Prelude to the Psalms

Introduction: Good Morning Redemption Church. It is good to see you all this morning, if this is your first time with us in person or on the live stream, my name is Noah Toney, and I am the pastor here. At Redemption Church we exist to proclaim the gospel and make disciples for the glory of God. That is our vision statement, and it is the very heartbeat of this church. Today is special because we are starting our Summer in the Psalms Sermon Series for the first time, if the Lord is kind and merciful to us, this will be something that we do every year until we finish preaching through all 150 Psalms.

It is only appropriate that we open up with a Psalm of Prayer:

Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation. Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them. Full of splendor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever. He has caused his wondrous works to be remembered; the LORD is gracious and merciful. He provides food for those who fear him; he remembers his covenant forever. He has shown his people the power of his works, in giving them the inheritance of the nations. The works of his hands are faithful and just; all his precepts are trustworthy; they are established forever and ever, to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness. He sent redemption to his people; he has commanded his covenant forever. Holy and awesome is his name! The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever! Psalms 111

There is something special about the book of Psalms. This is a self-evident truth. We know that every book of the Bible is special because it is God’s holy word. However, I would argue that there is something extraordinary about the Psalms. For all of the saints of the Lord, both Old Testament saints and New Testament Christians, the book of Psalms has had special importance. It has been loved and cherished by Jews and Christians as one of the most outstanding books of the bible. Today's sermon will be different from most of my sermons; my goal today is not to expound upon scripture but to give you a 30,000-foot overview of the Psalter.

There has been a giant misunderstanding of the Psalms in modern Christianity. It is my goal to challenge how you think about the psalms and show you a bigger and more coherent picture of the Psalms.

Psalms are the photobook of the real world:

Every family has a photo album. Photo albums and scrapbooks have fallen out of fashion in the last 20 years because of the internet, but we all know what they are, and we all likely have one. The Psalms are like an album that tells the story of God’s people as it really is. It records the highs and the lows of life. The Psalms sing praises from the mountains of the goodness of God, but they also lament in the deepest valleys of sorrow. In our world, we all are familiar with photo albums that capture the highlights of each family, but what's different about the psalter is that it captures every human experience and emotion imaginable. Imagine that there is a picture of your birth and your birth certificate. This picture is followed by you at your fifth birthday party, and you are smiling and eating cake. The following picture is of your awkward middle school phase. Next is a picture of your senior prom, and you and your date are so happy and dressed up and full of joy and the vigor of life. This picture is followed by your first heartbreak, where he or she betrayed you and broke your heart. We all have stories like this. Then the following picture is the death of a grandparent whom you loved. And there is a picture of the gravestone. Next is a picture of you moving into college, and then a picture of you falling in love, and then there is a picture of the wedding, and then the honeymoon, followed by a picture of an ultrasound. There is pictures of the joy on your faces as you celebrate the pregnancy. Then there is a picture of you crying when you discover you had a miscarriage. The joy in the previous pictures has been eclipsed by deep despair and hopelessness. This sorrow is followed by a picture of the death of a parent. And the darkness that you thought you knew is only multiplied. These sad pictures then take a turn and begin to return to normal, anniversaries happen, children are born, promotions at work happen, and more children are born. Your children then grow up and leave the house, and you are empty nesters. And so on and so forth. The point of this extended metaphor is that what is described is exactly what the psalms are for Israel. The Psalter is a photo book of the real-life and history of God’s people. In the same way you can look at a single picture and learn a lot of info, you can learn so much more when you see all the other pictures that tell the story. In the same way, the psalms can be read individually, but they have so much more meaning when you understand that they were arranged and placed in a specific order that tells a story.

