Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

You probably know as well as I do that the Bible is the best-selling book of all time.  You’ve heard that before.  It’s true.  You could go down to the Library of Congress here in Washington, D.C., and find tens of thousands of books.  If you’re into books as I am and you love study and libraries and all that, well there’s no better place than the Library of Congress.  I mean, you can find all kinds of books in a place like that.  But no book in the Library of Congress or in your personal library or my personal library comes even close to matching the Bible.  We call it the book of books for a reason, because it's the best-selling book of all times.  And the reason, in my opinion, that it's the best-selling book of all times is because, well, it's God's Word.  It self-identifies or self-testifies as the Word of God.  That’s the internal witness of Scripture.  But there also are arguments that we can make external to that for this being the Word of God.  One of those arguments speaks of just the amazing continuity of Scripture.  This is actually not just “a book”.  It’s a collection of books- 66 books to be exact, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New Testament.  And this collection of books was written over 1600 years by 40 different authors in three different languages, several continents.  And yet this amazing book we call the Bible, that is the best-selling book of all times, speaks with one voice from Genesis to Revelation without error, without contradiction.  I mean, you try to get 40 authors over 1600 years in several different languages on different parts of the world to say anything in agreement.  I mean, it just speaks of the amazing supernatural authorship of God who brought together this book we call the Bible

0:02:25.5

Now, if you love the Scriptures as much as I do, if you love to study God's word, you may be hard-pressed to answer this question.  What is your favorite book of the Bible?  That’s a hard one for me to answer.  I might go to one of the Gospels because they speak of the life of Jesus.  I had a professor in seminary who said that the older he got, the more often he just found himself going back to the Gospels- Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John- because this told the story of Jesus.  I love the Gospels.  But if you were to press me, if you were to ask me what’s my favorite book of the Bible based on the one that I seem to go back to the most and read the most, I’d have to say it’s the book of Psalms.  There’s something that takes me back to the book of Psalms because of the uniqueness of the Psalms, because of the way it helps my heart connect with God in a vertical kind.  I love the intellectual arguments of Paul in the book of Romans and through Ephesians and all of that.  I love the Gospels for obvious reasons, because it just connects us with Jesus.  But there's something about the book of Psalms that we all love because it just…it’s not an intellectual exercise.  It connects our hearts with God in a very, very unique way.  And so this morning we’re beginning a brand-new series of messages I’ve titled “Playlist: Ancient Songs That Move Us Closer to God”.  And we’re gonna look a number of individual psalms.  The book of Psalms is 150 chapters.  We’re not gonna be able to get to all 150 chapters, but we’re gonna land upon some of your favorites and some of my favorites.  And what I want to do this morning is just kind of give a 30,000-foot view of the book of Psalms.  We’re not gonna zero in on one particular psalm morning.  We’re just gonna take a big picture view of the book of Psalms so we kind of understand what we’re getting into over the next several weeks.

0:04:13.0

The first question I want to ask and answer this morning may be the question that you have.  And that is, what is a psalm?  I mean, it seems like such an ancient word and an ancient thing, disconnected from our modern culture.  But the book of Psalms is simply a collection of ancient prayers, poems, spiritual songs, and hymns used in worship to connect with God.  And there are 150 Psalms in the psalter in the book of Psalms, written over 1000 years of Israel's history.  Think about that.  We have a collection of songs and hymns and spiritual songs and spiritual poems and lyrics that were written over 1000 years of Israel's history.  I like to call Psalms “God's playlist”, His playlist of greatest hits, all right.  You have maybe an iPod or an iPad or you have something on your computer that…you know, this modern term, we use a playlist.  It’s a list of your favorite songs or my favorite songs.  If God had playlist, He’d have 150 songs on His playlist, His greatest hits, His favorites.  And the inspired collection we know as the book of Psalms in the Old Testament.

