Misc Notes on Psalms

Psalms – Wisdom Literature

Dyrness, Themes in OT Theology, quotes:

Wisdom is the intensely practical art of being skillful and successful in life.

The seat of wisdom is the heart which is the center of moral and intellectual decisions

Wisdom is religion outside of church

Theological character of wisdom:

1. wisdom comes from God

Israel does not keep the law in order to become God’s people, but because they already are!

Van Gameran:

“The main purpose of the Psalter is Instruction in Wisdom.

How do we..God’s people..deal with the reality of the world?

Introduction

Bagdad  Chaos Evil   Fear   

Death

The deaths of UDay and Kousay

 Both of these brothers did horrible things

They were truly sinful…in their appetites …and  in their actions

Whatever their minds  thought to do, they did. 

There was no restraining moral force  in their lives.

One asks How do people get to such  immoral and unconscionable actions?

They did everything that their sinful natures led them to do!

We have all seen pictures of the people celebrating their freedom in Iraq by running through the streets carrying  all manner of things that they looted from businesses and government buildings

The Piano from the Sheraton was pushed down the street by two people in broad daylight

Let me ask you a question:

Is the looting in Iraq right or wrong.

Good or evil?

What we have seen is a totalitarian regime replaced by anarchy.

Where there is no authority, there is anarchy.

Can I ask you,

Who makes the rules and why should obey them?

The Totalitarian says: I make the rules and if you don’t follow them, you die.

The anarchist says,

“ There are no rules”

Our Founding fathers understood that virtue is essential to freedom. 

Webster’s defines Virtue as :

a.. conformity to a standard of right

b. Morality

c. a particular moral excellence

People who cannot restrain their  own baser instincts, who cannot treat one another with civility

are not capable of self-government.

John Adams said “Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other”

Without virtue…

A society can be ruled only by fear,

…a truth that tyrants like Sadaam  understand all too well.

So we are left with the need for virtue or morality …for a society to exist. 

But how does one define Morality, virtue or ethical behavior?

Is virtue or morality something that is external to man…a transcendent reality..

…Or is it generated by individuals and circumstances?

This very question has been debated for centuries.

The traditionalist says that in order to have objective, universal ethical principles,

 there must be an absolute source,

a transcendent authority.

But today’s Post Modernist starts with the assumption that the only source of sure knowledge is science…

…Nature is all there is…

Morality is a merely human invention that can be changed to meet changing circumstances in an evolving world.

Ethics and morality have degenerated into relativism,..

with each individual carving out his or her own private truths to live by.

In our relativistic age we have lost the  ethical categories of right and wrong.

There is a lack of Moral Compass in our society. 

How did we get here?

John Dewey took the natural extension of the Darwinian hypothesis and used it in the realm of both education and ethics.

If  Darwinism is true, there is no divine law or transcendent moral order and there is no final authoritative basis for law.

If human beings are part of nature and nothing more, ..

.. then the mind is simply an organ that has evolved from lower forms in the struggle for existence and its value depends on whether it works.

We call this logic PRAGMATISM

The same logic prevails regarding Ethics or Morality. 

If human beings are just a result of a primordial mass….

…just a result of chance,

…without purpose,

than the only ethics that are required are those that “work” …

…according to an individual’s definition of what works for him!

Yet- as we live bowed under the  weight  of trying to make our lives  “work”…

….We have no answer for the Why question…

1. Why am I here

2. How am I to live my life?

3. How can I be fulfilled in my life?

The answers evade us because pragmatism and relativism are based on a morality that is a human invention

..which can provide only questions… and no answers!

However, IF a transcendent God created us for a purpose,

…We must ask what is that purpose and how must we live in order to fulfill it.

Turn with me  to Psalm 1

Ps 1:1-6 Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night 

He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers.

 Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. 

Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous.

For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Psalm 1 stands as the gateway to the magnificent collection of Hebrew religious verse.

