sinless. God knows! Verse 5.
“You know my folly, O God; my guilt is not hidden from you.”
But he’s saying, “This thing I’m suffering for today is not my guilt! God knows that I am guilty, but not of this. This suffering is undeserved.”
And, of course, every iota of Jesus’ suffering was undeserved.
King David was worried that the shame that was coming to him though he had not done anything to deserve it was going to rub off on God’s holy people because it was smearing him, their king. Verse 6.
“May those who hope in you not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, the LORD Almighty; may those who seek you not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel.”
This is another way of asking for rescue.
David is saying that if he dies in unjust disgrace, it will bring unjust disgrace on God’s holy people. He’s thinking of others, not just himself. And He’s thinking about the LORD and how it all reflects on Him. Verse 7.
“For I endure scorn for your sake, and shame covers my face. I am a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my own mother's sons; for zeal for your house consumes me, and the insults of those who insult you fall on me.”
You can’t help but hear Jesus here, can’t you?
David sings that he experiences scorn and shame for the LORD.
He is alienated from his family. And he is insulted.
“...the insults of those who insult you fall on me.”
Why? Because David has zeal, passion, for the house of the LORD!
What does that mean? Well, it means that he wanted to be with the LORD.
He wanted to worship Him and be in His presence. For David that meant worship at the tabernacle, and being the chief cheerleader and instigator for the building of the temple, God’s house.
David never got to build the temple, but he amassed all of the stuff that his son Solomon would need to build it later. David cared deeply about meeting with God in holy worship. Zeal!
And that was, apparently, getting him into deep trouble. V.10
“When I weep and fast, I must endure scorn; when I put on sackcloth, people make sport of me. Those who sit at the gate mock me, and I am the song of the drunkards.”
Do you feel how shamed he was?
Not ashamed. He knew he wasn’t doing wrong. He was doing right.
But they were heaping the shame on him, regardless. In their eyes, he could do no right. Everything he did was wrong.
And I don’t care what anybody says, that kind of mocking is deeply painful. It hurts.
I think that we ought to draw from this that we ought to expect to be hated for loving God.
David’s true crime was a zeal for God’s house, a love of true worship, a love for being with God Himself. What we call around here “a life-changing relationship” with Lord. That was David’s crime.
And he was mocked and scorned and shamed and slandered and attacked for it.
So you and I should not be surprised when we experience the same, as well.
The Lord Jesus, on the night He was betrayed, said to His disciples, “No servant is greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also...” (John 15:20b). And then He said that his enemies have seen Him do His divine miracles...“yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.'” (John 15:24-25). That’s Psalm 69, verse 4!
No good reason but that He loved the Lord. And He had zeal for His house. After Jesus cleansed the temple, His disciples realized that He was fulfilling verse 9 (according to John 2, verse 17).
Jesus was hated for no good reason, except His zeal, and He died for it.
And we, as His followers, should expect the same kind of treatment.
Assuming we have the same kind of zeal.
We should aspire to have that kind of zeal for which we might then be persecuted.
Do you have a passion for the Lord?
It sure got David in trouble.And it got Jesus in trouble.
“The insults of those who insult you fall on me.” The Apostle Paul quoted verse 9 in Romans 15:3 to apply to Christ and what He went through on the Cross for you and me.
Remember when He was insulted? We looked at it closely a year ago.Remember when He was scorned and made the butt of the jokes?
When they put the crown of thorns on His head?When they blindfolded Him and spit on Him and hit him and asked, “Prophesy! Who hit you?”Remember when Jesus was the song of the drunkards?
All of this so far is written as part of David’s big prayer request that he started with in verse 1.
It’s a prayer for salvation, for rescue. David is in deep trouble, overwhelming trouble.
And he’s calling out for help.
I have three summary points for this message that try to capture this song in 3 short prayer requests. 
Here’s the first one:
#1. RESCUE ME!
That’s what David is pleading to the Lord. “Lord, please rescue me. I’m about to drown.” They are mocking me. Verse 13.
“But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink; deliver me from those who hate me, from the deep waters. Do not let the floodwaters engulf me or the depths swallow me up or the pit close its mouth over me. Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me. Do not hide your face from your servant; answer me quickly, for I am in trouble. Come near and rescue me; redeem me because of my foes.”
This kind of prayer, “Rescue me,” is a major theme of the psalms. I’m sure you’ve seen it again and again. David and others are in trouble, and they ask the Lord to get them out of the trouble.
And that’s a good prayer for you and me to pray, too, isn’t it?
“Rescue me!”
“Lord, I need your help. If you don’t come through, I’m a goner.”
Sometimes, David has gotten himself into his trouble by his own mistakes, errors, and sins.
But other times, like here, he’s been basically doing what he’s supposed to do as a God-loving, God-fearing, thumbs-up king of Israel.
But it’s getting him into trouble.
I think sometimes we wonder what wrong we’ve done to get into such trouble, when we’re actually doing it right. We just have to expect trouble!
And when trouble comes, we can plead with the Lord to get us out of it.
“Rescue me!”
Are you in trouble right now? Are you taking it to the Lord in prayer?
David knows the heart of God, and that He loves His people and loves to rescue them from trouble. Look again at verse 13.
“But I pray to you, O LORD, in the time of your favor [in your perfect timing]; in your great love, O God, answer me with your sure salvation. [Verse 16] Answer me, O LORD, out of the goodness of your love; in your great mercy turn to me.”
That’s God’s heart for His covenant people. He loves to get them out of trouble.
And bring them justice. That’s summary point number two:
#2. JUDGE THEM!
One more time, in verse 19, David says just how bad these attacks on him are. And he says that God knows all about it. V.19
“You know how I am scorned, disgraced and shamed; all my enemies are before you.  Scorn has broken my heart and has left me helpless; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters, but I found none. They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
David was left alone and abandoned. No help, no sympathy, no comfort, no friends.
And, I think this is metaphor here for David. When he needed their friendship of food and drink, they gave him poison and vinegar, so to speak.
But it was literally true for the Lord Jesus (see Matthew 27:34, 48 and John 19:28-29).
What the soldiers gave Jesus when He on the cross made His suffering so much worse!
So David prayed prayers of imprecation. Those are prayers of cursing.
David asks God to judge his enemies. Not only to rescue him from his enemies, but to do to them what they are have been trying to do to him. Verse 22.
“May the table set before them become a snare; may it become retribution and a trap. [Backfire.] May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see, and their backs be bent forever. Pour out your wrath on them; let your fierce anger overtake them. May their place be deserted; let there be no one to dwell in their tents. For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those you hurt. Charge them with crime upon crime; do not let them share in your salvation. May they be blotted out of the book of life and not be listed with the righteous.”
So much we could say about those words.
They are holy words.
This is not evil. This is not wrong. These are God-authorized prayers, righteous expressions of righteous anger and a righteous desire for justice.
We have to be careful with them. They are powerful words. They shouldn’t just be thrown around. But they are holy.
Notice, for example, that these holy words are expressed in prayer. This is not David cursing out his enemies to their faces.
This is David asking God to bring vengeance on, not just David’s enemies, but God’s enemies.
And notice that David is not taking revenge himself. He is not being a vigilante dispensing his own justice. He is pleading with God to bring His own justice.
If these enemies will not repent.
I’m sure that David would be happy if they did. 
But if they persist in persecuting the king for having zeal for the Lord, they should surely pay for it!
Do you know how the New Testament applies verse 25? It’s to Judas. Judas betrayed the Lord Jesus and refused to repent. So let Judas’ place be deserted (Acts chapter 1, verse 20).
These are holy words. And the New Testament talks like this, as well.
The New Testament has imprecations, too. There is justice and judgment to come.
Remember how the Lord Jesus talked about the judgment coming when He would return, just a few days before He went to the Cross? Matthew 24 and 25.
We can pray today that the Lord will bring justice.
That’s what we’re praying when we pray, “Your kingdom come!”
For those who kick God’s people when they are down (v.26), “For they persecute those you wound and talk about the pain of those who hurt.” For those who unrepentantly and without remorse persecute the righteous, we pray that they will receive the Lord’s justice!
Now, of course, we can pray for more than that. The Lord Jesus also taught to pray for God’s blessing on our enemies. To bless them and not curse them.
And He showed us how on the Cross. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
We can pray for that, too.
Because Jesus, who perfectly fulfilled this Psalm, also took on Himself the punishment that our sins deserved.
He bore God’s wrath for us, receiving in His body on the Tree, the justice that our sins deserved.
So that if anyone repents and puts their faith in Jesus, justice will still be done, and they can be forgiven and included in the Lamb’s book of life.
But if they will not turn, then we can also pray that God’s justice will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
So that praise comes to Him forever. That’s our last point, point number three.
#3. PRAISE HIM!
Rescue me. Judge them. Praise Him! 
In verse 29, David lays out his request for rescue one last time and then pivots to praise. Verse 29.
“I am in pain and distress; may your salvation, O God, protect me. [And then when you do...] I will praise God's name in song and glorify him with thanksgiving. This will please the LORD more than an ox, more than a bull with its horns and hoofs. [More than an expensive sacrifice.] The poor will see and be glad–you who seek God, may your hearts live! The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive people. [He loves to save them! And He loves to hear our praise. Verse 34.] 
Let heaven and earth praise him, the seas and all that move in them, for God will save Zion and rebuild the cities of Judah. Then people will settle there and possess it; the children of his servants will inherit it, and those who love his name will dwell there.”
David fully expects to be rescued once again.
He expects God to turn the situation around and to fix everything!
Now, notice that nothing has changed. David is still about to drown. At any moment his lungs might fill with water, and he go down into the depths.
But David knows God.
And David knows that God will, one day, fix everything.
And so David plans to praise Him. No matter what.
For Jesus, of course, that “fixing everything” came after death.
Jesus had to die before He experienced the vindication and salvation of the resurrection.
We have not been promised salvation from every bit of our earthly troubles.
COVID or cancer or a car-wreck may take any of us down.
Our enemies may take us down.
But we know that, ultimately, the LORD will prevail!
One day, the Lord will fix everything in creation.
So we and all creation should fix ourselves to praise Him.