0:05:27.5

 This book of Psalms was also the songbook of the early church.  Maybe you grew up in a church where you had hymnbooks.  And we had songs that were a part of church history for hundreds of years, written by all kinds of different songwriters in the church.  Well, when the early church exploded, when it got off the ground 2000 years ago- and you can read about in the book of Acts- the songbook for the early church was the book of Psalms, God's playlist, His greatest hits.  And just as the Bible itself, the 66 books of the Bible, are written by a variety of authors, there are a variety of authors that contributed to the book of Psalms.  You’ll find some standouts like David, Moses, and Solomon.  They all contributed to the Psalms.  But some lesser-known people to, like Asaph, the sons of Korah…who were they?  Well, they contributed to the Psalms.  A guy name Heman wrote one psalm.  Another guy named Ethan contributed one psalm.  The vast majority of Psalms were written by King David.  He is the most prolific psalmist, the most prolific writer.  We count 73 of the 150 psalms attributed to King David.  Now, he may have written more, because there are 49 of the 150 psalms that don't have a little name ascription to it.  But 73 of the psalms begin at the top there by saving “A psalm of David”.  We know that this was written by King David.  He may have written more.  Some of the 49 where we don't have a name may have been attributed to King David.

0:07:06.8

 And you remember King David, don't you?  David was a bit of a renaissance man.  He was a successful shepherd as a young boy.  He became a politician, later became the king of Israel.  He was also a warrior.  He was a military man.  But he was also a musician.  I mean, he was successful in all these different endeavors in life.  He was a musician who wrote songs and poems and spiritual songs that we know as the Psalms.  Now, some you may be thinking, well, you know,  David, the musician, the poem-writer, the songwriter…I can’t identify with kind of a softy like that, a wimpy guy who writes poetry.  Well, remember, David was also the guy who slew a giant named Goliath.  And David was the guy who was such a military commander and such a military leader that, well, the ladies used to say, “Saul has slain his thousands, but David his ten thousands.”  I mean, David was a strong man and a he-man and a man's man and a ladies man and a warrior man.  And I say all of that to say this, guys.  Psalms is not for sissies.  All right?  Psalms is not for the weak-hearted or the fainthearted.  It’s not for the chickenhearted or the yellowbellies out there.  I mean, David was a warrior.  He was a strong man.  He was a he-man.  But Psalms is the kind of book you gotta read with the heart as well as the head.  In fact, one author says this.  He says, “You do not read and study the Psalms as you would one of Paul's inspired arguments in the epistles.”  He says, “No, when you study the Psalms, you move into the holy of holies where the heart communes with God.”  Be careful, friends, that your faith becomes too intellectual; you know, where we’re parsing verbs in the ancient languages.  And it just becomes an intellectual exercise, but our heart never connects with God.  I think one of the reasons I love the book of Psalms so much is, you know, whether I'm left-brained or right-brained, I can kind of tilt in that intellectual direction.  When I was in seminary they warned us against something called spiritual frostbite.  You know, you’re in this ivory tower called the seminary, and you're going to classes and you’re learning.  And it’s the intellectual exercise and you love the study of it.  But somehow your heart is disconnected from a relationship with God.  Psalms helps us warm the heart and keep the heart warm toward God.  You’ve got to read the Psalms with your heart and with your head, this author would say.

0:09:47.4

Now, the scholars have categorized Psalms a number of different ways.  There are, you know, depending upon the scholar, five, six, seven, maybe eight different categories of Psalms.  And this is helpful, because when you get into a big book like this with 150 different Psalms, you just kind of need to know how to navigate your way around.  The book itself is broken into five sections, five sections that some scholars believe, kind of, mirror the first five books of the Bible- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy- the Torah, as we say.  The book of Psalms is perhaps a commentary on the Torah itself.  But even within those five books there are different kinds of Psalms.  The scholars will call them praise Psalms and lament Psalms.  There are thanksgiving Psalms, wisdom Psalms.  There’s even a category called the imprecatory Psalm.  I learned about that one when I was in seminary.  And all that is great that the scholars provide those kinds of categories.  But I think those categories are, quite frankly, boring.  All right?  So I had a little bit of fun this week renaming the categories myself so that we could talk about them this morning, so that we can understand what type of Psalm we need in a particular season of life or circumstance that we might be going through.  So let me talk about three or four or maybe five of these categories

