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Psalm 63: The Marrow and the Fat

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Introduction

John Donne says of this psalm that it is one of the imperial psalms—suitable for every occasion, and one with universal applications. Christians can resort to it under all kinds of circumstances, and according to Chrysostom, a portion of the ancient church would not let a day pass without singing it. All the various challenges of modern life have made even more suitable for regular use.

The Text

“O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is . . .” (Psalm 63:1-11).

Summary of the Text

The heading says that David wrote this while in the wilderness of Judah. He appears to have been king (v. 11), but in some danger, which would likely place this turning his brief exile during the revolt by his son Absalom. As such, it is a prayer of dedication and faith, with the object of that faith not yet realized. He will seek God early because of an intense desire to do so (v. 1). What he yearns for is to see God’s power and glory as he has previously seen it in the sanctuary (v. 2). He states that God’s loving-kindness is better than life (v. 3), and as a result David will worship the Lord, lifting up his hands (v. 4). He praises God in faith now, but will praise Him from a position of satisfaction later (v. 5). He will remember the Lord during the night watches, while he lies upon his bed (v. 6), remembering all the ways God has helped him (v. 7). David “follows hard” after the Lord, and the Lord helps him (v. 8). Those who seek David’s life will descend to Sheol (v. 9), falling by the sword (v. 10), only to be consumed by jackals (v. 10). But the king will rejoice and his followers will glory. Those who oppose him will have their mouths stopped (v. 11).

Lovingkindness Exalted

David exalts the loving-kindness of God, exalting it highly. Having placed it on the throne, saying that it is better than life itself, he then appoints seven retainers for that court, seven faculties of his body and mind. These are his lips (v. 3), his tongue (v. 4), his hands (v. 4), his will (v. 5), his mouth (v. 5), his memory (v. 6), and his mind (v. 6). The greatest commandment is to love God with all that you are and have and this is a good example of someone doing just that. David says that God’s loving-kindness is better than his life, and by way of showing this, he throws all the faculties of his life into praising God’s loving-kindness.

Marrow and Fatness

The Christian life is not a lo-fat business (v. 5). Godliness is clotted cream, not skim. Isaiah speaks of the new covenant era this way: “And in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined” (Is. 25:6). If you lived in a society which thought milk was a poison and honey was toxic—and you very nearly do—then you would be living in a society at odds with God’s descriptions in Scripture

of how He made the world. The promised land, famously, was flowing with milk and honey (Deut. 6:3). When Isaac blessed Jacob (unwittingly), he blessed him with fatness of the earth, and with plenty of

corn and wine (Gen. 27:28). Do not let those in high rebellion against the blessing of God become the arbiters and definers of what blessing is. The Christian life is a potato with melted butter all over it. The soul of the diligent is made fat (Prov. 13:4).

God in the Sanctuary

David is parched in the wilderness, and he wants to pursue God in order to see His power and glory, the way he has seen it before in the sanctuary. The ordinances of God are precious to Him, and ought to be precious to us. Remember that David was out in the wilderness, which meant that he could go out and look at a spectacular array of stars in the sky—but he wanted to see God’s power and glory in the sanctuary. It is better to be in the wilderness with God than to be in the sanctuary without Him, obviously. And the ordinances and sacraments of God without Him present for blessing are nothing but dry breasts and barren wombs. While we can rejoice in natural revelation (Ps. 19), and we can rejoice in private devotions in the houses of Judah (Ps. 87:2), the worship of God in the gates of Zion is greatly to be preferred.

Following Hard After Him

David says here that God is not always easy to find, and so he pursues hard after Him. There are two ways in which a chasm exists between God and ourselves, and true evangelical faith (given by grace) bridges it both ways. The first is the ethical divide, created by our sins, and by the fact that we live in a fallen world. We must seek God diligently, aware that moral traps are set for us on every side. We sin, when we sin, downhill. Isaiah is undone when he sees the Lord “high and lifted up,” but he is undone because of how aware of his sinfulness he has become. His lament should remind us of our spiritual leprosy (Is. 6:5; Lev. 13:45). We put a cover on our lip, and we cry “unclean.” But God cleanses with a coal from the altar.