***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 96
20. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86
21. "May All the Peoples Praise" - Psalm 67
22. "A Wedding Song" - Psalm 45
23. "My Feet Had Almost Slipped" - Psalm 73
24. “Rejoicing Comes in the Morning”

"Our Weakness, God's Strength, and the Gospel" by Joel Michaels [LEFC Sermon Notes]

"Our Weakness, God's Strength, and the Gospel"Joel Michaels2 Corinthians 4:7-18
As the apostle Paul starts into Ch.4 of his 2nd letter to the Corinthian church, he paints a picture of what it is like to be an apostle, or in our day a missionary or to make it a little more personal, a Christian telling others about Jesus Christ.  We need to spread the Gospel to our family, our friends, ourneighbors, coworkers and on down the line.  If we don't have a burden for others, we made need to check our relationship with Christ.  It's not easy to do, tell others about Jesus, but maybe this passage will help you and me to have some courage and realize God is with us in the work.
Paul speaks the Truth, so here we go.  
Follow along in your Bible as I read  2 Corinthians 4:7-18.

Let's look at vs 7 and the phrase “ But we have this treasure.”
Paul was an apostle and a missionary out starting churches, but Paul had the thing that it took to start these churches, a treasure.  We need to know what this “treasure” was.  To find out jump back to vs. 5-6 in this same chapter.  
What is the treasure?  It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  That is the “treasure “ Paul is giving out. It is the treasure that is in Paul.  People need the Gospel treasure to become Christians and when you have Christians you have a church.  That is how it works.
So that is the treasure.  Jesus Christ and the Gospel of salvation.  Make a note of that.
A question for you: What do you keep a treasure in?  A vault? A safe? A treasure chest on a deserted island with a big X marking the spot?  Those things make sense.  Maybe not the deserted island.  Something safe and secure and strong.  Locked up.
What does Paul say God keeps his treasure in?  Look at vs. 7 again.   A jar of clay, a human.  Genesis 2:7 “ the Lord formed man from the dust of the earth”
Paul is a jar of clay, so were the other apostles, so are our missionaries, so is our pastor, and you and me.
Think about a jar of clay.  It's not something we would keep a treasure in.  A jar of clay is weak, brittle and fragile.  If it has a lid it can't be locked.  If you drop it, it breaks.
Let me ask you another question:
Who told you about the good news of Jesus Christ?  Who passed the treasure on to you?  Were they super humans or just regular people, who were Christians?  Did they have frailties, faults, maybe an illness that held them back physically?  I can answer that question for you, yes they did. They are or were jars of clay.
So at this point you may be asking:  Why would God do that? Why would God put this treasure in a jar of clay, a weak, frail human.Why would God leave this important thing up to people like Paul, Peter, Timothy or our missionaries?  They get sick, they have bad days, they get down.Why would he leave it up to us?  There are lots of days I feel broke and fractured.  I'm not the best of anything, the best dad, the best husband, not the best technician at work, and not the best Christian.
So why would God put his treasure in us, in me?  The crazy thing is, he did.  God's thoughts and his will are on a so much higher plane than ours, what doesn't make sense to us is his perfect plan.
Read vs. 7 again.
God chose to make it this way to show us and everybody else, it's not about the container the treasure is in, but the treasure itself and God's all surpassing power.  It is God who made the light to shine.  It is Jesus Christ, God the Son, who saved us from our sin.  Remember that treasure from vs' 5 and 6.  It is for His glory.
When humans have earthly treasure, something of value, it typically comes with power and pride.  We hold it to ourselves.  In God's wisdom he wasn't having that, so his treasure is in a jar of clay.
Another note for you.
God shows his power through our frailty and weakness.  I was thinking something else, jars of clay can't be locked, there is no point, you could just smash the jar.  They are made to hold something until you need it.  A cookie jar is made to give out cookies.  We have this jar of clay, all are different, but they are made to give out the treasure God put in them.  It begs the question.  What are we doing with the treasure? Are we giving it out?  A question I wrestle with.  Am I telling people about Jesus?
Now if it was left up to us.  This work of giving out the Gospel from this jar of clay, we would crack.  We would break and fall apart from the stress.  Remember how in vs 7 this was to show God's power.  It is God who holds it all together.  His strength, his power hold the jar together, after all He made it.    He kept Paul together, He keeps our missionaries together, He will keep us in one piece.  So, His treasure, the Gospel will continue to spread through this world, his power is moving it along from Paul right on down the line.
Look what God does for Paul, this jar of clay in vs 8-9.
Does the work of an apostle sound easy?  Is it easy to be a witness for Jesus, to tell people the Gospel?Not usually.  Sometimes it's severe hardship.  Paul knew something about that, read 2 Corinthians 11:16-33, in this same letter.  Sometimes with us it's not hardship or persecution,  it's just us not wanting to offend, maybe scared, or worried about what people will think.  God will give the strength and the courage.   
The struggles of being a Gospel spreading Christian are real.  You may have experienced struggles yourself, if not read some biographies about missionaries or gospel workers.  It is a burden for the lost and a trust in God's provision that motivates.
It is God that keeps His workers in one piece. It is his plan to show His power. It is His strength not ours. 
I don't care how tough we think we are, we will crack.  Only God prevents it and does it faithfully.  We don't need to wonder if He might help us to give out the treasure.  He will help us.  God chose weak vessels to give out His treasure to other weak vessels.
The point here is God holds us together to to do the work he has called us to do, that is to tell people about Jesus.
I need to bring this to a close but I want you to see a few more things like vs 15. 
Friends, Paul is not around anymore, maybe the person who gave you the treasure, who told you about the Savior, is not around anymore, but grace is reaching more and more people.  It does because it is through these jars of clay that God shows His power, and His glory and this treasure that He wants out in the world goes forth. A few points for you to think on.-We are weak jars of clay, but God is exceedingly powerful-We have a treasure to give, the Gospel of Jesus Christ.-It's all about God's power and glory.
Lets read vs 16-18 to close.
We press on. We fix our eyes on the eternal.

