Psalm 87
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A flyover Psalm
A flyover Psalm
I want to start with a story:
Complaining
A Test
Offer Incense in the morning
Three men and their families and possessions swallowed up.
250 men consumed by fire.
31 And it happened, as soon as he finished speaking all these words, the ground that was under them split open. 32 The land opened its mouth and swallowed them up with their houses and every person that belonged to Korah and all the property. 33 They went down alive to Sheol, they and all that belonged to them, and the land covered over them, and they perished from the midst of the assembly. 34 All Israel who were around them fled at their cry, because they said, “Lest the land swallow us up!” 35 And fire went out from Yahweh, and it consumed the two hundred and fifty men presenting the incense.
Hammered plates onto the altar.
The next day.
Complaining.
Plague.
14,700 dead.
Aaron ran out to make atonement,
He stood between the living and the dead.
This is point in Israel’s history that is particularly shocking, but it is also particularly important.
It highlights the human tendency to buck against authority and to be in a state of unrest.
Rest is found when we are submitted to God.
The interesting part of this story, is that in one account it sounds like everyone in Korah’s family died.
But in another account, when the story is retold in Numbers we hear this:
10 and the land opened its mouth and swallowed them with Korah, when that company died, when the fire consumed two hundred and fifty men, and they were a sign. 11 The children of Korah, however, did not die.
The children did not die.
The next time we see Korahites popping up, King David is assigning them as temple singers in the house of the Lord. They also acted as gatekeepers for the Temple, and baked the sacrificial cakes that were used during worship.
These descendants of Korah, the rebellious man, are now listed as the authors of 10 of the Psalms in the Bible.
Including this one today, Psalm 87.
Read Psalm
Of the Sons of Korah. A psalm. A song. 1 He has founded his city on the holy mountain. 2 The Lord loves the gates of Zion more than all the other dwellings of Jacob. 3 Glorious things are said of you, city of God: 4 “I will record Rahab and Babylon among those who acknowledge me— Philistia too, and Tyre, along with Cush— and will say, ‘This one was born in Zion.’ ” 5 Indeed, of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one were born in her, and the Most High himself will establish her.” 6 The Lord will write in the register of the peoples: “This one was born in Zion.” 7 As they make music they will sing, “All my fountains are in you.”
This Psalm is about a movement from being an enemy of God, to being a friend of God.
Which is exactly what the Korahites experienced.
Apparently, the family legacy shifted after Korah died.
His children who survived could have shook their fists at God for taking their father,
but they didn’t.
What we will find is that the family tree changes drastically by the time we get to David.
This shows the power of generational faith.
Children in the Korahite family were not told
“Don’t bother trying to draw near to God, He might kill you!”
They must have been told,
YHWH is good.
He loves Israel.
You belong to Him.
Sing songs to Him.
Draw near to Him in his temple.
1st Image
1 His foundation is on the holy mountains. 2 Yahweh loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3 Glorious things are spoken about you, O city of God. Selah
Zion-Foundation
“His establishment”
A powerful beginning.
The Korahites are saying,
GOD LIVES HERE.
2 Yahweh loves the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob.
Is Zion the same thing as Jerusalem?
Isn’t Zion literally the dwellings of Jacob?
Zion IS in Jerusalem, because that is where the temple is,
but Zion is a heavenly city.
Zion is the place where God dwells,
and God doesn’t live in houses built by human hands.
But he does doesn’t he?
It’s sort of a paradox.
But the paradox is a reality of the fall.
In Eden, there was no distinction between heaven and earth.
Humans dwelt with God and God dwelt with them.
Simple as that.
If God had a throne room, it probably would have been in Eden, which was set up like a most holy place.
So because of the paradoxical reality,
Jerusalem is holy place.
Not because it’s special,
but because God loves it, and He is there.
Which makes it holy.
Which we will see btw, is what makes the church holy.
Not because we are special or we deserve it,
but because God loves us and dwells among us.
Enemy
Psalms 73–150: An Introduction and Commentary Mother-City (87:4–6)
The names are well chosen: Rahab (i.e. Egypt, the blustering monster, 89:10; Isa. 30:7) and Babylon, the two great powers and persecutors of Israel’s world; nearer home, Philistia, the enemy which Israel never dislodged, and Tyre, the affluent merchant; finally Ethiopia (or ‘Cush’; see on 68:31), the symbol of the remoter nations.
This a representative selection of all people everywhere.
Ingathering of nations through census
What fascinates me about the Korahites, is their understanding of the mission of God.
Israel was notoriously forgetful of their God given vocation.
Imagine you are training someone for a job.
Their job is to stand next to a machine with big gears on it, and pull a lever every 30 seconds.
But every time you turn your back they are trying to stick their arm in the gears.
This is exactly what Israel was like.
They had a clear directive from God.
Blessed to be a blessing.
God gave them everything they needed to literally be a shining city on a hill that would draw all the nations to God.
But instead of drawing the nations, they did the opposite.
They didn’t want to be the shining city on a hill.