0:11:14.4

The first one is what I call the “Yay, God” Psalms, the “Yay, God” Psalms.  These are what scholars call the praise Psalms.  Let me give you a couple of examples.  The first one is found in Psalm 19:1, “The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.”  Can you picture David there on the hillside as the shepherd shepherding his sheep?  And it becomes dark at night and he looks up into the sky and he goes, “Yay, God.  You are an awesome God.”  And he praises God.  And he pens these words, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork.”  Have you ever stepped out on a starry night, and you were just at a loss for words to just praise the creator of the universe for what He made.  Psalms gives us some language for that.  Here’s one in Psalm 148:1-2, “Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord from the heavens; praise Him in the heights!  Praise him, all His angels; praise Him, all His hosts.”  Just flat out “yay, God” and “praise God”.  I grew up in a church, maybe as you did, that took this very seriously, this idea of praising the Lord.  And we used to sing what was called the Doxology at the beginning of every service.  You know, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.  Praise Him all creatures here below.  Praise Him above, ye heavenly host.  Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.”  We sang that Doxology at the beginning of every service, because Psalm 100:4 says, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.”  As we come into the presence of the Lord, we’re to shout, “Yay, God!  Yay, God!” for all that He has done in our lives.

0:13:06.9 

These praise Psalms or these “Yay, God” Psalms remind me of a story about an old country preacher who had a horse to sell, and he advertised this.  And one day a guy showed up at the church and said, “Hey, I’d like to take a look at your horse and maybe buy your horse.”  He says, “That’s great.  I’d love for you buy my horse.  You just need to know one thing about my horse.  He only responds to church language.  If you wanted him to go, you say, ‘Praise the Lord.’  If you want to stop, you say, ‘Amen.’”  The guy said, “That’s fine.”  So he climbed up on the horse, grabbed the reins, and just quietly said, “Praise the Lord.”  And the horse began to run, just trotted out a little bit.  A little bit later he said it again.  He said, “Praise the Lord,” and the horse began to gallop.  And then he wanted to really find out what the horse was made of, and so he shouted at the top of his lungs, “Praise the Lord!”  And that horse took off like a thoroughbred at the Kentucky Derby.  And before long, as he was enjoying the ride, he looks out and he sees a cliff.  He’s heading toward a cliff, and the guy panics and he shouts, “Amen!  Amen!  Amen!”  And the horse puts on the brakes and stops right at the edge of the cliff, right at the edge of the cliff.  And the guy just, phew, breathes a sigh of relief, takes off his hat, wipes his brow, and he says, “Praise the Lord.”  Or “Yay, God.”  Whatever.  Maybe he should have said, “Yay, God” instead of “Praise the Lord”, right?  So that's one category of Psalms, the “Yay, God” Psalms.

0:14:31.1

How about the “Thank You, Jesus” Psalms, also known as the Thanksgiving Psalms by the scholars?  Psalm 100:4 again says, “Enter His gates with thanksgiving.”  Enter His gates with thanksgiving.  When you enter into the presence of the Lord, we come with an attitude of gratitude, don’t we?  At least, we should.  And the Psalms help us verbalize some of that.  Psalm 75:1 says, “We give thanks to You, O God.  We give thanks, for Your name is near.  We recount Your wondrous deeds.”  When we come with that attitude of gratitude, we are reminding the Lord and recounting His is wonderful and generous things that He's done in our lives.  Every day should be a day of thanksgiving in the life of a Christian, right?  We should all just be coming with that attitude of gratitude.  But I'm glad that we live in the country, and I hope you are too, where we have a history of presidents proclaiming a thanksgiving proclamation at least once a year.  I was thinking about that this week, of how, from the earliest days of our nation's birth, from the first President of the United States, George Washington.  He made a Thanksgiving Day proclamation.  In fact, it happened on October 3, 1789, and George Washington declared it a day, listen to this, “of public thanksgiving and prayer.”  By the way, for those people out there who believe that our founding fathers envisioned a purely secular nation, read George Washington's day of public thanksgiving and prayer.  You know, the President of the United States, the first President of the United States and many after that, called the nation to pray to God to honor providence, who cares for us and who started this great nation.  These are 
Thank You, Jesus” Psalms.  And, again, the Psalms gives us some language that we can use for that.