"Rejoicing Comes in the Morning" Psalm 30 [Matt's Messages]

“Rejoicing Comes in the Morning”Lanse Evangelical Free ChurchFebruary 28, 2021 :: Psalm 30
Psalm 30 is a fun one because it’s a joyful testimony song. 
King David is overjoyed because God has blessed him, saved him, rescued him from a near-death experience.
So David is just full of overflowing joy that he wants to turn into maximal praise.
And he wants everybody else to join with him in praising God.
Not just because of what the Lord has done which is wonderful, but because of how the Lord did it which is even more wonderful, and also because of why the Lord did it which is even more wonderful–because this is what the Lord is like.
Psalm 30 reveals the gracious heart of God for His people.
King David rejoices in God’s gracious heart to flip our troubles up-side-down and bring about a dramatic turnaround, a spectacular reversal of our situation–for those who belong to Him.
I love it because Psalm 30 does not downplay or de-legitimize our sorrows, but it perfectly contrasts them with the lasting joy that the Lord always and ultimately brings for His people.
The key verse is verse 5: 
“For [the LORD’s] anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
David says, “That’s how it is with Yahweh! That’s how He is!”
Weeping is real and may stay the night as an unwelcome guest, but you can count on it, because of the LORD, rejoicing comes in the morning!
I don’t know about you, but I need to hear that these days!
So let’s look into Psalm 30 and make it our song today.

As I said, Psalm 30 is a testimony song by King David. 
God’s been wonderfully good to him, and he has written a song to praise God for it. Look at verse 1.
“A psalm. A song. For the dedication of the temple. Of David.” 
Now that word the NIV translates “temple” is literally “house.”
So this could be the LORD’s house, the temple which David got everything ready for to build but didn’t get to build himself. Maybe he wrote this song to be sung by Solomon and everyone when it finally got dedicated. That’s possible.
Or maybe because this is such a personal song, David wrote this for the dedication of his personal palace. We’re not sure.
It was definitely for singing, and not just for David because he specifically calls upon other faithful believers to join him in singing. We’ll see that especially in verse 4.
But the voice of this psalm is first person singular, “I, me, my, mine.”
This is David’s personal testimony, which is a testimony of praise. Second part of verse 1.
“I will exalt you, O LORD, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O LORD, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit. Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name.”
You can just feel the joy emanating from this guy, can’t you?!
David has been rescued, and he is reveling in it, and reflecting his praise to the One Who did it for him.
David recognizes that he was rescued by the LORD. He gives the LORD all of the credit, all of the glory.
And he’s so glad that his enemies did not get to rejoice. Verse 1 again.
“I will exalt you, O LORD, for you lifted me out of the depths [the Hebrew word is the word for pulling something up out of the water, like a bucket, David was saved from drowning so to speak and the LORD] and did not let my enemies gloat over me.”
“They thought I was going down for the count, but they were foiled and frustrated!”
The LORD had the last laugh. Verse 2 again.
“O LORD my God [note the personal relationship], I called to you for help and you healed me.”
Apparently, King David had been sick.
We’ve seen that sort of thing before. Remember Psalm 41, “The Song of the Sick King”?
It looked like David might die, and the vultures were circling.
But David prayed, and the Lord raised him up. Pulled him up. It was only a near-death experience. Verse 3 again.
“O LORD, you brought me up from the grave [he had just about died, one foot in the grave]; you spared me from going down into the pit. [Therefore we sing!] Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name.”
You see how he draws everybody into praising God with him?!
Praise like this is contagious.
I have three short points today of practical application from Psalm 30. Three things we ought to be doing ourselves as we model our lives off of this psalm. And the first is simply:
#1. EXALT THE LORD.
David would be so happy if we did that with him.
Exalt the Lord.
We don’t use that word “exalt” very often these days. To “exalt” means to lift someone or something up, to speak of something or someone very highly.
David says that he will exalt the LORD. He will give him high praise.
And he wants us to “Praise Him! Praise Him!,” too.
Have you ever had a near-death experience?
A couple of years ago, in like two days I lost control of my mini-van two times.
The first time, I was just driving down the road in icy conditions out on 53 right about at the stoplight at the Shortway, and I tapped the break and the van just did a 360 on me. Nobody was really coming, but it was really scary.
And then it was like the next day or right around there, I was coming down my own driveway which was icy, and something was coming down Maple towards the post-office, and my van would not stop. It would not stop.
And then right before the intersection, it stopped.
In times like that, we should exalt the LORD.
“Thank you, Lord! Praise you, Lord!”
And we should call upon others to exalt the Lord with us.
And, of course, how much more have we been saved than just from near-death experiences?
In Jesus Christ, we have been saved from a living-death experience.
The Bible says in Ephesians 2, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins...[Spiritual death.] But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved” (vv.1, 4-5, NIV84).
How much more should we who have been saved like that, exalt the LORD who has lifted us up from those depths? Brought us up from that grave?
And didn’t let our enemies (the world, the flesh, and the devil) gloat over us.
Exalt the Lord!
Because this is what He is like. Look at verse 5.
“Sing to the LORD, you saints of his; praise his holy name. [Why?] For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
This is what the Lord is like. This is how He is for His covenant people.
Yes, he disciplines us. Yes, he has a chastening kind of anger.
Apparently, we’re going to see that David knew that he had somehow brought this sickness on himself. It was a discipline from the Lord.
But as true as the Lord’s chastening anger is, it is temporary and fleeting, only as long as it needs to be for achieving His redemptive purposes.
This is what His deepest heart is like to His people: “His favor lasts a lifetime.”
Yes, we may weep. But that’s temporary and short-lived, as well.
“...weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.
You can on it! Just like the morning.
If you belong to Yahweh, then rejoicing will inevitably come and will one day last forever. A morning that last a life time. A bright morning that lasts forever.
“[R]ejoicing comes in the morning!”
Ever had a long night? It seemed like it would never end?
But you knew it would. Morning always comes.
And that’s the metaphor here. Morning is certain and bright.
Now, the New Testament takes this even further. In the New Testament, the sorrow is not just temporary but the Lord even uses that sorrow to bring the lasting joy. Like the labor pains that issue into the joy of new birth.
The Lord Jesus said in John 16, “I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you: Now is your time of grief [The Cross], but I will see you again [after the Resurrection and then again at His return] and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy” (vv.20-22). "[R]ejoicing comes in the morning!" Count on it.
And exalt the Lord.
Now, in verses 6 through 10, I think that David does a flashback. I think, here he takes us back to what got him into this trouble in the first place. The backstory of this testimony song. Look at verse 6.
“When I felt secure, I said, ‘I will never be shaken.’ O LORD, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.”
I think that David got presumptuous and over-confident in himself.
There is a right way to say, “I will never be shaken,” (when you are trusting in the Lord’s unfailing love) and a wrong way to say, “I will never be shaken.”
I think that David is saying that he got careless and complacent.
He decided that he was–on his own, in his own power, in his own position, in his own prosperity–unshakable.
I want to thank one of you who left a gift in my box at church this week.
These are some removable cleats for walking on ice. One of you, I don’t know who, it was an anonymous gift in my box, one of you took pity on me because of my stories about almost slipping and even actually falling and gave me these to put on my shoes to “get a grip out there” on the ice.
Thank you! Now, what if I said, “Hey, I have these ice cleats now. I can walk anywhere. In fact, I can go running down Viaduct road when it’s a sheet of ice.”?
How do you think that’s going to go?
Beware of self-confidence instead of God-confidence.
Yes, He gives us stability. Verse 7 says that God had given David a mountain!
“O LORD, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm...”
We can stand firm, and that’s from the Lord. 
Don’t be afraid of standing firm.
But don’t twist it and think you can stand firm on your own or even trust in God’s good gifts instead of God the good-gift-giver.
Don’t trust in the mountain. Trust in the one Who made the mountain stand firm.
If you don’t, then for a time, He may hide his face, which is a terrifying prospect.
And that’s, apparently, how David got into his predicament and almost died.
But then he did the right and only right thing to do; he cried out for help.
#2. CRY FOR MERCY. V.8
“To you, O LORD, I called; to the Lord I cried for mercy:”
David repented of his smug self-sufficiency and humbly asked the Lord to restore him to health.
By the way, this is not saying that every time we are sick, it’s because we sinned.
It doesn’t work that way.
God doesn’t that work that.
Sickness is in the world because of sin, but not all sicknesses are because of our own particular sins.
But in this case David knew that his sickness, his being near death, had something to do with bad choices he had made, and he needed God’s own mercy and grace to raise him up again.
And he made a bold prayer when he did. Listen to this. Can you see yourself praying like this? V.9
Lord, “What gain is there in my destruction, in my going down into the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your faithfulness? Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help.”
That’s a gutsy prayer. Humility and gutsiness in the same prayer.
David says, “Lord, what good would it do for me to die right now? If you take me right now (and I know I deserve it), You will have one less worshiper above ground.”
But if You are merciful to me, I’ll praise you and I’ll proclaim Your faithfulness.
The grave won’t do that. But you can count on me to!
Can you see yourself praying that way?
Well, it’s here in the Bible to teach us.
Heather said to me that it’s kind of like what Paul was saying to the Philippians in chapter 1 of his letter when he said he wasn’t sure if he wanted to die or live because to die meant to be with Christ which is better by far, but it would help the Philippians more if he stuck around a little while longer. So he figured that the Lord would keep him alive a bit more at least for them (vv.21-26).
Here David is telling the Lord that it very well could be better for God’s own glory if He prolongs David’s life at this point.
If He doesn’t, David is a goner. 
“Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help.”
That’s what David said, and it’s a good prayer for us today, as well.
I think there are probably 50 times a week that we each could pray verse 10.
“Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help.”“Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help.”“Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me; O LORD, be my help.”
Cry for mercy.
Because the Lord loves to give it!
The Lord is so merciful.
Remember Who He is?!
“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin” (Exodus 34:6-7). 
He is the God of not just second chances but whole new situations.
He is the God of turnarounds.He is the God of turnabouts.He is the God of inversions.He is the God of reversals.
He is the God who flips everything right-side-up. 
That’s what He did for David. Verse 11.
“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy,that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.”
#3. SING FOR JOY.
When the Lord does His thing and turns everything around, you’ve got to give Him praise.
“That my heart by sing to you and not be silent.”
How could we be silent when we’ve been given so much?
I love the metaphors here in verse 11.
“You turned my wailing into dancing;”
I don’t know? Maybe that wasn’t a metaphor. He might have been literally wailing, and now was literally dancing.
David danced before the Lord.
Don’t worry. I’m not going to show you what I think it looked like! I don’t have the moves.
But David danced, and he danced for joy.
And he says that the LORD removed his sackcloth which was this very coarse fabric associated with mourning and lament and grieving and repentance and sadness.
David says, “The LORD removed David’s sackcloth and He “clothed me with joy.”
What a beautiful picture! Clothes made out of joy.
Can you imagine? 
David dancing in clothes of joy.
And singing all the while.
“O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever.”
Because the Lord deserves it. That’s what kind of God He is.
He is the God of turnarounds, and turnabouts, and spectacular reversals.
He is the God who flips everything right-side-up.
That’s what He was doing at the Cross and the Resurrection.
And that’s what He is doing in our lives today.
“[H]is anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
Sing for joy!
***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 96
20. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86
21. "May All the Peoples Praise" - Psalm 67
22. "A Wedding Song" - Psalm 45
23. "My Feet Had Almost Slipped" - Psalm 73

