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Psalm 70: On Telling God to Hurry Up

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

There are two fundamental approaches to God, as far apart as Heaven and Hell. One sees the Lord God Almighty, high and lifted up. The other is the domestic animal approach to God, where the ostensible worshipper keeps a god on hand, the way you might keep a cow, for the milk. We know the former is the way to go. But then we don’t know what to do when the Lord, high and lifted up, tells us to ask for anything. We act like Ahaz, and in the name of a high view of God, refuse to obey Him (Is. 7:12).

The Text

“Make haste, O God, to deliver me; Make haste to help me, O LORD. . .” (Ps. 70:1-5).

Summary of the Text

This psalm is a shorter version of Psalm 40, with some changes—YHWH for Elohim, for example. The psalmist is in trouble, as he frequently is, and he cries out to God. He beseeches God to get a move on (v. 1). Not only does he want God to come quickly, he knows what he wants God to do when He arrives. He wants Him to shame and confound the adversaries of his soul (v. 2). Those who desire his hurt he wants to be turned all around and put to confusion (v. 2). Those who taunt the godly, saying aha, aha, need to be turned around as recompense (v. 3). By way of contrast, those who seek God should be blessed—let them rejoice and be glad in the Lord (v. 4). Let those who love the salvation of the Lord be continuous in magnifying the God of Heaven (v. 4). The psalmist is poor and needy, and this is the argument he uses to plead for God’s need to make haste (v. 5), God is his help and deliverer, and so he urges God again—do not tarry (v. 5).

Hurry Up, O Lord

The psalmist urges divine haste four times in this psalm. He begins with it, repeating himself, and he repeats this twice at the end as well. But this is not the command of a superior, commanding a servant to get the lead out. He knows his condition—he is poor and needy— and that is the basis for the urgent plea. Praying this way magnifies the Lord. When He delivers us, we boast in His mighty works.

It is not a high view of God to magnify a pristine definition of a God of the philosophers. The triune God of Scriptures sent His Son down to earth in order that He might have His diapers changed. You think this irreverent? If that is irreverent, who is less reverent of His majesty than God? Who redefined reverence forever when that same boy grew up to be a man, a teacher of upside down things, who offended the religious elite (the reverent), had His skin shredded in a brutal flogging, and who was then nailed to a cross of wood? Reflect again. What sort of religion is this?

It does not reflect a high view of God to refuse to do what He says, or to refuse to think about Him in the categories He gives us. To throw yourself upon His mercies in urgent desperation does not dishonor Him. When we are concerned to magnify the Lord in accordance with His Word, that is what we will do.

To Plead in Faith

Be that as it may, how can we know if we are out of line? Can this teaching not be abused? Of course it can! But why should that even slow us down?

What kind of prayer honors God, and what kind of prayer dishonors Him? The answer of the Bible is constant from beginning to end—without faith it is impossible to please Him. Urgent faith pleases Him. Urgent unbelief just sins faster. Urgent unbelief that wants to be something else pleases Him (Mark 9:24).

“Therefore I say unto you, What things soever you desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them” (Mark11:24).

Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God. Faith arises in response to what God has said. Are you doing what He invites you to do? Are you running ahead with the health-and-wealthers, or lagging behind with the Reformed? Do all your prayers meet the building code requirements for emergency egress? “O God, if it be thy will, which we all know it isn’t”? We often want deliverance from the burden of asking God for things more than we want deliverance from our troubles.

Note the context of the promise. On one side of it we have prayers of imprecation—the fig tree of Israel was cursed. And if you say to this mountain, be cast into the sea, it will be. What mountain? The one they were standing on at the time, this mountain. On the other side of the promise, there is the requirement to forgive all of the slights and sins committed against you. So there it is—pray for God’s judgments first, forgive all your enemies second, and then shoot the moon.

Aha, Aha

The petty and vindictive spirit that the psalmist complains about reaches its zenith in the account of the crucifixion.

“And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, Save thyself, and come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save. Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe” (Mk 15:29-32).

When Christ was condemned by the Sanhedrin, the motion was made, seconded, and entered in the minutes. The rules were scrupulously followed, down to what account the blood money went into when Judas returned it. But the whole thing was a sham, a farce. When the nails went in, the malice could not be contained, and out it came like hot lava.