0:16:38.8

There is another category of Psalms.  The scholars call them wisdom Psalms.  I like to call them “Success in Life” Psalms, all right.  These are the kinds of Psalms that sound a little bit like the book of Proverbs, all right.  And keep in mind that Psalms and Proverbs are part of a larger category of books in the Old Testament known as the wisdom literature, all right.  We all need wisdom in life.  And wisdom is the ability to apply truth skillfully.  Let me say that again.  Wisdom…it's not the evidence of old age or gray hair.  You could be growing older and chronologically every year and not be getting wiser.  And likewise, you can be a young person that doesn't have very many chronological years, but be very wise.  Why?  Because you know the Truth.  You know the Word of God.  And a wise person is able to apply the truth of God's Word skillfully in his or her life.  We all need wisdom, right?  We all have decisions to make that we need some wisdom.  We need wisdom from above.  James tells us, “If any of us lacks wisdom,”  James 1:5, “let him ask of God.” If any of you lack wisdom, read the wisdom Psalms.  Again, very much like the book of Proverbs.  But Proverbs, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon are all books of the Old Testament that are known as part of the wisdom literature.  Think of it this way.  Job is God's wisdom on pain and suffering.  You need some wisdom, you need to know how to apply life and truth skillfully during a painful time of suffering, read the book of Job.  Ecclesiastes is God's wisdom on the meaning of life.  The Song of Solomon is God's wisdom on love, marriage, sex, and relationships.  Now, you’re gonna probably go home and read the book of The Song Of Solomon this afternoon, right?  You didn’t know God gave us a handbook on love, marriage, sex and relationships, but there it is in the Old Testament.

0:18:36.6

Proverbs, generally speaking, is God's wisdom on how to live life horizontally, you know, in relationship with one another.  And then the book of Psalms is generally God's wisdom on how to engage in a relationship with Him vertically.  But you have this category of Psalms in the book of Psalms known as wisdom Psalms or “Success in Life” Psalms.  Let me give you a couple of examples.  (0:19:00.1) Psalm 1:1-2, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night.”  That’s a great verse of Scripture, two verses of Scripture there just to commit to memory.  You want to live the blessed life, a life that’s full of godly wisdom?  Then walk not in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of scoffers, but delight yourself in the law of God.  How about Psalm 128:1-2?  “Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,” that is, who has an awesome respect for God in such a way that makes you turn away from evil.  That’s what the fear of the Lord is.  “Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord, who walks in his ways!  You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with (0:20:00.1)you.”  You want to live a blessed life?  You want to have life where it’s well with you?  Then learn to fear the Lord, to honor and respect His ways and to walk in obedience to His ways.  Now, these are the “Success in Life” Psalms.  And we’ll look at one or two of those over the course of our time together. 