"My Feet Had Almost Slipped" Psalm 73 [Matt's Messages]

“My Feet Had Almost Slipped”Lanse Evangelical Free ChurchFebruary 21, 2021 :: Psalm 73
Psalm 73 is a song that tells a story. 
It’s a good story with a happy ending.
But it’s a scary story. It’s a cautionary tale.
Psalm 73 is a song that tells the story of a man who almost slipped and fell hard.
He almost did. In the end, he regained his balance, but he almost went down and took others with him.
We sure have had a lot of snow and ice around here, haven’t we? A couple weeks ago right before Prayer Meeting, I took a fall out on the ice.
I was, ironically, out spreading coal ashes so that our vehicles could get in and out over the ice. So I had this big bucket of ashes, and I was walking around dumping them in a wide arc, and then all of a sudden, I had that feeling that I was going to fall.
And I thought I had it, but then...wham! Down I went on this shoulder over here. Still hurts a bit when I put on my coat. But nothing was broken, and I was able to get up and even spread some more ashes and make it to Prayer Meeting on time.
But that wasn’t the last time I felt like I was going to slip. There’s more ice out there right now.
And often I worry that I’m going to reach out to Heather Joy on one of our walks down Viaduct Road and pull her down with me!
Well, that feeling, that reality, of almost going down and almost taking others with you is metaphorically what this songwriter, a Israeli worship leader named “Asaph,” was feeling when he wrote Psalm 73.
Let me read to you the first three verses of Psalm 73.
“A psalm of Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. 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.”