The veneer of hypocrisy is not thick enough to cover everything it needs to cover. Dogs will bark, roosters will crow, and haters will hate. In our day, the haters of righteousness have tried preemptively to seize the high ground, so that they could be the peace and love faction —but the realities remain what they are. They wanted to define what hatred was (differing with them), but it has not come close to working. It is striking how the slightest provocation is sufficient to bring out the vitriol. So for us, believing the propaganda the enemy produces would be a bad move. In Proverbs, Wisdom declares that all who hate her love death (Prov. 8: 36). This is a reality that cannot be undone; God has fixed it in stone. However much they strive to redefine righteousness, the secularists are just polishing turds.

So when we come to the crux of the matter, which is of course the cross, there are only two ways to go. There are only two options. You either trust in Him for the salvation of your everlasting soul . . . Or you mock Him. Which is it? Which will it be?

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Psalm 69: What Makes the Humble Glad

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

The wisdom of Scripture does not just offend the carnal heart here or there. Rather, God’s ways of operating are offensive to the unconverted heart across the board.

The Text

“Save me, O God; for the waters are come in unto my soul. I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. I am weary of my crying: my throat is dried: Mine eyes fail while I wait for my God . . .” (Psalm 69:1-36).

Summary of the Text

As this is a longer psalm, we are going to summarize it from an altitude that is just a bit higher. The first section lays out the complaint of the psalmist to God (vv. 1-4). His enemies are numerous (v. 4). The reason he gives for this trouble he is in is the zeal that he carries for the house of God (vv. 5-12). All of this is for God’s sake (v. 7). In the third section, the psalmist is pleading for help (vv. 13-21). Reproach is what has broken his heart (v. 20). In the next section, he calls for justice to be meted out against his enemies (vv. 22-28). The wrath of God is real, in both testaments (vv. 24-25). In the last section, he returns to his petitions, and anticipates a positive response (v. 33). The Lord prefers thanksgiving to ritual (vv. 30-31).

Anchor Points

This is a psalm that is frequently quoted in the New Testament, and from those citations we see it is clearly messianic. At the same time, it is a prophetic life, a type with an antitype, which means that not every detail is fulfilled in the life of the Messiah (e.g. v. 5). Jesus quotes v. 4 and explicitly applies the fulfillment to himself (Jn. 15:25), saying “that the word might be fulfilled.” The same phrase is found in Ps. 35:19. If God knows the number of hairs on your head, and your enemies are the same as the hairs on your head, then God knows the number of your enemies.

The first part of v. 9 is quoted as something the disciples recalled after Jesus cleansed the Temple (Jn. 2:17). And the second half of v. 9 is quoted by Paul in Rom. 15:3, applying it in another way to Christ.

The last two quotations from this psalm are from the imprecatory section. Paul is talking about Israel closed up in unbelief, and he applies vv. 22-23 to the judicial blindness and unbelief that has closed up the Jewish nation for a time (Rom. 11:9-10). We should note the allusion to vinegar as a drink in v. 21. And a few verses later, we find v. 25 cited in Acts 1:20 when Peter was explaining the fate of Judas. This would seem to entail Judas in the same kind of judicial blindness that had overtaken the Jewish nation as a whole.

A Word About Judas

We do not have this laid out explicitly, and so we shouldn’t call this anything more than educated speculation. But Judas had seen the power of Jesus. He had cast out demons, and had healed the sick himself. He saw Jesus walk on the water, and feed the multitudes. He knew the Lord’s power, front row seats. Combine this with the fact that he, as soon as he saw that Jesus was going to die, hanged himself. What was his motivation? I believe that the only narrative that makes sense of this is that Judas was trying to force Christ’s hand, trying to make Him devastate the Romans. And he wasn’t above helping himself as he tried to manipulate the Messiah into delivering them all from Rome.

When Zeal Consumes

When zeal consumes a servant of God, this is what creates a desire among the ungodly to consume that servant as well. Zeal consumes the way fire consumes the burning bush, engulfing it without devouring it. The ungodly want to devour, and leave nothing behind.