0:20:16.8

Here is a fourth category of Psalms.  The scholars call these lament Psalms.  I call them “It stinks to be me” Psalms, all right.  These are the Psalms that give you an opportunity to lament or to complain or to vent to the Lord.  And that’s one of the things I love about the book of Psalms.  David and the other writers are real.  They are raw.  They are authentic.  They hold nothing back.  They’re not couched in a bunch of spiritual-ese.  They’re not putting on a face or a façade.  They’ve taken off the mask.  When life really stinks- and it did from time to time for David, for Moses, for Solomon, for Asaph, for the sons of Korah- they let it all hang out.  They expressed it to God.  For example, in Psalm 13:1-2, listen to this, “How long, oh Lord?  Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?  How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?  How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”  David begins Psalm 13 four times saying, “Lord, how long?  How long is this going to go on?”  Have you ever been in the proverbial holding pattern with God, just waiting on Him and waiting on Him?  Maybe you have an enemy, so to speak, or somebody who is just dogging you.  And you say, “Lord, how long is this going to go on?  How long am I gonna cry out to You and nothing ever changes?”  Fortunately, with these “It Stinks to Be Me” Psalms, it starts with “how long”, and by the end of the Psalm, David resolves the issue in the presence of the Lord.  And he finds strength in the Lord for his time of difficulty.  Here’s another one in Psalm 42:5-6, “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.  My soul is cast down within me; therefore I remember you from the land of Jordan and of Hermon and from Mount Miser.”  I mean, David is depressed.  He’s despondent.  His soul is cast down.  And he’s not hiding behind some mask and some façade and, you know, putting on his Sunday face.  He’s saying, “You know, it really stinks to be me today.”  And he’s not afraid to verbalize that to the Lord.  That’s one of the things I love about the book of Psalms.  It gives us permission to say what's really on our heart.  And you know what?  God can handle that.  In fact, He’s probably waiting for you and me to express it.  Maybe you say, “Oh, I couldn’t say such a thing in the presence of the Lord,” Well, He knows your heart.  He reads your mind.  He knows what you're saying though not verbalizing.  Sometimes we can go to the book of Psalms and find a way to express our pain and our anguish or our anger and other emotions as well.  When you're having one of those “It Stinks to Be Me” days- and maybe you had one this week, I don’t know-  go to the book of Psalms and just find some comfort in knowing that guys like David and Moses and Solomon and a whole host of other people had days like that, too.  And they brought those expressions to the Lord.

0:23:42.8

Here’s a fifth category that I think is kind of interesting and makes you scratch your head a little bit.  I call this the “Lord, Smite My Enemies” category.  Okay?  These are what my professors in seminary called the imprecatory Psalms.  And it’s probably best just to read you an example or two, and then we’ll talk about it.  Psalm 40:8-10, “Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked; do not further their evil plot, or they will be exalted!  As for the head of those who surround me, let the mischief of their lips overwhelm them!  Let burning coals fall upon them!  Let them be cast into the fire, into miry pits, no more to rise!”  You know, if you read something like this outside of the context of Scripture, would you think it came from Scripture?  I mean, this sounds like a guy who is calling down the fire of heaven onto his enemies.  That’s exactly what he’s doing.  These imprecatory Psalms as they’re called, these “Lord, Smite My Enemy” Psalms are, again, just honest expressions of David and others who say, “Lord, I got somebody who’s just dogging me.  I got somebody who is just making life difficult for me.  And he’s not one of Your people perhaps.  I mean, he’s somebody who is among the ungodly.  And, Lord, I just want You to smite my enemy.  Take care of this person.  Take him out if You have to.”  Psalms 35:1-3, “Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me.  Fight against those who fight against me.  Take hold of shield and buckler and rise for my help.  Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers.  Say to my soul, ‘I am your salvation.’”  Again, David calling upon the Lord God of heaven and earth to fight his battles for him and to take out his enemies.