But there is another aspect to it—which is the infinite gulf between the Creator and the created. This is not a transcendence that severs us from Him, for in Him we live and move and have our being. God does not have to overcome His “transcendence” in order to be near to us. But the Bible teaches us that we have to overcome it to be near to Him—this is another way of “following hard after Him.” God dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has ever seen (1 Tim. 6:16). We are to praise His great and terrible name, for it is holy (Ps. 99:3). The voice of the Lord is full of majesty (Ps. 29:4). He sits on the circle of the earth, and we are invited to view ourselves as little grasshoppers of the field (Is. 40:22). The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1). But in another gospel irony, we overcome this chasm by embracing it—again, by faith.

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Psalm 62: Low and High Degree

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Introduction

Most psalms of affliction begin with the problem and work through to the solution of faith—there is a story arc to the psalm. One of them is grim and gray from beginning to end (Ps. 88). But this psalm is all confidence, from the first words to the end of the psalm. The troubles are there, but so is the faith, right from the start. The psalmist is not working things out as he sings—this is already worked out.

The Text

“Truly my soul waiteth upon God: From him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; He is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved . . .” (Psalm 62:1-12).

Summary of the Text

David waits upon God because he knows that God is his salvation (v. 1). God alone is his rock and salvation; God alone is his sure defense, and this is why he will not be moved (v. 2). He then turns to challenge his adversaries—how long will they devise mischief? They are all of them going down, they are all going to be slain (v. 3). They are bent like a bulging wall, ready to collapse (v. 3). They conspire against David’s majesty; they delight in lies, and their mouths and hearts respectively juxtapose blessing and cursing (v. 4). Reflect on this. Selah. David charges his soul to wait upon God only, and to look to Him for his expectation (v. 5). God is his rock and salvation; God is his defense, and David is therefore immovable (v. 6). God is his salvation and his glory; his rock and refuge are in God (v. 7). The people are then charged to trust in Him always, and to pour out their hearts before Him. God is our refuge again, and Selah again (v. 8). Men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie (v. 9); together they are a bunch of air piled onto the scales. Don’t trust in oppression or theft. If riches grow, you should still not trust in them (v. 10). God has said one thing—no, make that two things He has said. The first is that power belongs to God (v. 11), and the second is that mercy belongs to God (v. 12). God renders to every man according to his work (v. 12).

The Glory of Mine

Notice what David does here—my expectation, my rock, my salvation, my defense, my salvation, my glory, my strength, my refuge. As Spurgeon put it, “It is the word my which puts the honey into the comb.” My expectation—where is despair? My rock—where is uncertainty? My salvation—where is he that condemns? My defense—where is loss? My strength—where is failure? My refuge—where is vulnerability?

And the one that may surprise us is this one: my glory—where is slander? As John Donne once put it, “If my ‘glory,’ what calumny shall defame me?”

Democracy and Aristocracy

The rabble is a bunch of nothing, but few are deceived by them anyway. The men of high degree—the aristocracy—are a lie because people think they might be formidable. But put the great and small together onto the scales and they are lighter than vanity. Take the mob and take the elite, and hold them up against the strength of God—it is like trying to weigh a cloud of helium on your bathroom scales.

We don’t want to adopt the cynicism of Ambrose Bierce when he defined an idiot as “a member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling.” But having resisted that temptation, we still have to recognize that he was closer to the truth than any amount of chirrupy and optimistic vainglory.

Notice how the biblical writers do not choose up sides between rich and poor. They are not elitists and they are not populists. Some think God automatically sides with the rich. Some think he automatically sides with the poor. No, there are other variables.

If Riches Increase . . .

Those men who trust in riches should know that riches have never been true or faithful. Riches are a heartbreaker—if you are foolish enough to trust in them. They fly to you on the wings of little sparrows, and fly away like a condor. A man consumed with how to get and how to keep the vanity of wealth is like a man looking for constancy in love by dating floozies, painted ladies, and honky-tonk angels. Do not trust in them. We see the same thing in 1 Timothy 6.

“Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not highminded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life” (1 Tim. 6:17-19).