Late Night Comedians

David knows that God knows his foolishness (v. 5). His sins are fully in view, and God knows them all. Nevertheless, it is not because of his sins that he is mocked, even though those sins give occasion. It is for God’s sake that he bears reproach (v. 7). The drunkards sing about him, and the late night comedians have a field day, and what they are pointing at and laughing at is the unrighteousness. But the reason they are doing so is because of the surrounding context of righteousness. This is why the godly who wait upon God are ashamed because of some sin or other (v. 6). But there is a larger picture.

Add Iniquity to Iniquity

There is a glib assumption made by many Christians that treats David’s deadly imprecations as somehow unworthy of him, or of the Bible, or of God, or something. It is also assumed, with very little reflection, that the arrival of the New Testament does away with “all that.” The problem lies with passages like this one. The imprecations are not erased here; they are fulfilled.

Not only so, but they are fulfilled in terrible ways. Damnation is a horrible reality, and the hellfire and damnation preacher of the Bible is the Lord Jesus. People like to pretend that the God of the Old Testament was a God of (all together now) wrath, and the God of the New Testament is a God of (all together now) love. But where do we get this idea?

What Makes the Humble Glad

David resolves to give thanks to God with a song. That song will be one of thanksgiving (v. 30). He then makes a comparison which lies at the heart of all evangelical religion. He sets a thankful heart over against external ritual conformity to the sacrificial laws of God (v. 31). He says bluntly that the Lord will be pleased with a thankful song more than with an ox, or a bullock with horns and hooves. This reality is seen and acknowledged by the humble, and it will make them glad.

Why make this contrast at all? Why does the Bible do it repeatedly? The reason is that there is a kind of person who latches onto the external requirements that God gives us, and manipulates those externals in a way that is conducive to their pride. When something comes along to topple pride, that is what makes humility rejoice.

 

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Psalm 68: Let God Arise

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

This psalm is possibly a psalm to accompany the transport of the ark of the covenant to its new home on Mt. Zion. In the song it reenacts the great victories of God, and appropriately became the battle hymn of the Covenanters and the Huguenots. The reach of this psalm is high, although some of the passages are obscure.

The Text

“Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered: Let them also that hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: As wax melteth before the fire, So let the wicked perish at the presence of God . . .” (Psalm 68:1-35).

Summary of the Text

Let God scatter His enemies (v. 1). Let their destruction be total (v. 2). In contrast, let the righteous be glad (v. 3). Extol the Lord (v. 4). God defends the defenseless (v. 5), and He blesses the lonely (v. 6). When God went before His people, the earth was moved (vv. 7-8). God blesses the earth with rain (v. 9). God is good to the poor (v. 10). God gives the word, and God creates a company great enough to publish that word (v. 11). Armies flee from Him (v. 12), and the spoil is rich (v. 13). God’s victory over the kings is thorough (vv. 14-15). God has chosen His dwelling place (v. 16). A myriad of angelic chariots is around Him (v. 17). A prophecy of the Ascension is next (v. 18). Bless the Lord, who loads us up with benefits (v. 19). God is the saving God (v. 20). God strikes the scalp of His adversaries (v. 21), and will bring His people to victory (vv. 22-23). They have seen the Lord’s processional (v. 24), and the musicians with Him (v. 25). The Lord should be blessed in all the congregations (v. 26). The invitation ranges from Benjamin to Judah to Zebulun to Naphtale (v. 27). God strengthens what He has given (v. 28). Kings will bring tribute to the Temple (v. 29). Those who love war will be repulsed (v. 30). Kings will come from all over (v. 31). All the kingdoms are invited to praise the one who rides the heaven of heavens (vv. 32-33). Ascribe excellency to Him (v. 34), and the God of Israel is the one who gives strength and power (v. 35).

No Trace of Smoke Left

When God moves, what He intends is what happens. When God refrains from moving, the distress this causes is what He intends. We, down in the midst of it, plead with Him to stir Himself. All it would take to put everything right is just one nod from Him. If He were to rise up for battle, what then? Smoke blows away, and no trace is left (v. 2). Like wax before the fire, the enemies of God prove that they are a puff of air in His presence. We are therefore pleading with God to accomplish His purposes in the world—and this is not seeking for an accommodation.