The Psalter begins with a most practical psalm which introduces us to the way in which we may find happiness

The Psalm starts with the word “blessed” which means, “Happy” or “Fulfilled”

Starting with this word  is a way of saying that the psalms, and all of scripture, have been given to us for our own good

The Psalmist  tells us that there are 

I. Two Kinds of Men,

- Blessed, and Wicked

II. Two ways to live

- Righteous or Sinful

III. Two Destinies

Life in the assembly of the righteous or

Perishing

I. Two Kinds of Men

The Psalmist begins by contrasting the two kinds of men: Blessed and Wicked

The psalmist describes this man in regards to what 

1. he does not do ..and then

2. what he does do.

1. First the Wicked  Man

The Psalmist defines the life of  the  wicked man  and he does so  by using Hebrew Poetic Parallelism to make his point.

There is a progression from bad to worse

1.Walk             1.Counsel         1.Wicked

2.Stand            2.Way              2.Sinners

3.Sit                 3.Seat              3.Scoffers

1. First, they walk in the counsel of the “wicked “

These are the Careless and ungodly

who forget God.

The evil of these men is practical rather than habitual

They don’t set out to do evil, but because of the circumstance that develops, they are moved to do evil

ILLUS:  Lie to get the order

Tells the policeman he was  going 30 MPH when he was driving 45.

2. Then they Stand in the Way of Sinners

2. They Stand in the Way of Sinners

They become habituated to evil

When the person discovers that doing wrong isn’t punished, …

in fact, he actually is rewarded with business growth..

… he continues to lie  and misrepresent his capabilities to every potential customer

His first failure was the result of a practical situation,

..but now it has become  his habit to misrepresent his capabilities to every  customer!

Now this wicked man stands openly with sinners who willfully violate God’s commands

And before long he is so comfortable with his sin, that ii no longer seems wrong to him, and he teaches others his “successful sales techniques”

3. And he Sits in the Seat of Scoffers

3. To Sit in the Seat is to  become a Teacher and tempter of others!

TO sit in a chair is to be settled in what one is doing

… Comfortable and Knowledgeable

Teachers would sit as they taught their disciples and it is from this picture that today at Universities there are people who are given the  so and so chair in the department.

These men have sinned so regularly that they scoff at any and every thing Godly..

They are the “the brilliant”

the “ Erudite” and “informed” of this world….but who will not acknowledge God,..or His ways,

even though He has made Himself evident in what He has made Rom 1

The Minds That Comprehend The Incomprehensible In A Worldly Sense ..Cannot Comprehend The Obvious

In The Godly Sense.

This person the psalmist says has moved from standing and walking with the wicked to leading them!

Today, among those who would call themselves Christians, there are those who in their erudition, have  chosen to ignore the revelation of the scriptures for their own man-centered thoughts.

ILL: Open Theology Debate

- Baptist Debate

Spurgeon once said, “The seat of the scorner may be very lofty, but it is very near to the gate of hell”

II. The Second Man

– the Blessed Man

The Blessed or Happy man

1. Does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.

This man isn’t removed from the world of the wicked, but doesn’t buy into the principles and practices of the wicked

- He doesn’t participate with those who mock and scorn others

ILL:

Joining in the talking about others at work

2. He does not  stand in the way of sinners

2. He does not  stand in the way of sinners

He doesn’t behave like or have the same outlook as the rest of the world.

“Never make an intimate friend with one who is not a friend of God” Bishop Ryle

We become like the people with which we spend time.

Health is not contagious, but illness is

3. He doesn’t sit in the seat of mockers.

3. He doesn’t sit in the seat of mockers.

He doesn’t hang around with those who scoff at Biblical Christianity

He does not isolate Christian thinking from living

Christians are not wanderers.. but pilgrims, with an intelligent strategy for living.

How can the Fulfilled man live this way? 

!! II. Two ways to live

- Righteous or Sinful

Now what the Man Does Do

The  Blessed or Happy man delights  and meditates on God’s law  day and night

Delight in the Law?