Riches should be brought in like contract labor, not wooed and courted like a prospective wife. So you who desire to be rich, you who really want that status with all your soul—I have a word from God for you.

Merciful and Mighty

The writer of Holy, Holy, Holy put these words—merciful and mighty—together, and he did so with a wonderful biblical instinct. Nehemiah prayed this way—“I beseech thee, O Lord God of heaven, the great and terrible God, that keepeth covenant and mercy for them that love him and observe his commandments . . .” (Neh. 1:5). Or “O Lord, the great and dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him . . .” (Dan. 9:4).

Merciful and mighty—this is what we should know about our God. I have known one thing . . . no, two things I have known. First, we know that power belongs to God. And we know also—through Jesus Christ—that mercy belongs to Him as well. And whatever belongs to God, through Christ, belongs to us as well. That means that we are in present possession of God’s power and God’s mercy. Let us give thanks for that now.

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Psalm 61: A Rock that is Higher than I

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

This is a psalm of David in a time of affliction. Because he is likely king at this time (see v. 6), and because he longs to be restored to the tabernacle (v. 4), it would be safest to locate this psalm as being written during the time of Absalom’s rebellion. So this is not just a matter of danger for David (which he had faced many times before), but of mortal danger from a dearly loved son.

The Text

“Hear my cry, O God; Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I . . .” (Psalm 61:1-8).

Summary of the Text

First, this is not a dispassionate prayer. David cries out, “Hear my cry, O God” (v. 1). He is in a desperate way. He will cry out to God from the ends of the earth, which indicates some form of exile (v. 2). When he is overwhelmed, when his heart is overwhelmed, he asks that he be led to a rock that is higher than he is (v. 2). God has been a shelter for him in times past, a strong tower against the enemy (v. 3). This indicates that on the top of the rock that is higher than David there is a fortress. Having presented the request, David declares his confidence that he will return to the tabernacle to be there forever, and that he will trust in the covert of God’s wings (v. 4). He then says Selah, which most likely means something like “pause and reflect.”

David has made vows, and God has heard them (v. 5). He is confident that he has been given the heritage of those who fear God (v. 5). The king’s life will be prolonged, and his years will be extended like they were generations (v. 6). He will abide with God forever (v. 7), and mercy and truth will do it. God will be praised forever, and He will be praised forever daily (v. 8).

Attend to My Prayer

Here is a striking difference between the formalist and the true believer. The formalist is content with having prayed. The true believer has a holy discontent until he has an answer. The formalist checks the box that says he has “said his prayers,” but he, along with everybody else knows that prayers are not meant to be answered. God, for some mysterious reason, wants us to say them, but He isn’t listening. Away with all that. The psalmist says “Hear my cry, O God.” He says, “attend to my prayer.”

The Ends of the Earth

It might be the end of the earth, but it is not the end of prayer. It may be far away from the tabernacle, but God is no local baal tied to just one mountain, or to one shrine. David’s distance might be geographical, as a man might pray when lost on a glacier in Greenland. Or David’s distance might be ecclesiastical—where the tabernacle was taken as the very center of all things. Either way, or both, God is immediately there. Wherever God is, there is the true center.

So the end of the earth is not the end of prayer, but the end of prayer is the end of man.

A Rock That is Higher

Not only does David not have a Rock that is higher than he is, he doesn’t know where it is. He knows

there is one, but he can’t find it, and he can’t get up on it. His cry is to the one who can accomplish a full deliverance. The first thing is that he must be led to the Rock; he needs to be shown where it is. And because the Rock is higher than he is, two things follow—if he gets up on it, he will be saved, but because it is higher than he is, he can’t get up on it. He needs to be led there, and he needs to be placed there.

And just being led there is not enough. Picture this great danger along a rocky coast, and you are a mariner whose ship has foundered. The shoreline is a series of rocky cliffs—your salvation from the waves is there, right there. You can see it now. But seeing it and being on it are two entirely different things.

No Expiration Date

God’s past kindnesses do not have an expiration date. Notice how David prays from the past to the future, from “thou hast been a shelter . . . (v. 3)” to “I will abide . . . I will trust” (v. 4), from “God, hast heard . . .” (v. 5) and “hast given” (v. 5) to “Thou wilt prolong . . .” (v. 6).