Father of the Fatherless

Spurgeon says that God is the President of Orphanages. In verse 5, we see what kind of warrior the Lord is. He fights, and He fights to victory, but He fights in order to accomplish the work of peace. He is a judge. His name is Jah Elohim, and He rises to defend. He is father to the fatherless (v. 5), and a

judge of widows (v. 5). What does the victorious warrior do? He puts the lonely into families (v. 6). He is a liberator. He fights, He scatters, He scatters His enemies like smoke (v. 2). But those who are scattered are described another way—they are the ones who delight in war (v. 30).

The Lord Gave the Word

When the Lord gave the word (v. 11), this is likely the word that tells His armies to get ready for battle. That word spread through the camp like fire—there is an eagerness for battle, and it is the right kind of eagerness. This is not bloodlust, but rather righteousness-lust. And that desire to see God’s great vindication is shared by the women. They are the ones who rejoice in the spoil when the battle is over (v. 12).

Ascended on High

This verse of the psalm is quoted by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:8, and he applies it to the Ascension of the Lord Jesus into Heaven. We can tell from this that the entire psalm is messianic and typological. God destroyed the enemies of Israel on the field of battle. He destroyed them in worship as the ark of the covenant was carried from the house of Obed-edom to the Tabernacle of David on Mt. Zion. And He destroyed them finally and completely when the Lord Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into Heaven in order to receive universal dominion, and power, and glory, and majesty.

Loaded with Benefits

One time when we were dealing with a particular challenge, my son said this to my wife: “Baskets of fruit are heavy.” God does not parcel out His benefits with a tea-spoon. Blessed be the Lord God, who daily loads us with benefits (v. 19). The fact that we miss so much of this is more a testimony to our ingratitude than it is a tribute to His stinginess. We stagger around underneath the things that God has given us, and we do this every day.

The Singers Went Before

Music glorifies the Word, and not the other way around. The psalmist had seen the “processional” of the Lord God in the sanctuary. The singers went first, and the instrumentalists followed afterward. The Word has priority, and this priority is seen two ways. One is that the vocalists go first; the music (both vocal music and instrumental music) are servants. But secondly, the lyrics, the words, are royalty and they require servants. They require such help; they need it, and are worthy of it.

So the Word by itself needs to be glorified—it calls out for something else. The singers need reinforcements—but the instruments are to carry the lyrics, not bury them. But at the same time— important note—if your singing sometimes reaches the decibel level of a plaintive cough of a sheep on a distant hillside, don’t blame the instruments for burying you. That’s your fault.

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Psalm 67: Nations Singing for Joy

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

It may be tempting to summarize this psalm as saying something like “praise God, everybody!” While it is certainly saying more than this, it is absolutely not saying anything less than this. And even this glorious exhortation has to have the ramifications fleshed out some more.

The Text

“God be merciful to us, and bless us; and cause his face to shine upon us . . .” (Psalm 67:1-7).

Summary of the Text

We begin, as sinners always must, with a plea for mercy (v. 1). May God be merciful and bless us, and make His face to shine upon us (v. 1). This is a plea for the Aaronic blessing to be realized (Num. 6:25). The result of God’s blessing is that His way becomes known on the earth (v. 2), and His salvation spreads through all nations (v. 2). Let all the people praise God (v. 3). The nations should be glad and sing for joy, because God governs righteously (v. 4). The exhortation to praise God from v. 3 is then repeated (v. 5). As a result, the earth will yield her increase under the blessing of God (v. 6). God will in fact bless the world, and all the ends of the earth will fear Him (v. 7).

This psalm is clearly a seven-part chiasm:

A prayer for God to bless (v. 1);
God’s ways will be known (v. 2);
Let the people praise Him (v. 3);
Let the nations sing for joy (v. 4);
Let the people praise Him (v. 5);
God’s ways will be fruitful (v. 6);
A prayer for God to bless (v. 7).