They wanted the shiny things on other hills.
They wanted Baal.
They wanted shrine prostitution.
They wanted witchcraft.
They wanted infant sacrifice.
They wanted wealth that God had not offered them.
They wanted everything BUT God.
The Korahites understood this.
They knew what the role of Israel was supposed to be.
7 I will bring them to my holy mountain; I will make them merry in my house of prayer. their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples,”
By the time of Christ, the temple, which should have been a pinnacle of Israel’s vocation, a place where the nations come to be blessed by God,
has become, in the words of Jesus
17 And he began to teach and was saying to them, “Is it not written, ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all the nations,’ but you have made it a cave of robbers!”
So put yourself in the position of the someone living in Babylon.
During the time of the exile.
Tell story of meeting an Israelite.
In their garden.
“I want to follow Yahweh, but my people have pillaged His people.”
And that Israelite reads you Psalm 87.
I will mention those who know Me.
Egypt, Babylon, Philistia, Tyre, and Ethiopia.
All these enemies of God.
Now counted as His people.
Citizen (Counted as His people)
The language that this Psalm uses to describe the ingathering of these nations is through the language of a census.
God is viewed like a registrar of a city, making notes of who is present and accounted for.
But the astonishing thing is that God is considering nations to be a part of the city that have never been to Jerusalem at all!
This is a census more like how the Roman Empire would do things.
In fact this is precisely why God stands in opposition to empires.
Because their claim to totalizing rule stands in contrast to HIS totalizing rule.
Zion - Streams of life
7 As they make music they will sing, “All my fountains are in you.”
7 Singers and dancers alike will say, “My whole source of joy is in you.”
Headwaters.
There will be a pronouncement from the nations, to God, that their source of joy and refreshment is in God.
So
What does this prayer do for Israel?
Application:
If Israel were to be shaped by this prayer, they would be on mission.
Remembering that this is Christ’s prayerbook, let’s take advantage of our position in history and read this Psalm again, following the same pattern but through the lens of Christ.
2nd Image
Christ - Foundation
Just as Zion’s foundation is laid on the earth,
Christ is a foundation laid on the earth.
But unlike Jerusalem that is bound by small geographical barriers, the city of God that has Christ as it’s foundation is now worldwide.
The whole earth is now the “Most Holy Place”
Everywhere were Christians are, these are now the borders of the city.
In fact, there are embassies all over the place.
We are one.
And reading this now to the church,
Yahweh LOVES the gates of this city.
Yahweh loves the embassies of this kingdom.
Yahweh loves His church.
Yahweh loves the Table church.
Yahweh loves the Georgian church.
Yahweh loves the Indian church.
Yahweh loves everywhere where two or three are gathered in his name. These are the gates of Zion now.
Enemy
Enemy nations?
All of us.
We all are enemies of God and not his children by default.
Why does God speak of nations and not of just individuals?
For many reasons,
but one is that to speak of nations being converted is more accurate for a gospel that wins.
If the gospel DIDN’T take root and permeate cultures,
than it wouldn’t be accurate to speak of nations coming to God.
But they can,
and they do.
And it’s not always in the way we think.
Think about China right now.
Is it a Christian nation?
In one sense no,
in another sense, yes.
The other reason God speaks in terms of nations coming to Him and not individuals is because He is a covenantal God.
What does that have to do with anything?
Covenant is mediated through representative heads.
1 Corinthians 10:2 says that all of the Israelites coming out of Egypt were baptized into Moses.
Put that in your theological pipe and smoke it.
When Jesus teaches us about redemption, he employs language of adoption.
We start off belonging to a different house.
In order to move from sin’s house, to another, we must be redeemed and adopted.
This is not something we can do on our own.
You, a slave, who owns nothing, can not purchase your freedom.
How does slavery end if you have no way to be free?
You die.
Death is the barrier between slaves and freedom.
Now because of everything Christ did in his life, death, and resurrection,
death isn’t the final destination.
Adoption is.
Ingathering of nations through adoption
God saw his redemptive work as being like an adoption all the way back to Israel coming out of Egypt.
1 When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called My son.
And Israel under the Old Covenant experienced a sort of under-age sonship, that is now “grown up” in the sonship experienced in the church.
Sons
1 See what sort of love the Father has given to us: that we should be called children of God, and we are! Because of this the world does not know us: because it did not know him.
And we get to experience the benefits of that adoption now.
But what do we do with this death thing?
The problem with death is it kills people.
The way we overcome the death problem is by dying WITH the only person who has defeated death.
It is as if we must ride on Jesus’ back everywhere he goes.
If he’s going down into death, so am I.
If he’s raising back to life, so am I.
SWIMMING POOL ANALOGY
So now we see that the WAY the nations are counted as citizens of the kingdom is through adoption.
Israel’s vocation is now your vocation.
And what will be the result?
New Jerusalem - Tree/River
“Who can faint while such a river
ever will their thirst assuage?
Grace which, like the Lord, the giver,
never fails from age to age.” -John Newton.
Glorious things of thee are spoken.