God’s faithfulness in the past is a sure indication of His faithfulness in the future. God’s hard providences are sometimes hard, sometimes tangled and messy, sometimes inscrutable, but always faithful. The plots twists are often over our heads, but the happy endings never are. The Christian cosmos is a comedy, not a tragedy, and not a farce.

Contentment is a Gift

If contentment is a gift from God, and it is, then it is appropriate for us to plead for it. And when we are pleading for it, it only stands to reason that we know that we do not yet have it. You don’t know where it is, or how it can be, but you know who has it to give.

David wanted to be back at the tabernacle. The shelter of God’s wings might be seen in the Holy of Holies, with the wings (“the covert of thy wings”) of the cherubim extending over the mercy seat.

Jesus is that mercy seat. Jesus is the Rock that is higher, much higher, than we are. Jesus is the tower fortress on top of that Rock. Jesus is the tabernacle. Jesus welcomes you under the covering of His wings. Jesus is your heritage. Jesus is mercy and truth. Jesus is the fulfillment of all our vows.

What do you do, then, when your heart is overwhelmed? You fly, you fly to Jesus. Nothing else makes any sense.

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Singing by Faith Alone

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Sing a New Song (v. 1-5)

David begins here with an exhortation (v. 1-3) for us to rejoice in the Lord and to praise him with music, with singing and shouting. He then gives us the reason for this exhortation (v. 4-5) – we should praise God because he is upright, because his work is true, righteous, and full of goodness.

The Works of the Lord (v. 6-19)

We praise God for his character, his attributes. But we don’t learn about these by reflecting on them in the abstract. We come to know about God’s character by studying what he has done. We know God through his works. David directs our attention to two key works of God – creation and salvation.

Creation (v. 6-12)

David looks at God’s power in creation and concludes that “all his work is done in truth” and that “the earth is full of the goodness of the Lord.”The triune God is our maker, creating and upholding all things by the power of his Word and the strength of his Spirit. This is why our doctrine of creation is so important. Creation is the proof of God’s authority, proof of the authority of his Word and the power of his Spirit. The argument about six day creation is not just about the exegesis, it is about the ever-present, sovereign authority of God in our everyday lives. Because he is the creator, he is the continuing sustainer of all things. This means that all peoples must fear him.

Salvation (v. 13-19)

David now describes how a king, no matter how mighty his army is, cannot stand against God and his plans. The power of a horse in battle might be awesome, but it is no match for the power of the Lord. This section is pointing back to Israel’s deliverance from Egypt at the Red Sea crossing. In fact, even when he was describing creation, he did so in a way that would remind the Israelites of the victory at the Red Sea (v. 7). And God’s deliverance in the Exodus is meant to be a picture of our ultimate salvation.

The church has long understood creation and redemption to be inherently connected and to be the two places in which we most clearly see God’s character. The church father Athanasius argued that because God created the world by the power of his Word, it was only appropriate then that he redeem us by the power of his Word. So, as David teaches us, we praise God and we fear him for his creation and for his redemption.

Mercy, Hope, and Singing

However, this Psalm began as an exhortation to the “righteous” and “upright.” Unfortunately, if we spend any time actually meditating on the greatness of God’s character as revealed in his creation and salvation, we will find it difficult to conclude that we are in this category. How can we sing this new song? But if we look again at God’s work, it will become clear to us. God created ex nihilo. God’s triumph comes not from the strength of horses. This is another way that creation and salvation are connected (2 Cor. 4:6). When God acts, he acts unilaterally, supplying all that is needed for the action. Moses sang about this when he saw God’s deliverance (Ex. 15:1-2). And Isaiah foresaw when this would be fully accomplished in the Messiah (Is. 12:1-2).

Moses sang, not because he was upright, but because he saw the uprightness of God in his actions. And as he sang, God became Moses’ salvation. There is a pun in the Hebrew of Ps. 33, between verses 3 and 4. “Sing to him a new song. . .” “For the word of the Lord is upright. . .” Singing and uprightness are rhymed with one another. Our singing is an expression of our trust in the Lord, a trust inspired by our understanding of God’s work as Creator and Redeemer. And by this faith we receive the uprightness of the Lord. In other words, we sing by faith alone.