0:25:32.6 

So you remember, Psalms is not for sissies.  And there were many times that David found himself with his back against the wall, contending with his enemies.  And he found a way to find strength in the Lord in those times.  And he wasn't afraid to call upon the salvation of his soul to fight the battles for him.  And that’s what the imprecatory Psalms are all about.  I remember when I was in seminary one of my Old Testament professors was waxing eloquently from the Psalms.  And he was talking about the imprecatory Psalms, the “Lord, Smite Your Enemy” Psalms.  And, just in a weak moment, I raised my hand.  It was my fourth year in seminary.  I already had apathy, was ready to get out, all that kind of stuff.  And I wasn't thinking.  And I just raised my hand, and I said, “Prof, I don’t get it.  I can’t identify with David.  I don’t have any enemies.”  And that's when he skillfully used the pregnant pause in the classroom.  And then he peered up over his glasses, and he says, “Jones, just go pastor a church for five years, and then come talk to me.”  I mean, we all have times when we have people who are dogging us, right?  Enemies.  They may be God's enemies because they’re not part of the family of God and followers of Jesus Christ.  And, as strange as it may sound, these “Lord, Smite My Enemy” Psalms give expression to our frustration and invite God into a time where He does battles for us.  And He takes care of situations that we’re not able to take care of ourselves.

0:27:06.7

Well, so much for the categories.  And I certainly hope that, as you go through life and you experience different circumstances, that you go running to the Psalms to find expression for your faith and to find ways to find consolation in times of difficulty.  But you may be asking the question.  You know, all the categories are great, all the 30,000-foot stuff and the interesting facts about the book of Psalms are great.  But why should I study the Psalms?  Why should I get into this book and read the Psalms?  And by the way, you can read through 150 chapters of the book of Psalms in 30 days.  Just read five of them a day.  Billy Graham used to say he read one Proverb and five Psalms and a little bit of other Scripture every day.  He tried to do that.  You can do that.  These are not long.  You can sit there in 10 or 15 minutes and read five Psalms and just saturate your heart with the Word of God.  But why do that?  Why study the book of Psalms?  Let me give you three or four reasons.  First of all- and I’ve already alluded to this- you'll learn to express your faith.  Far too many of us have an intellectual faith, and that faith hasn't gone from the head down into the heart where we commune with God.  And, oftentimes, when we’ve run into difficult times in life, it is hard for us, for our faith, to find expression.  But it finds expression in the Psalms.  In fact, the Psalms invite us to verbalize what we’re feeling to the Lord.  Again, He can handle it.  I think one of the best ways to do that is to pray the Psalms, all right.  You always know that you are praying the will of God when you pray the Psalms.  And you just take a particular Psalm that may speak to your heart in a particular situation, and you change the personal pronouns to make it personal to you.  And you just verbalize that prayer to the Lord.  One of the colleagues of mine, a worship leader friend in Texas years ago, when we would have our staff meetings and we would pray together, he would pray this way.  And it was powerful, just the way he changed the pronouns and personalized it.  It gives you a way to express your faith and to communicate things to the Lord.

0:29:27.2

 Secondly, I believe a study of Psalms will help you enjoy a deeper relationship or a greater intimacy with the Holy Spirit.  What do I mean by that?  Well, Ephesians 5:18-19 says this, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery; but be filled with the Spirit.”  And then it goes on to say, “Addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”  Paul is saying one of the evidences of the Spirit-filled life…and what I mean by that is, as a believer in Jesus Christ, you have the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, living inside of you.  He took up residency in your life when you placed your faith, if you have, in the Lord Jesus Christ.  He came to live inside of you in the person of the Holy Spirit.  What Paul means by being filled with the Holy Spirit is don’t let Him just be resident in your life, but let Him be president of your life.  And one of the evidences, he says, one of the evidences that the Holy Spirit is really calling the shots in your life is that we address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, “singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.”  There’s some kind of connection even to the book of Psalms and the way it engages our hearts with the Lord and the way we engage with one another, that one of the evidences of the Spirit of God is really monopolizing our life, that we’ve really gotten drunk with the Holy Spirit.  That’s the idea here.  He says don’t get drunk with wine.  That leads to a debased life.  But be filled with, be drunk with the Holy Spirit.  And he says one of the evidences of that is just the richness of soul and the richness of heart that comes through the psalms and the hymns and the spiritual songs.  I just think a reading of the Scriptures in the book of Psalms, along with a yielding to the Holy Spirit, just yields a richness and a greater intimacy and a deeper relationship with God.  I think that’s one of the benefits of reading the book of Psalms.