The ancient Greeks had the Iliad and the Odyssey, and these two poems are epic tales that chronicle the works of kings and mighty warriors in Greek history. These works, the Iliad and Odyssey to this day, are still part of the very fabric of Greek culture and the Greek language. And the point of these long poems is twofold. First, these poems teach their cultures about the ideal person. The Odyssey follows the story of Odysseus, a warrior king who has been a significant part of the trojan war for nine years. It tells of his treacherous journey as he is on his way home to his kingdom of Ithaca and his wife, Penelope. As the average Greek family would read and sing this poem to their children with the hope of teaching the next generation about major Greek virtues. You teach your boys the story of Odysseus so that they might grow up to be brave and valiant amid adversity. You teach your children how when Odyssey’s men were in trouble; he would rise to the occasion to help his brothers and his countrymen. The Odyssey also teaches bad character traits that must when the King makes selfish choices; the people will pay the price. Families would sing the song of Penelope to teach their daughters about faithfulness and perseverance as she waited 20 years for her husband to return home to her. You would sing the story of how Penelope held the family together while her husband was off to war, to teach your daughters that when the men go off to battle, the responsibility of leadership lies with the women. In other words, the Odyssey is a poem that would teach Greeks what it looks like to be an exemplary citizen of Greece. Second, these ancient songs recount the history of the King and his kingdom. The Odyssey tells the history of Odysseus and his kingdom in Ithaca. We know that the Odyssey is mythological and not true, but what makes the Psalter special is that it is true. It recounts the true story of God and his people. The Psalms sing the true story of God’s chosen people Israel and God’s anointed King, the messiah. I want to be very clear that the psalms, while they can be read and understood individually, they have so much more meaning and application when you understand that the psalms were written and arranged in a way that tells a specific story about Israel and God’s plan for his people.

Arrangement:

The Psalms are arranged in 5 books. If you like to take notes, this might be helpful. These books are arranged in a way that tells a specific story about the people of God.

Book One- Psalms 1-41 David’s rise and reign

Book Two- Psalms 42-72 David’s reign and Messianic expectations

Book Three-Psalms 73-89 David’s line goes into exile

Book Four-Psalms 90-106 Seek the Lord in Exile

Book Five- Psalms 107-150 Songs of faithfulness and return to the Land

If the Psalms are an epic poem that sings the story of God’s chosen King and chosen people, it starts with David. So book one begins with an introduction: Psalms 1 and 2 are the great gate to the Psalter. They are given the overarching theme of the whole Psalter. Psalm one is a poem about the ideal man, the perfect person. This ideal person is blessed by God, and he is rooted in God’s word, and all the works of his hands are blessed because he is planted and rooted by God’s word. But those who are not rooted in the word are like chaff that the wind drives away. Psalm two picks up and tells us who this ideal person is. He is the anointed messiah King of Israel. And as King, he will rule and reign from Zion, and he is the sovereign ruler whom God has placed in charge of the earth; all who challenge him will be like broken pottery at his feet. But those who trust this messiah King will always have refuge and blessing.

After the introduction in Psalms 1 and 2, we are given 40 Psalms of David. Every Psalm in book one has a superscription. For example, Psalm 3 is “a Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his Son.” All the Psalms in book one deal with David’s rise to power and his reign. These superscriptions are like titles that tell us, the reader what was happening in the life of David when he wrote this psalm. They are like handwriting on the back of a photograph that gives us a lot more meaning, what was going on when a picture was taken.

Most of the Psalms in book one and two have superscriptions that tell us what was going on in David's life. Like Psalm 18, “TO THE CHOIRMASTER. A PSALM OF DAVID, THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, WHO ADDRESSED THE WORDS OF THIS SONG TO THE LORD ON THE DAY WHEN THE LORD DELIVERED HIM FROM THE HAND OF ALL HIS ENEMIES AND FROM THE HAND OF SAUL. HE SAID:” In other words, David is in the heat of battle against his enemies, and he calls out to the Lord for the help. David goes on to describe God jumping on a cloud and riding down, flashing forth lightning bolts and fire and saving him from battle, and God places David on a rock so that he might be safe. This is deeply poetic and metaphorical language. The Psalms are poetry; they are not like epistles or like much of the New Testament. In the New Testament, Paul is going to argue with your brain. He is going to reason with you about Jesus. His writing is going to be proportional statements. If A, then B equals C, but the Psalms do not appeal to logic or the brain, but they appeal to passion; the Psalms reach out their hand from the page and grab us by the jugular and get to the very core of human emotion. Poetry is visceral, not logical.

Book one ends just as it started by talking about the blessed man, God’s anointed King, who is sustained by God alone. David is reflecting on the end of his life; he knows that he is aging and that his days are numbered. His enemies are gathering around him, waiting for him to die, but one more time, David confesses faith in God. Read Psalm 41:1-7, 11-12

Book one ends with David crying out to God, placing his confidence in him, and book two opens with a prayer of dependence upon God. Many of these Psalms are by the Sons of Korah; it is like they see David is fading and growing in his age, and they pick up the pen and write songs to him and for him. It is like the Sons of Korah see that Davids's strength is fading and they sing songs about God’s faithfulness to remind him that God is faithful and he will finish what he started. See Psalms 42 and 45 By the end of Psalm 45 by the end of Psalms 45 it is apparent that the David is going to die, so from there on the songs change, they are no longer singing to David as the King, but they are singing songs to God because he is Israel's true King! Psalm 46, 50. Look at the last two psalms in book 2. Psalms 71 David cries out, “do not cast me off in the time of my old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent” Psalm 72, a Psalm of Solomon. Now Solomon is this blessed King look at how Psalm 72:17 “May his name endure forever; his fame continue as long as the sun! May people be blessed in him, all nations call him blessed! Blessed be the LORD, the God of Israel, who alone does wondrous things. Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!”