Asaph wrote a bunch of the psalms, but I don’t think we’ve looked at any of his yet in the two dozen we’ve studied so far in this series.
This is the first psalm of the third book of the Psalms. 
In Psalm 73, Asaph wrote a testimony song about his own experience of almost slipping that he uses to teach the wisdom that he’s gained from that experience to you and me.
He starts at the end of the story in verse 1. Just to make sure you know that it’s going to have a happy ending.
“Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.”
That’s true! And that’s where he’s going to end his story in verse 28 with the goodness of God to those who love Him and are near Him.
God is truly good to His covenant people.
But! This song is about a scary time in Asaph’s life. A near disaster. A crisis of faith in Asaph’s heart. A time when his heart was not pure, and he wasn’t at all sure that God was actually good. Verse 2 again.
“But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.”
I just about went down!
And here’s where I got tripped up (v.3).
“For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
I only have two major points of application to make in this message (one covering verses 1 through 15, and the other drawn from verses 16 through 28), and here’s the first big one:
#1. DON’T SLIP BY ENVYING WHAT THE WICKED HAVE.
Asaph was nearly taken down by his own envy of the arrogant when he saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Asaph discerned a pattern that contradicted what he thought should be.
He perceived that the wicked, the evil, the bad guys in this world were often experiencing prosperity.
Good things were happening to bad people.
Often we feel and articulate the problem of evil as “Why do bad things happen to good people?” 
But Aspah was feeling the question, “Why do good things happen to bad people?”
“And if that’s how it actually works, why not be a bit of a bad person myself?”
Now, it’s possible that Asaph’s envy was blinding him to some of the realities of how things actually are. Often, the wicked do not prosper even in this life. And the Lord often does bless His people even in this life.
But you have to admit that Asaph had a point.
When you look out there on the world, we do see a lot of good things coming to bad people, right?
Do I need to convince you of that?
In his song, Asaph gives us some examples. Verse 4.
“They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills.”
He sounds envious, doesn’t he?
These guys have it all. They are free from “disease and disaster” (John Stott’s phrase).
They look great on Instagram. They have a 3 million followers on YouTube.
They are carefree and rolling in dough.
And they are proud of it! Verse 6.
“Therefore pride is their necklace [flaunted on display!]; they clothe themselves with violence. [Getting away with anything.] From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits [big boundless dreams and unlimited plans]. They scoff, and speak with malice; in their arrogance they threaten oppression [others will get hurt and have no say in it]. Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.”
Literally, “Their tongues strut through the earth.”
That just reeks of arrogance! They are successful. They are prosperous. And they let everybody know it.
And people just love them for it! Verse 10.
“Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance. [That’s a hard verse to translate from the Hebrew, but I think the NIV gets it basically right. People lap this stuff up! Folks like this are surrounded by a posse of sycophants who “accept everything they say without question” (Tremper Longman).] And they dare to question God Himself. Verse 11.] They say, ‘How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?’”
That’s the height of arrogance, right there, my friends.
They mock and defy God Himself. They say that if He exists (and He probably doesn’t), then He sure seems to be falling down on the job.
Asaph envied the arrogant. You can tell. Verse 12.
“This is what the wicked are like–always carefree, they increase in wealth. [And I wish I could get a piece of that! Verse 13.] Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence.  All day long I have been plagued; I have been punished every morning.”
Asaph was suffering. He had been a “good little boy,” and yet he was suffering. We don’t know with what, but it was dogging his heels. “Every morning.” His trials, like God’s mercies, were new every morning. It felt like daily plague and daily punishment.
So what good did it to do to keep his hands clean? What good did it do to keep his nose clean?
Apparently, being “good” didn’t pay. But being “bad” sure seemed to.
“I thought Psalm 1 said that if I was in the Word every day that I would prosper in every way.
Well, I tried it, and it didn’t work. And those guys didn’t try it, and look at them! They’re getting away with it! There is no justice.”
He’s that close to a fall.
Now, one of the things I love about the Psalms is how raw and real they are, don’t you?
If you have ever felt this way (and who hasn’t?), there is a song for you to sing that feeling out in the Bible!
It’s so refreshing to read this honesty from this psalmist.
Don’t be afraid to tell God how you really feel.
Now, obviously, that doesn’t mean that your feelings are all right, all correct. Asaph was feeling the wrong thing and almost slipped, but he doesn’t have to hide that from God. And, in fact, he doesn’t even have to hide it from us. He sings about it for us. He tells us his experience so that we can learn from it, too.
Asaph was about to slip by envying the wicked for what they had, which seemed to be just about everything.
And, even worse, Asaph almost took others down with him. Verse 15.
“If I had said, ‘I will speak thus,’ I would have betrayed your children.”
If worship leader Asaph had then officially taught what he had been thinking and feeling, he would have not only gone down himself, but also led some of the precious children of Israel astray.
And he almost did!
He could not sort it all out. And it made him miserable. Verse 16.
“When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.”
This is the turning point of the song and the turning point of the story.
Asaph experienced a moment of truth that changed his whole perspective. What was it? Verse 17 again.
“[I]t was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God...” 
Asaph went into the tabernacle or temple. Whichever one it was at that point.
And he met God in worship.
We don’t know what happened in there!
We don’t know exactly what Asaph experienced.
I tend to think it was just the regular old trip to the temple and looking around at what goes on there.
Sacrifices. Blood on the altar. The bread and the candles that marked the presence of God, the veil of the Holy of Holies. The great reminders of the majesty and splendor and holiness of God.
Whatever it was exactly, Asaph entered the sanctuary of God and came out with a new perspective on everything.
Especially on where everything is headed.
“...I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.”
After his encounter with God, Asaph saw that things are not as they might seem.
After his encounter with God, Asaph saw that things are not as they are going to be!
I think Asaph got a view of eternity.
He saw not just what the wicked have now, but what was coming to them.
And it wasn’t something to envy. Verse 18.
“Surely [same word as verse 1. "Surely"] you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. [They are the ones who are going to slip!] How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! As a dream when one awakes, so when you arise, O Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.”
Now, that’s scary! Asaph sings that when the time comes, when the time is ripe, the Lord will like wake up and shrug off the wicked like a bad dream. Their present pleasures are going to fall off like the phantasms they are. And they are going down, down, down.
What scary words, “O Lord, you will despise them.” When that happens, no one in the universe will envy them then.
I’m sure that plenty of onlookers envied the rich travelers that boarded the Titanic on April 10, 1912. But no one was envying them on April 16th!
Don’t slip into envying the wicked for what they have.
In the sanctuary of God, Asaph got a glimpse of where the wicked were headed.
And he was reminded of what he really had.
That’s the second big point of application from Psalm 73 today:
#2. DON’T FORGET THAT YOU HAVE EVERYTHING!
You won’t slip if you see and savor everything you have because, in having God, you have everything.
Asaph almost slipped and lost everything. And he felt it deep in his psyche. Verse 21.
“When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.”
Notice that he’s saying that while his envious feelings were natural, they were still totally wrong. He was beastly and mindless and sub-human in his thinking.
Because he was forgetting what he had in God!
His feet had almost slipped, but God had not let him go down. V.23
“Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.”
These last six verses of Psalm 73 are just magnificent. They just sing of the glorious goodness of knowing God! This is what we call around here, “A life-changing relationship with the Lord.”
He says, “I am always with you.”
Now, he could have said (like Psalm 139 we read last month) that God is always with him.
But he says it the other way around to mean the same thing, but to emphasize how safe it makes him feel.
“I’m with Him! I’m always with Him.”
In fact, he holds me by my right hand.
I am that secure.
Like a little kid, “Daddy’s got me by my right hand.”
How good it is!
He says, “You guide me with your counsel.” God’s own counsel. God’s own guidance.
“And afterward you will take me into glory.” That word “afterward” is the same root word translated “final destiny” in verse 17.
Asaph knows not just where the wicked will be going, but by God’s grace, he knows where he will end up, as well.
“You will take me into glory.”
Wow. Amazing what a little bit of true worship can do in your life?!
That changes things, doesn’t it?
It doesn’t answer every theological question about why good things happen to bad people. Why God allows the wicked to prosper for a time.
Or why there is so much suffering of God’s people for a time.
But it does show that everything is not as it seems.
And everything is not as it is will be.
And it also shows us that if we have God, we have everything. Verse 25.
“Whom have I in heaven but you? [Nobody; but what else do I need?] And earth has nothing I desire besides you. [If I have You, I have everything!] My flesh and my heart may fail [I may fall apart and die!], but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
That word “strength” is literally, “Rock.”
God is the rock of my heart.
The stability and strength of my heart.
If God is the stabilizing rock of your heart, you will not slip and fall!
He is your “portion” forever.
That’s like your inheritance.
Your piece of the pie. God is your piece of the pie.
Is that enough? That’s everything!
Don’t forget that you have everything.
Do you realize you have everything?
Unless, of course, you don’t.
The song ends with a choice to make.
It’s a pretty obvious choice when you put it like Asaph does, but things don’t always feel like this out there in real life.
We need songs like Psalm 73 to bring the reality home to us. Listen to verse 27 as Asaph brings it all home.
“Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.”
Far from God. The wicked are far from God.
They might have all the VIP trappings now, but they are soon headed for total destruction. 
And that includes those who claim to know God but don’t really. “All who are unfaithful” like the adulterous apostasy that Asaph was flirting with.
“[Y]ou destroy all who are unfaithful to you.”
That’s one side. Here’s the other. Verse 28.
“But as for me [here’s the happy ending to the scary story of this song! But as for me], it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.”
It is so good to be near God. If you have Him, you will not slip, and you will have everything! Come near to God. Repent and put your faith and hope in Jesus Christ and His blood.
You’ll be safe from all alarms, “I have made the Sovereign LORD my refuge.”
And instead of slipping and taking other people down, you’ll speak out and take other people up with you to glory.
“I will tell of all your deeds.”
Like right now, right here, giving testimony to the goodness of God.
Come near and go tell others that, in God, they can have everything that truly matters forever!
***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 96
20. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86
21. "May All the Peoples Praise" - Psalm 6722. "A Wedding Song" - Psalm 45

“A Wedding Song” Psalm 45 [Matt's Messages]

“A Wedding Song”Lanse Evangelical Free ChurchFebruary 14, 2021 :: Psalm 45
I chose Psalm 45 for this Sunday because this Sunday is Valentine’s Day, February 14th. And here we are in the middle of a sermon series on the Psalms! And I don’t know when a better occasion would ever arise to preach Psalm 45. I’ve never preached Psalm 45. I don’t think I’ve even ever heard a sermon preached by anyone on Psalm 45!
Because Psalm 45 is a little different. It’s not quite like any of the other psalms in the Psalter. It’s not really a praise song. It’s not really a prayer song. It’s more of a prophetic song and even more of a royal song, but it’s not quite like any of the other prophetic or royal psalms either because Psalm 45 is a wedding song.
If anything, it’s more like the Song of Songs than any of the other psalms. But it’s not that much like the Song of Solomon either because it’s not love poems from the guy to the gal and back again. It’s a song composed by a court poet, one of the Sons of Korah (from whom we’ve heard some of their other songs in this series) written about and to the royal couple for the occasion of a royal wedding.
A song written about and to the royal couple for the occasion of a royal wedding.
There’s just nothing else like it in the Book of Psalms.
And, really, there’s nothing else like this wedding. You and I have never seen a wedding like this one in Psalm 45. It is so absolutely brilliant and beautiful, lavish and dazzling and supercharged.
And the language of Psalm 45 is so heightened and exalted and supercharged as well that it has to be talking about more than just this one stunning royal wedding. That’s why I say that it’s prophetic, as well.
Have I you piqued your curiosity?
As we read Psalm 45, you’ll see that it totally belongs in the Book of Psalms even though it is different from all the others because, in the end, it’s not just about this one resplendent couple, it’s ultimately about our Lord.
Let’s get into it. Here is the superscription. Psalm 45, verse 1.
“For the director of music. To the tune of ‘Lilies.’ [I wonder what that sounded like. I’m sure it was grand and expansive and beautiful!] Of the Sons of Korah. A maskil. A wedding song.”