0:31:42.7

Thirdly, you’ll find yourself in the Psalms.  These Psalms are deeply, deeply personal.  Many of these Psalms, scholars have given us, you know, the background.  We can read the Psalms, and we have some kind of a hint as to what was going on in David's life or somebody else's life.  Psalms 90 is attributed to Moses, and he probably wrote it late in his life.  And he’s reflecting on the brevity of life and just...you know, he’s reflecting as an older man might reflect on the length of his days.  And it’s in there that Moses says, “Teach us to number our days so that you will give us a heart of wisdom, O Lord.”  You can picture Moses standing on the edge of the Promised Land, looking out into the Promised Land across the Jordan River, a land into which he will never go because the Lord told him he would not enter the Promised Land.  And he's just reflecting over the length of his 120 years on this earth.  You’ll find yourself in the Psalms. You’ll find all kinds of circumstances.  You’ll find every emotion that you can ever experience- joy, anger, frustration, depression, despondency- you’ll find all of it in the book of Psalms.  And, again, I think it’s one of the reasons why we go there so often, because we’re looking for some way to make sense of the emotions that God has given us in a particular situation.

0:33:07.6

 And then, fourth and finally, you study the book of Psalms because you’ll meet Jesus there.  You say, “Well, wait a minute, Pastor.  I’ve been with you up to this point.  I understand the categories and the reasons to go to certain Psalms and apply them, try to…I understand that we’ll express our faith, and the greater intimacy thing with the Holy Spirit, and I’ll find my…what do you mean we’ll find Jesus in the Psalms?  The Psalms is in the Old Testament.  Jesus doesn’t come along until the New Testament, right?”  Well, not exactly.  There is a category of Psalms that I haven't mentioned yet, and these are known as the messianic Psalms, all right.  These are the Psalms that, in some way, prophesy the coming of Messiah.  These are a fascinating category of Psalms, and a bit controversial, because not everybody believes that certain Psalms or certain phrases in certain Psalms are actually foreshadows of the Messiah.  But there are some fascinating ways to look backward from the New Testament to the Old Testament, and especially the book of Psalms, to where we meet Jesus.  Actually, I want us to start in Luke 24.  If you have your Bible, turn with me there.  This is one place where it's worth turning.  I know we’ve been to a lot of different passages today.  But Luke 24, beginning in verse 44.  Jesus is speaking to His disciples.  It’s after the crucifixion.  It’s after the resurrection.  And this is one of what we call the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus.  He’s appeared to His disciples, and here's what Jesus says to him.  “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you,” now, listen, “that everything written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”  And then verse 45, “Then he open their minds to understand the Scriptures.”  These disciples knew their Bibles.  They knew their Old Testaments.  They knew the Old Testament book of Psalms.  They were familiar with it.  But there came a time, and it was after the resurrection of Jesus, that Jesus said, “Listen, there are a lot of things that I’ve said to you.  And the words that I’ve spoken to you must be in fulfillment of the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”  And that was kind of a technical way of saying the totality of the Old Testament- what you and I would say from Genesis all the way through Malachi, the prophets, the law, and the Psalms, okay.  But He specifically mentions the Psalms here.  Things that He says were “said about me in the Psalms” had to be fulfilled.  He goes on to say, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and, on the third day, rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I am sending the promise of My Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”  He tells them, “All that I've been teaching you is in fulfillment of what was spoken of me long ago, and specifically in the Psalms.”  So Jesus apparently believed that there were certain Psalms that were what we would call messianic Psalms, or had a prophetic nature to them.  