His Face to Shine

God is personal. Salvation is personal. The world around you is governed personally. You are not in the midst of impersonal machinery, grinding away. The Aaronic blessing sees blessing as God beaming at you (Num. 6:25). This is a common way of understanding blessing in Scripture. A plea for salvation is cast in the form of a request to have God’s face shine (Ps. 31:16). The sovereignty of God in turning us back to Him is described three times in a row as Him making His face to shine upon us (Ps. 80:3,7,19). Teaching one of His servants His holy statutes is said to be an instance of making His face to shine (Ps. 119:15). The restoration of His sanctuary is described this way (Dan. 9:17). And never forget that when the Lord Jesus was discussing His great redemptive work that was approaching in Jerusalem, on the mountain of transfiguration, His face was shining. May the Lord’s face shine upon you.

Jews Up in Front

It is not the case that the Old Testament was for Jews, and then God decided to be a little more expansive in the New Testament, letting everybody worship Him. There were changes in the New

Testament, but that was not the nature of them. What changed was the potency of the international invitation, not the reality of it.

The Jews were the chosen nation, not in the sense of election to Heaven, but in the sense of a chosen pupil, selected to come to the front of the class to show the rest of the class how the problem was to be solved. When that student does well, he is blessed. When he messes up, he messes up in front of everybody. But the whole class is involved. Remember Melchizedek, and Jethro, and Namaan, and the residents of Nineveh, and all the Gentiles who were invited to the court of the Gentiles in the Temple.

Fruitful Knowledge

If God does not make His ways known to us, we will walk in our own ways. But our own ways are covered in darkness. We are blind and lost. We no longer know the difference between up and down, black and white, male and female, or positive numbers and negative numbers. If God does not make His ways known to us, then we will not know them. If God does not reveal Himself to us, then we are shrouded in darkness—we are struck with a stupor, with a judicial blindness. This is not a matter of intelligence or mental rpms. This is a relational and moral reality—remember that the universe we live in is personal. Remember that you cannot like the world as it is without liking the one who made it that way. Remember also that you cannot reject Him without trying to turn the world into something else. That something else is, ultimately, the outer darkness—the one place where the Lord’s face does not shine at all.

So look at how these two parts in the chiasm match up. May the Lord make His ways known (v. 2). May the earth yield her increase (v. 6). This shows us how the right kind of knowledge is fruitful knowledge—not the vain kind that puffs up, but rather the knowledge of love, which builds up. Sin caused God to curse the ground in the first place, and grace causes God to ameliorate the effects of the curse. I had the privilege this last week to ride a combine for a bit over the Palouse hills—and had an up-close perspective on the goodness of Jesus Christ. And this is not limited to the blessings of earthly harvests either (although we should not exclude those). Educational harvests, vocational harvests, financial harvests, and spiritual and covenantal harvests are all included.

Nations Singing for Joy

The center of the chiasm highlights the point of the psalm—what is the psalmist wanting us to make central?

The nations should sing, not for amusement, not formally, and not for show. The nations are invited to sing for joy. This means that you sing because you are afraid you might burst a blood vessel if you don’t. You sing as a means of venting your heart. You sing to keep from blowing up.

And what is the cause of this kind of joy? What is the cause of this kind of joy throughout all the Gentile nations? It is the fact that the Lord governs. God judges the people righteously. When we use the word judge here, think of the book of Judges. When judges arose, it was to deliver the people. When judgment comes, the earth is put to rights. When God governs the nations upon the earth, the result is not described as mayhem for sinners, but rather as goodness, and mercy, and forgiveness, and peace, and kindness for sinners. The hills drip fatness.

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Psalm 66: Refined Like Silver

Joe Harby on

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Introduction

God is the Lord of our hearts, and He is the Lord over the world. He acts within us, and He acts outside of us, on our behalf. He does things for us, and He does things to us. He does things in the world to shape us, and He does things in us in order to shape the world. Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward, as Job says, but—despite appearances—it is never mindless trouble. To say that the world is “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing” is the observation of an unbelieving man sliding down into damnation.

The Text

“Make a joyful noise unto God, all ye lands: Sing forth the honour of his name: Make his praise glorious. Say unto God, How terrible art thou in thy works! Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies submit themselves unto thee . . .” (Psalm 66:1-20).