So here we have a wedding song that was composed to be sung about and even to the royal couple at their royal wedding.
The king of Israel is getting married. A son of David is taking a bride to be his wife. That’s a big honking deal occasion! And so a wedding song has been commissioned.
Perhaps this was for Solomon. He certainly understood the role of brilliant pomp and opulent ceremony.
And I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that this song had been sung at every Davidic King’s wedding from Solomon on.
Because I think that this psalm is aspirational and anticipational. 
This song describes what the royal couple ought to be and one day certainly will.
It’s clear that the wedding song writer was aware that he was writing something big. Look at the second half of verse 1.
“My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king; my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.”
That’s different, isn’t it? In the Psalms, we don’t normally get the songwriter telling us how he feels as he sits down to put pen to parchment.
But this son of Korah is obviously feeling it. His heart is stirred. His tongue is writing with great skill. He is feeling the inspiration, and he just knows that something big and noble and good is going to flow right out of him.
And it’s going to be about the king.
Verses 2 through 9 are addressed directly to the Royal Groom. 
Verses 10 through 15 are going to directly address the Royal Bride.
And then in verse 16, the song will return to the Royal Groom, speaking really to both of them about their Royal Princes, the Royal Heirs.
And then in verse 17, the songwriter will talk about himself and what he’s doing with this song one more time to round things off.
Every true wedding has a Bride and a Groom.
And this songs starts with the Groom for he is the king. Verse 2. Listen for the exalted language. Again, this is aspirational and anticipational. This is how the king should be and how he certainly one day will be. Verse 2.
“You are the most excellent of men and your lips have been anointed with grace, since God has blessed you forever.”
Do you see how exalted this is, right from the git-go?!
It’s the king’s wedding day, and this song praises him. He is the most excellent of men, and his speech is excellent, as well. His mouth is full of graciously anointed words, blessed by God forever! It says, “forever!”
Two things here. The first thing to note is how much God cares about gracious speech. He cares about how we talk. About what we say. This is where the psalmist begins to praise the character of this king, the king’s speech, his words.
The other thing to note is that probably this king didn’t quite live up to this song lyric.
He should have! Maybe he did to a degree that no one else had yet. We don’t know.
But it’s probably more aspirational than actual. It was sung about him on his wedding day with the hopes that it would come to pass.
This was his calling. That’s certainly true in verses 3 through 5.
“Gird your sword upon your side, O mighty one; clothe yourself with splendor and majesty. In your majesty ride forth victoriously in behalf of truth, humility and righteousness; let your right hand display awesome deeds. Let your sharp arrows pierce the hearts of the king's enemies; let the nations fall beneath your feet.”
There’s a reason why this psalm is not sung at most of our weddings.
It surely wasn’t sung at Heather's and mine. 
Because this is not what every husband is supposed to be and do. 
Every husband should have lips anointed with grace. But we aren’t all supposed to suit up in splendor and majesty and run out to war.
The ancient king of Israel was supposed to do that. He was supposed to have his sharp arrows pierce the hearts of his enemies and have the nations fall beneath his feet.
Here the nations are not glad like we saw last week in Psalm 67. These are not repentant and newly worshiping peoples. These are the unrepentant enemies of Israel and her king such as we saw back in Psalm 2.
And this king is called to fight and to beat them. He is called to win. To ride forth victoriously and to win.
And yet notice on whose behalf he rides in verse 4.
It’s not for his own aggrandizement. It’s on “behalf of truth, humility, and righteousness.”
Humility?! Fighting on behalf of humility and meekness. That’s surprising.
And that’s a tall order! It takes a truly great king to defend humility.
Now, verse 6 is the verse that rockets this psalm to the highest level of just about any psalm in the book.
Apparently still addressing the Royal Groom, the King of Israel, the psalmist sings about his throne and his scepter, those powerful symbols of his rule, and he appears to call him, “God.” Look at verse 6.
“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom.”
Now, that’s pretty unique. Most of the time, humans are not called quote-unquote “God” in the Bible unless they are actually also God Himself.
So I would normally think that this was simply a change of address. That the psalmist was turning up to God in prayer in verse 6 before turning back to the king in verse 7.
Or perhaps I would go with a perfectly good alternative translation that says something like, “Your godly throne, or the throne of God from which you rule will last forever and ever.”
But the author to the letter to the Hebrews in our New Testament quotes this verse of Psalm 45 in Hebrews chapter 1 verses 8 and 9 and says that they are about God the Son. Listen to Hebrews 1, “But about the Son he says, ‘Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.’”
So Psalm 45, verse 6 is, at least, about the Son of God.
And so this song apparently is actually addressing the king of Israel and calling him “God.”
Now, of course, Solomon was not actually God. And neither were any of the sons of David in the Old Testament.
But remember Psalm 2 says that they were in some sense the “Son” of God. God had promised David that He Himself would be a father to David’s sons and they would be as God’s sons (see 2 Samuel 7:14).
And so in that sense as “sons” of God, they could even, as they sit on this very throne, be called quote-unquote “God.”
How much more, of course, could One Who sat on that very throne be called “God” because He actually metaphysically eternally was God?!
This psalm is clearly prophetic. It anticipates the Messianic King Who is actually factually divine.
And it’s also aspirational. This king on his wedding day is being called rule with justice.
Don’t miss that word “justice” in verse 6 when you see that word “God.” Don’t get hung up on “God” and miss the word “justice.”
The king’s scepter is the scepter of justice. Unbiased, perfectly fair, righteous and just in every single way.
O how we long for justice!
The Psalms and the Prophets are full of calls for justice and predictions of the day when justice will be done and be seen to be done.
The songwriter says that the Royal Groom will rule with justice.
In fact, he says that he’s been set above all of the others in the kingdom because he loves justice. Verse 7.
“You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.”
Now, notice something interesting there. Here the king is not called “God.” He has a God. “God, your God, has set you above your companions.”
This king has been exalted by God.
So, now, which is it? Is he God or does he have a God?
I’m sure that this was a mystery to the first listeners to this song. Scratching their heads.
Maybe a mystery even to the songwriter himself. “Why did I write it like that?”
Answer: The original king of Psalm 45 was only a quote-unquote “God,” and he had a God.
But the One that this Psalm points us to, the One this Psalm anticipates is God and is with God, has a God. Sound familiar? Check out the Gospel of John chapter 1, verse 1.
Now, it’s easy to get caught up in the exalted language and forget that this is the king’s wedding day.
This is all lead up to the Royal Wedding.
The Royal Groom has been anointed with the oil of joy, but he’s anointed with much more. Verse 8.
“All your robes are fragrant with myrrh and aloes and cassia; from palaces adorned with ivory the music of the strings makes you glad. Daughters of kings are among your honored women; at your right hand is the royal bride in gold of Ophir.”
The Royal Groom is all decked out and ready to get married!
He is layered with sumptuous luxuriant fragrances. Remember, they don’t have any deodorants! And these scents are expensive and extravagant for this unique imperial occasion.
The music is just right. It’s swelling and bouncing off of the priceless ivory in the palace and making the Groom’s heart glad.
And it’s an international affair of state. Highborn daughters of other kings in all of their foreign finery are present. 
And there she is!
Wearing a gorgeous gown embroidered with the most precious gold in the Bible, the gold of Ophir, is the Royal Bride!
And there, the song begins to sing to and about her. Verse 10
“Listen, O daughter, consider and give ear: Forget your people and your father's house. [Not totally of course, but change your primary allegiance. That’s what marriage is. You transfer your primary allegiance now to your spouse. And them to you. V.11] The king is enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord. [You can see them looking at each other as this is sung.] The Daughter of Tyre will come with a gift, men of wealth will seek your favor. [Again, this is an international affair of state. The Royal Bride will receive gifts and honored requests from heads of state. She, too, will be exalted. And she too is glorious. V.13] All glorious is the princess within her chamber; her gown is interwoven with gold.
[And here’s the actual wedding procession. You can hear Pacabel’s Canon in D. You can hear “The Wedding March.”] In embroidered garments she is led to the king; her virgin companions [her bridesmaids] follow her and are brought to you. They are led in with joy and gladness; they enter the palace of the king.”
What a holy moment!
This is the best part of just about any wedding, right?
There’s the “I now pronounce you husband and wife.” And that’s joyful and awesome.
But there’s that holy moment when the Groom sees the Bride, and she comes to him in all of her beauty.
And the two come together, and they are married!
And the psalmist says that their union will be blessed with children. 
In verse 16, he switches back to singing to the king. The Hebrew is masculine here. V.16
“Your sons will take the place of your fathers; you will make them princes throughout the land. [Davidic succession as promised. And then the song writer tells us why he’s so excited to have gotten to write this psalm. V.17] I will perpetuate your memory through all generations; therefore the nations will praise you for ever and ever.”
He knew that he was writing one for the ages!
And here we are in Pennsylvania fulfilling it on Valentines Day 2021!!! We are perpetuating the memory of this king by reading this wedding song 3,000 years after it debuted at that particular royal wedding. So how do we apply this psalm to our lives in 2021?
It’s really different from the other psalms, so our application has to probably be a little different, as well.
I think we could legitimately draw some applications for weddings and marriages from Psalm 45. We could use the Royal Groom and the Royal Bride as models for being godly husbands and wives.
Husbands with godly speech. Husbands that defend truth, humility, and righteousness. Husbands of justice that hate wickedness. Husbands that are enthralled by their wives’ beauty (and their beauty alone).
Wives that transfer their primary allegiances to their husbands and submit to their husbands’ headship.
I think we could draw some principles for good and godly weddings. There needs to be a Groom and a Bride. There are not two grooms or two brides. Or three of anything. (It’s amazing to me that I have to say that, but I do.)
We could draw the application of holding weddings and going big with them to mark them as the special occasion that they are. How sex should saved until that wedding day when the bride comes to her groom. How beautiful music and fine clothes are appropriate for a wedding. How good it is to have God-glorifying wedding songs.
Those are probably legitimate applications to some degree, but I don’t think they are main ones that we should take from Psalm 45.
Because the language of Psalm 45 keeps bursting the bonds of that original wedding to point to something much greater. And Someone much greater!
This psalm is not just aspirational about what the kings and queens of Israel were supposed to be and do. This wedding song is anticipational of what the ultimate king of Israel would be and do.
We get our cues from the book of Hebrews that says that this Psalm prophesies of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God the Son.
So if you and I are in this psalm at all, we are all prefigured in the person of the Royal Bride. 
Not each of us, but all of us together corporately are the Bride of Christ.
So we can hear the call of verse 10 to “forget” and leave as a call to sanctification and dedication to our Lord Jesus above all others.
And we can look forward to the Wedding Supper of the Lamb foretold in the Book of Revelation chapter 19 where John the Revelator says, “Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: ‘Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints)” (19:6-8, NIV).
That’s us, brothers and sisters.
This psalm calls us to get ourselves ready for that great day of joy and gladness when many sons are brought to glory (see Hebrews 2:10 in juxtaposition to Psalm 45:16).
But the truest center and focus of this psalm isn’t us, is it? It isn’t the Bride as glorious as she is made to be.
The center and focus of this royal psalm is the Royal Groom because He is the king.
And it anticipates the King of Kings. 
Every time there was a new king in Israel, and probably every time one of them got married, everybody hoped that this new king would fulfill all of Psalm 45.
But none of them did. Some of them did it more than others, but none of them did it perfectly. None of them did it fully.
Who could live up to this song?!
We know Who!
This psalm sings us to Jesus.
Who came and battled on behalf of truth and righteousness and did it from a position of deep humility.
He died on the Cross to win our salvation! He humbled Himself to the point of death.
And in doing that, he pierced the hearts of His enemies so that they all fall before His feet.
Jesus’ throne will last forever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of His kingdom. God has blessed Him forever and ever.
Here’s the application:
Love King Jesus.Long for King Jesus.And praise King Jesus forever and ever.