CS Lewis in his Reflections in the Psalms, said that he found the psalmist’s delight in God’s law “utterly bewildering” and “Mysterious”

He said that he could understand how one could delight in God’s mercies, visitations and attributes, but not how one could delight in God’s law. 

One might respect God’s law or hope to obey God’s law, but delighting in it is difficult to understand.

Lewis finds the clue in the idea of mediation on God’s law.

The word law is used to refer to the whole of God’s inscripturated revelation… The Bible

And it is in the scripture that we learn, not about human beings or nature primarily, but about GOD!

Psalm  119:97 might shed some light on the subject.

119:97 Oh how I love your law

I meditate on it all day long

Your commands make me wiser than my enemies for they are ever with me

199:104  I gain understanding from your precepts:

therefore I hate every wrong path

Delight in God’s Law?

Yes .. because  scriptures reveal our God

.. and our sinfulness

This delight is an indication of the New Birth for the Sinful man is hostile to God ( Rom 8:7)

Mediation on God’s law is an indication of our spirituality

Our thinking affects our walking..

And We are to take every thought captive ..2 Cor 10:5 

Thinking is a spiritual or moral activity

The life of the mind needs to apply Christianity to the living of life.

The Contrast then is between

1. Those who love Sin   and

2. Those who love God

The result of godly living is blessedness….... fulfillment!

“The result is not rewords per se, but the result of a particular type of life” - ….Scroggie

The psalmist then gives us

Two Pictures or illustrations

1. A Tree planted by water

- flourishes regardless of  heat of the environment or situation

- it’s roots develop deeply in the ground

- It will prosper and yield fruit

2. Chaff – Wicked

That which is blown by the wind when tossed in the air

Chaff is worthless and is burned

It is a picture of the futile worthless life of the godless

It is a picture of judgment as well

The Psalmist says that those who contemplate God’s ward day and night became like a flourishing, healthy tree that bears fruit at the appropriate time.

Those who don’t think about God’s word have no stability..

They have no weight or substance..

..They are “light weights” who are blown away by the moving winds of life

 III. Two Destinies

Who is the Blessed Man of whom the psalmist speaks?

He never walks in the counsel of the wicked

He never stands in the way of sinners

He never sits in the seat of mockers

Abraham?

No, he denied his wife and told a lie

Moses

No , He took God’s glory in the giving of water from the rock

David?

He was an adulterer and a murderer

Then Who is this man?

Jesus Christ the only perfect Man

Who personified all that the psalmist has written.

Remember that  the psalmist begins by describing what a Blessed Man IS NOT ..

Or with the description of the Wicked man

He Starts where we start!

- in the counsel of the wicked

- in the way of sinners

- in the seat of Mockers

What is the way to  find happiness and fulfillment?

MT 7:13-14 tells us to ‘enter by the narrow gate’, for wide  is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction and many enter through it .  But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it,”

It is we who must Enter Through

the Narrow Gate!!!

Remember Ousay and Cousay?

They were truly sinful

…in their appetites

…and  in their actions

Whatever their minds  thought to do, they did. 

There was no restraining moral force  in their lives.

One asks How do people get to such  immoral and unconscionable actions?

They did everything that their sinful natures led them to do!

You say, I’m glad that I am not like them…. And that’s where you are wrong!

Without a trusting faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, You and I am exactly like them!!

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, if we think of it, it is the same as doing it!

Matt 5:21-22  "You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, 'Do not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.'

22        But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.

Matt 5:27-28   "You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'

28        But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matt 5:38-39"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' 39       But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.

Matt 5:43-44"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44  But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

Conclusion

The Bible tells us that there are 

Two Kinds of Men,

- Blessed, and Wicked

Two ways,

- Righteous or Sinful

Two Destinies

Life in the assembly of the righteous or

Perishing

Do you notice that there are only two ways described by the psalmist..

There is no third way!!

Each of us falls into one of these two!

Only those who have come to trust in the Perfect man of the Psalmist will discover themselves to be Blessed, Righteous and in the Assembly of God’s People.