Summary of the Text

This psalm begins with an introduction, inviting all nations to praise the Lord (vv. 1-4), suggesting what a suitable song of praise would consist of. In the second section (vv. 5-7), the people are invited to come and see the terrible works of God, with the crossing of the Red Sea listed (and a possible reference to the crossing of the Jordan). The people alive at the time of the psalm were perhaps in similar straits, and they are invited to see the outcome of their trial by faith (vv. 8-12). And the last section finds the psalmist confessing his personal responsibilities, and concluding with a burst of praise (vv. 13-20).

All nations should make a joyful noise (v. 1). His name should be honored, His praise glorious (v. 2). The people are invited to acknowledge directly to God how terrible He is (v. 3). The whole earth will worship Him (v. 4). Come and see how awe-inspiring the God of Scripture is (v. 5). He turned the sea into dry land—Israel entered the wilderness dry-shod through a body of water, and they left the wilderness the same way (v. 6). God rules in His power (v. 7). Make sure your praise of this God is loud enough to be heard (v. 8). He holds our soul in life, and He keeps our feet from moving (v. 9). God tests us, as silver is tried (v. 10). That testing includes the net (v. 11), and the oppression of others (v. 12), but God brought them through. The psalmist will certainly pay his vows, those he spoke when in trouble (v. 13-14). He will offer up the best he has (v. 15). He now says come and hear where before he said come and see (v. 16, 5). This is his personal testimony to answered prayer. He had prayed to God, and praised Him (v. 17). Heart integrity is essential to answered prayer (v. 18). God heard him, which proves the prayer honest (v. 19). May the name of God be blessed, the God who answers prayer (v. 20).

Fire and Water

The trials that Israel went through (for their blessing) were trials that were like what happened to the spoils of war—purification by fire and water. “Every thing that may abide the fire, ye shall make it go through the fire, and it shall be clean: nevertheless it shall be purified with the water of separation: and all that abideth not the fire ye shall make go through the water” (Num. 31:23). We who have been brought to Christ are spoils of His warfare, and we cannot be just taken into the camp of the saints. We have to be purified, tested, cleansed, put right. We have gunk on us.

Refined Like Silver

The process of refining silver can teach us a lot about our afflictions. We tend to think of it in a very general way—heat is applied to silver ore in such a way as to remove the dross. But we can learn more than just this general truth.

First, the one who is doing the refining hovers over the process. It requires personal and undivided attention (Mal. 3:3). Second, the furnace for doing this is an intricately designed thing. Third, the heat is very carefully regulated—it cannot be too hot or too cold. And fourth, the process is repeated. In order to speak of the purity of Scripture, we are told that it is like refined silver that has been refined seven times (Ps. 12:6).

Now we should know—even with our limited knowledge—that murmuring or complaining under affliction is like throwing dross back into the silver while the operation is going on. That just ensures that the process is going to go on longer than it needed to. Grumbling under affliction is just perpetuating it.

But remember four other things. Know that God is watching your affliction constantly and without blinking. He is attending to it. Second, God made the furnace you are in, and it was not a haphazard affair. Third, know that God wants the temperature to be perfect. And fourth, these realities do not disappear simply because you went through the process once. So you are not forgotten, your affliction was designed properly, it is being run at the right temperature, and it may well have to happen again. The very best thing you can do for yourself is (with gladness and joy) to get under (Jas. 1:2).

Iniquity in the Heart

At the beginning of this psalm, it says that God’s enemies submit themselves unto Him. But the Hebrew here is literally lie unto thee. God’s enemies—note incidentally that He has them— acknowledge His power, but they lie to Him. One of the characteristics of unbelief is that it does believe that its interior thoughts and intentions are closed to God, invisible to Him. Unbelief feels that God can be gamed. But the psalmist excludes that possibility when he is talking about his own great deliverance. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me” (v. 18). As Spurgeon put it once, if you are listening to the devil, don’t expect God to listen to you.

As we come to apply this message, make sure that your acceptance of trial and affliction is one that comes from an honest heart. Count it all joy when you meet your trials. Count it all joy when you are alone with God talking about them. This should not be taken as some kind of superficial happy, happy, joy, joy thing, like you have been drinking circus water, but rather as a transaction with God that begins with bone-crunching honesty and ends with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

 

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