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Palm Sunday 2011: A Plot Twist Triumph

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Introduction

The triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem is the prelude to His crucifixion, and so it is odd that it has come to be called the triumphal entry. But it actually reveals a good understanding of what was actually happening there. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly (Ps. 118:16), but it turns out to have been the left hand. That it was a left-handed triumph did not keep it from being a triumph. No one thinks that the Greeks lost the Trojan War because the Trojans hauled what they thought to be a trophy of their victory inside the city walls.

The Text

“The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place. Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation. Selah. He that is our God is the God of salvation; and unto GOD the Lord belong the issues from death. But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses” (Psalm 68:17-21).

Summary of the Text

The Bible is filled with many descriptions of triumph. Many of them are of the straight up the middle kind, as here. But when God overcame the rulers of that age, who did not know what He was doing (1 Cor. 2:8), the language of these right-handed triumphs is applied straight across. The psalmist pleads with God to arise and scatter His enemies (v. 1), which the Lord then proceeds to do. The Lord is among myriads of angels, in the holy place (v. 17). He then ascended on high, prefiguring the ascension of the Lord Jesus into Heaven (v. 18; Eph. 4:8). The Ascension looks like a triumph ought to look, but it was prefigured (accurately) by a march of death in faith. God is the God of our salvation, and He daily loads us with benefits (v. 19). The God of our salvation holds all the issues of death in His hand (v. 20). God shall win a complete victory, wounding the head of his enemies (v. 21).

A Most Unusual Triumph

Christ entered the conquered city in triumph before He had conquered it. Usually you have the battle and after that the victory parade. Jesus, the model of all faith, reversed the order. He held a triumphant procession before the battle. This had all been laid out in Scripture beforehand, and Scripture cannot be broken. Jesus knew that, because He saw Scripture rightly. And it did not matter how explicitly He spoke of this plan, spiritual blindness— attached as it is to the wisdom of the world—cannot comprehend it, and cannot overcome it (Jn. 1:5).

But we can understand how it is that they could not understand. Not only did Jesus conduct the victory parade before the victory, but His victory, when He came to it, was accomplished by dying, and not by killing. He crushed the serpent’s head by allowing Himself to be bruised by a crushing blow (Is. 53:5). And so being crushed was actually the crushing blow.

But the lack of spiritual understanding was not because the words were unclear.

“From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples, how that he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day” (Matt. 16:21)

When God Speaks in Code

As Christ entered into His victory, so should we. We are Christians, imitators of Him. What then is your triumphal entry? Have you been demoted, insulted, wronged, or badly handled? Has the Lord of all affliction assigned a portion of that peculiar blessing to you? Do you chafe because Lot pushed ahead of you and chose the choice portion, right next to Sodom? Are you mystified because after Samuel anointed you the next king, all the promotion memos resulted in you hiding from Saul in the wilderness? Why does God persist in thinking that down is the way up?

“Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you” (Matt. 5:11-12).

This is how God speaks in code; this is how He hides the purloined letter. He says what we would rather not hear, and does so bluntly, overtly, plainly, and with all clarity. If we receive it in faith, the promise is apportioned to us in accordance with our faith. If we say, sorry, we “can’t do that, not after what they did to” us, then the first thing we ought to do is consider the possibility that what they are saying is not false. The promise does not belong to those who reject the terms of it. When we take up our cross to follow Jesus, as He required of us, the process includes exulting in a great victory by faith beforehand.

The Righteous Shall Enter

But Christ is righteous, and we are not. Of course He knows how to do this kind of thing. But how can we approach the “gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter” (Ps. 118:20)? “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in” (Is. 26:2). How do we enter those gates? Because Christ defeated the devil in this “upside down” fashion, it is possible for sinners to respond to His invitation. Left to our own devices, we would have entered the wrong gate, taken the wrong entry ramp. We would have done the obvious thing. He made it possible for us not to.

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat” (Matt 7:13).

In order to do this right, we have to stop thinking like scholars, and start thinking more like little kids.

“And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 18:3).

“Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev. 22:14).

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