***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 96
20. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86
21. "May All the Peoples Praise" - Psalm 67

EveryPsalm #45 from Poor Bishop Hooper

Beautiful capturing of the message of Psalm 45 from Poor Bishop Hooper.

"May All the Peoples Praise You" Psalm 67 [Matt's Messages]

“May All the Peoples Praise You”Lanse Evangelical Free ChurchFebruary 7, 2021 :: Psalm 67
Psalm 67 is a radiantly-beautiful, carefully-constructed prayer song that passionately asks God to bless His people so that all of the peoples of the earth will come to praise Him.
Do you ever worry that it might be wrong to ask God to bless you?
I talk to people regularly who do not want to ask God for things for themselves in their prayer times. They want to focus on other people. “Other people have it so bad. I feel bad asking God for myself. Much less to ask Him to ‘bless me.’"
And you know there’s something good about that. Because too often many of us only ask things for ourselves. We can pray selfishly. No doubt.
But Psalm 67 shows us that it is good and right and godly to ask God to bless us.
But when we do, we are to do it so that others receive the blessing through us, as well. In fact, we are to pray that God blesses us so that all of the peoples of the earth will blessed, too.
Let me show you what I mean in Psalm 67. I said that Psalm 67 is radiantly-beautiful and carefully-constructed. You can tell from the word choice and the symmetry of the psalm. 
In just 7 verses there is all kinds of structure and repetition and symmetry. It starts out with a big prayer request, builds to a central declaration with matching praise phrases on either side of it, and then bookends with a repeat of some of the opening themes.
We don’t know who wrote it, but we know they wrote it good!
Let me read the whole thing for you. And listen for these words and how they land:
“Bless,” “nations,” “peoples,” “praise,” and “all.” A-L-L. Ready? Here we go.