0:36:32.8

Let me give you an example of a few of these.  Do you remember when Jesus was on the cross?  He quoted directly from Psalm 2.  He said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Where did He get that language?  He got it from Psalm 2…I’m sorry, from Psalm 22, where it says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning?”  That perhaps had a specific application to David in his time.  But Jesus on the cross reaches back for that and says, “That also spoke of me.” And He quotes that particular Psalm.  John 2:17 links to Psalm 69:9.  Psalms 69:9 says, “For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who approach you have fallen on me.”  Now, again, that might have and did have a particular application to the psalmist in his time.  But there were two times in the life of Jesus where He cleansed the temple, all right.  The time that He went into the temple, overturned the money changers, cracked the bow whip, all of that.  I love that picture of Jesus because it's not the, you know, Jesus who is frolicking in the fields with the lambs.  It’s the Jesus with the bullwhip who plows through the temple, and who says, “You've taken My Father's house, which should be a house of prayer, and you’ve turned it into a house of merchandise.”  And righteous anger flowed.  He did that twice in His ministry. if you read the Gospels carefully.  Once at the beginning, and then once when He came to Jerusalem just before the cross.  And in John 2, after that scene, after Jesus plows through the temple and overturns all the money changers, John says, “His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house will consume me.’”  That’s Psalm 69.  Now, at the time of writing, the psalmist probably didn't know that that was a prophecy.  But in the progress of revelation, as God's plan begins to unfold, here we have in John 2 the opening of our minds to understand the Scriptures of old.

0:38:52.3

Here is one more.  Did you know that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was prophesied in the Psalms?  Psalm 16:10, David says, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your Holy One see corruption.”  Now, most scholars say this couldn’t have applied to David because David died.  He was put in a tomb, and his body saw corruption.  It decayed just like any other body does in the tomb.  He says, David does, “For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.”  Was he speaking about himself or somebody else?  Well, on the Day of Pentecost, Peter preached his first sermon.  And, remember, Jesus said back in Luke 24…you know, John said he began to open up their eyes to understand the Scriptures.  Part of that was Peter began to understand Psalm 16.  And in that sermon that Peter preached on the Day of Pentecost where 3000 people came to faith in Jesus Christ, he said this.  God raised Jesus up, “loosing the pangs of death.  For David says concerning him, ‘For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One see corruption.’”  It was then that Peter understood the Old Testament Scripture here.  And he says David said, concerning Jesus, He would rise from the dead.  He would not stay long enough in the grave for his body to begin to decay and to see corruption.  Isn’t that fascinating?  This is perhaps the first and only reason we really need to study the Psalms.  I mean, the other reasons are great.  But if you want to meet Jesus, read the book of Psalms.  In fact, some scholars have suggested that every expression in the book of Psalms is really an expression of the heart of Jesus and the heart of God.

0:41:03.5

 I don't know where you are in your spiritual life or in your relationship with God or what you came to church for today, if you have a thirsty soul or a hungry heart or a particular need.  I just want to point you to Jesus via the Psalms.  In fact, if you could read the entire Bible this afternoon, you would find Jesus in every book of the Bible.  Because He is the subject matter of this best-selling book that’s ever been written.  This is the best-selling book that’s ever been written, matchless beyond comparison, because it's the Word of God and because the central character of this book…in every one of the 66 books and virtually on every page of the 66 books, it points us to Jesus.  And the Psalms do that in a very, very unique way.  Wouldn’t you have loved to have been there when Jesus said that to his disciples?  And the Scriptures say, “From that point on He began to open up their minds to understand the Scriptures.”  That's the power of the Word of God, friends.  And maybe you’re here this morning, and, you know, you’ve never seen Jesus for who He really is.  But God is doing something right here, right now.  I mean, we’re not here by accident.  This is a divine appointment.  And He's beginning to open up your mind to understand the Scriptures and to understand who this Jesus is.  Not just a good person with nice moral teachings.  He was the Messiah.  Some people missed Him in the 1^st century.  Don’t miss Him in the 21st century.  Allow God to open up your mind and your heart to understand what was written thousands and thousands of years ago that has implication for your life and my life today.

0:43:26.3