Does the prayer of verse 1 sound really familiar to you? I hope it does.
The psalmist sticks a “selah” at the end of verse 1 even before he completes his opening thought.
I think he put a note to pause and ponder there to make sure that we all recognize the hypertext reference to Numbers chapter 6, verse 24 through 26.
When the LORD established the Levitical priesthood first led by Moses’ brother Aaron the high priest, he gave Aaron a blessing to pray over the people of Israel.
I use it several times a week when praying for my boys at night.
When I preached through the book of Numbers here, I prayed it over you at the end of every worship time in 2007, sometimes in Hebrew!
Numbers chapter 6 says, “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Tell Aaron and his sons, 'This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them: ‘The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you [shalom] peace.’ So they will put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.’”
Sound familiar? Well, the writer of Psalm 67 was clearly thinking about that Aaronic blessing when he wrote this song for the director of temple music to put to stringed instruments and then have everyone sing together in worship.
But here in verse 1 it’s not the priest saying it over the people.
It is the people praying it up to God. Verse 1.
“May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, Selah”
Just think about that. Pause and ponder. Selah.
Not only is it good and right, but it is authorized and godly to ask God to bless you.
Israel is asking God to pour out His blessings on them.
Perhaps this was sung at harvest time. Verse 6 will lend some evidence in that direction.
Perhaps the psalmist just heard the priest pronounce that blessing over him after he had brought an offering to the temple, and he’s adding his voice in supplication for that blessing. We don’t know.
But we do know that the song is asking God for His blessing on His people.
Not that they deserve it!
“May God be gracious to us.” That means to give us what we don’t deserve and to not give us what we do deserve! “Be gracious.”
And bless us. Be good to us. Give us blessings.
“And make his face shine upon us.” That’s the greatest blessing there is! The radiance of God’s personal presence. His face! These are words of intimacy and personal relationship. For true personal knowledge of God through His shining favor.
These words are so good, it is hard to find other words to capture and restate them  with!
This is a good thing for us to pray.
So have you prayed like this recently? Have you asked God to bless you?
To be gracious to you, to bless you, to make His face shine upon you?
Don’t be afraid to! 
Be afraid not to–because this should be our guide.
Ask God to bless you, to bless your family, to bless your church, to bless your community, to bless your workplace, to bless your nation.
Not that we deserve it! Sometimes we pray, “God bless America,” and it comes out sounding like we’re saying, “We’re so good, God’s gotta be good to us. God bless America.”
But the song “America the Beautiful” pleads, “God shed His GRACE on thee.” Because we are not good, so we need Him to be good to us in spite of us.
But we ask for it. Verse 1. “May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us, Selah”
Yes, do that! 
But catch this. Follow the train of thought.
We ask for this blessing on us, but it’s not just blessing for us. Verse 2.
“...that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”
That’s the purpose in verse 2 of the prayer of verse 1.
Israel was to sing and pray for God to bless them so that God’s ways would be known beyond borders of Israel, so that God’s salvation would be known among ALL nations.
So there’s obviously another hypertext here in the mind of the psalmist.
He isn’t just thinking about Numbers chapter 6. He’s also thinking about Genesis chapter 12.
Do you remember when we studied Genesis together and we learned about a little thing often called the “Abrahamic Covenant?” A set of promises that God made to Father Abraham? 
Summarized in three words: Offspring, Land, and...Blessing?
In Genesis chapter 12, God promised to bless Abraham and to make him a blessing for all the peoples on earth. He said (Genesis 12:2&3): “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Remember that? The songwriter of Psalm 67 sure does.
His song asks God to bless them so that every other people group on earth is blessed along the way.
In many ways, this is an Old Testament song about missions.
Did you know that missions is in the Old Testament?
Most of the time when the word “nations” occurs in the Psalms, it’s a negative reference. Because the “nations” are often the enemies of Israel. We saw that back at Christmastime when we studied Psalm 2 and the nations were unsuccessfully conspiring against the LORD and against His Anointed One. 
But here the nations are receiving salvation.
And we saw in Psalm 2 that they were invited to that salvation, to take refuge in Israel’s promised Messiah.
But here the people are praying for God’s blessing so that the nations will know His saving power.
Do you see how this works?
Israel was to pray that they would be blessed so that they would become a blessing.
This raises the question, “What do you do with your blessings?”
When you are blessed, what happens next?
Because in God’s economy, in God’s system, we are blessed to be a blessing.
We are not supposed to be “cul-de-sacs” of God’s blessings. We are supposed to be conduits of God’s blessings. Channels of God’s blessings.
Sometimes we get to thinking that we are supposed to be the “roach motels” of God’s blessings. They come in to us, but they don’t go out. 
Often we act like a dead-end street. “Thank you, Lord, for blessing me.” And that’s it.
But when the Lord blesses us, we are supposed to be passing that blessing along.
Because there is plenty of God’s blessing to go around.
What do you do with your blessings?
We are supposed to pray for them to come in, but we should not stop there.
Ask God to bless you to bless the nations.Ask God to bless your family to bless the nations.Ask God to bless your church to bless the nations.Ask God to bless your community to bless the nations.Ask God to bless your workplace to bless the nations.Ask God to bless your nation to bless the nations.
I’m so glad that Israel sang this song and prayed this prayer.
They didn’t do it perfectly. In fact, they didn’t do it enough in the Old Testament.
Old crankypants Jonah didn’t pray this prayer and was miffed when God was fixing to bless the city of Nineveh through his preaching!
But the faithful remnant always sang this song and prayed this prayer. And many individuals from the surrounding nations came to faith in the God of Israel in the Old Testament.
And then in the New Testament, it gets ramped up 1,000%!
And the Lord Jesus sends out His blessed people with the blessed message of the blessed gospel to bless all of the nations, fulfilling this psalm!
And answering this prayer.
“...that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations.”
They weren’t just praying blessing for themselves but blessing on themselves that attracted the nations, taught the nations God’s ways (God’s laws, God’s paths), and even made His salvation known among all peoples.
Verse 3 shows that the end goal of this prayer request is joyful praise among all peoples. Verse 3.
“May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.”
Not just Israel. But all the peoples.
That’s really important. It shows the missionary heart of God and what should be the missionary heart of our prayers.
Is this your prayer? That all of the peoples would praise the Lord?
Last week, I pointed to a wall of pictures of our church family.
This week, I want to point to another wall of pictures in our church building and that’s this wall of pictures of our missionary families.
The precious servants who have answered the call to go to the nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We partner with them. We send them. And we pray for them.
Are you praying for these folks? Are you praying for the peoples they are trying to reach with the gospel?
“May all the peoples praise you!”
You can see that there is a couple of blank spots here.
For the last several months, our Missions Ministry Team has been working closely with ReachGlobal, the missions arm of our association of churches to discover who our next set of missionaries to partner with will be.
We are getting close to having names and stories and countries to tell you about. We’re excited. Please pray!
We pray that “all the peoples” would praise the Lord.
All. I love it that the EFCA actually has a ministry called “The All People’s Initiative.” We have a dedicated team of people to help us minister to, and understand, and partner with people who are very different from us, Ethnically, racially, culturally.
This is Black History Month in the United States, and that’s a great opportunity each year for us in the church to learn some of the history of Black people in the United States including some of the terrible ways that they have been treated by professing Christians. Professing Christians who did not pass on their blessings to the nations but hoarded them for themselves. And on the flipside to learn about the contributions to the church by Black Christians. 
This Black History Month, I’m listening to the audiobook of David Blight’s excellent biography of Frederick Douglass who had been enslaved and was our brother in Christ. What a life! What a contribution he made to our nation!
“All the peoples.”
“May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.”
And think about this. This really hit me when I was preparing this message. Think  about this: We are an answer to this prayer request!
Because from the perspective of Psalm 67, we are the peoples! We are the nations!
None of us here are Hebrew, right?None of us here are Israeli, right?None of us here are ethnically Jewish, right?
So they were praying for us!
When they prayed Psalm 67 in faith, they were praying for the peoples including the Gentiles that live today in Central Pennsylvania! V.4
“May the nations be glad and sing for joy, for you rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth. Selah”
We fulfill that song every time we gather to worship and rejoice that we know this God!
And what we know about Him is amazing. We already said that He’s gracious. Here we find out that He is just and righteous.
He rules the peoples–or that might actually be a prophecy for the future that he will rule the peoples justly and guide the nations of the earth.
He will set all to right.He make all things right.He rules righteously.
And don’t we all long for justice to come and for it come perfectly?
That’s what kind of a God we know!
So verse 5 is the exact same words as verse 3.
“May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.”
It’s repeated because it’s so important!
Is this your prayer? Do you repeat this prayer to the Lord regularly?
I remember one time a few years ago playing basketball with a group of guys and then at half-time we had a little Bible study and devotion and somebody raised a prayer request for the people in another country that were experiencing internal troubles.
And one of the young men I was with said to me, “Those people don’t deserve our prayers or our help. I say we help the people around here and don’t worry about them. They don’t deserve it.”
And I couldn’t believe my ears. And I’ve learned since then that that’s a popular notion even among professing Christians.
I’m so thankful for missionary Christians who brought the gospel to these shores. Who brought the gospel to these ears. That they didn’t keep the blessings to themselves.
I want to pray like this. I fail at it all of the time.
But I want this to be my model of a prayerful heart for the nations.
To love ALL people. 
And to want ALL people know the love of God in Christ Jesus.
I want to pray for the fulfillment of the vision of Revelation chapter 7 when John say before him “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”
That’s an fulfillment of Psalm 67, verse 5. “May the peoples praise you, O God; may all the peoples praise you.”
And you know what happens when we pray like that? The Lord blesses us some more. V.6
“Then the land will yield its harvest, and God, our God, will bless us. God will bless us, and all the ends of the earth will fear him.”
Israel saw that their fruitful crops were physical blessings and signs of God’s grace.
We know that the blessings of God go much deeper than the soil. They get all the way down to the salvation of our souls.
Because the grace of this God and the justice of this God met and kissed at the Cross of Jesus Christ.
So that His righteous wrath was satisfied and He poured out His love on His people  and on all of the nations so that all of the ends of the earth will fear him even in Clearfield County Pennsylvania!
Because the ultimate fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant, the ultimate offspring of Abraham was named Jesus Christ, and He is the ultimate blessing for all the peoples on the earth, as well.
Psalm 67 turns our gaze upward and outward. We learn to pray missionary prayers that the nations would be glad and sing for joy.
Psalm 67 is a radiantly-beautiful, carefully-constructed prayer song that passionately asks God to bless His people so that all of the peoples of the earth will come to praise Him.
May we sing this song and pray this prayer and may His kingdom come so that ALL the peoples will praise Him.

***
Fortifying Truth - Psalms - Fall 2020 / Winter 2021

01. Majestic and Mindful - Psalm 8
02. All Our Days - Psalm 90
03. "The LORD on High Is Mighty!" - Psalm 93
04. "The LORD Is My Shepherd" - Psalm 23
05. "Praise the LORD, O My Soul!" - Psalm 103
06. "The Blessing of Aaron's Oily Beard" - Psalm 133
07. "A Dying Thirst for the Living God" - Psalm 42
08. "Our Fortress" - Psalm 46
09. Unrestless - Psalm 131
10. "Sun and Shield" - Psalm 84
11. "With Songs of Joy" - Psalm 126
12. "His Love Endures Forever" - Psalm 136
13. "How Many Are Your Works, O LORD!" - Psalm 104
14. "My Soul Waits for the Lord" - Psalm 130
15. "Remember David" - Psalm 132
16. "My Son" - Psalm 2
17. "Search Me" - Psalm 139
18. "Cleanse Me" - Psalm 51
19. "A New Song" - Psalm 9620. "Hear My Prayer, O LORD." - Psalm 86