Book two ends with Solomon becoming King; immediately the Psalms in book three start to have a different tone. What was the one thing that Solomon asked for when he became king over Israel? Wisdom. Look at Psalm 78, “a maskil of Asaph” Maskil is a Hebrew word that means instruction, and Asaph was one of the leaders of the temple worship from Chronicles. It is like, the temple choir is now singing wisdom in the temple. Wisdom is streaming out of the temple of God, but the people will not listen. Lady wisdom is standing on the street calling to the people of Israel, but they are going the wrong way. It is like a song that sings of the unfaithfulness of Israel. Remember our scripture reading this morning from Deuteronomy 4.

Moses is standing on the Jordon River. Moses gathers the whole nation of Israel one more time before he sends them into the promised land. And Moses says, "you are going to enter into the promised land, but you will break the covenant and worship God’s that cannot see and cannot help, and break the covenant. When you break the covenant, God will scatter you among the nations, you shall be taken out of the promised land and sent into exile. But while you are in exile, you will seek the Lord. And when you seek YHWH, you will find him, and he will be gracious to you, and once more, he will return you to the land. Because God is faithful to keep his promises even when we are not.”

If Psalm 78 is a song of unfaithfulness, then Psalm 79 is a the beginning of Exile. “O God, the nations have come into your inheritance; they have defiled your holy temple; they have laid Jerusalem in ruins. They have given the bodies of your servants to the birds of the heavens for food, the flesh of your faithful to the beasts of the earth. They have poured out their blood like water all around Jerusalem, and there was no one to bury them. We have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.”

Book three ends with Psalm 89:40-41 crying out, “You have renounced the covenant with your servant; you have defiled his crown in the dust. You have breached all his walls; you have laid his strongholds in ruins. All who pass by plunder him; he has become the scorn of his neighbors.” In other words, the exile has begun. Israel has entered the land, and they have broken the covenant, and now they are going into exile. This is 586 BC. Zedekiah has been brought out of the city and watched his seven sons killed, then he has had his eyes burned out by the Babylonians, and he went into exile with his people. This is Israel’s darkest day. This is the photo in the album that you wish was not there.

So Moses said that Israel would enter the land, they would break the covenant, and go into exile. From exile, Israel would repent and would seek the Lord in his Law. If book three ends with Israel going into exile, book four is repentance and seeking the Lord in exile. If you think I am making this pattern up, look at the first chapter of exile chapter 90. A prayer of Moses. The only Psalm of Moses in the entire Psalter. It is like Israel knows that the answer to their exile is to return to the Torah, the words of God that were given by Moses. 90:3 “You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” When Adam sinned in the garden, God said from the dust of the ground you have been taken, and back to the dust, you shall return. Now Israel has sinned, and it is like God has spoken the same thing to them. But just as God was gracious and merciful to Israel in the wilderness, he will be merciful to Israel in exile.

Book four continues with Israel in exile, they are scattered among the nations surrounded by their enemies. This is a low point, all of their hopes and all of their promises appear to have been shattered, yet Israel starts to seek YHWH. While sitting in the darkness they start to sing songs of victory. They are surrounded by false gods and idols, yet they start to sing about how “the Lord reigns.” Psalm 93:1-2 “ The LORD reigns; he is robed in majesty; the LORD is robed; he has put on strength as his belt. Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved. Your throne is established from of old; you are from everlasting.

Psalm 96:10 “say among the nations “the lord reigns, yes the world is established and it shall never be moved”

Psalm 97:1 “The LORD reigns, let the earth rejoice; let the many coastlands be glad! Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

Psalm 99:1-2 “The LORD reigns; let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned upon the cherubim; let the earth quake! The LORD is great in Zion; he is exalted over all the peoples.”

This is like Israel knows that they have broken the covenant and they know that they are in a foreign land, but they are recounting the Lord's faithfulness in the past with hopes of a future return. Israel knows that their king has fallen and that there is no one on the throne in Jerusalem, but they now are sinning about a better King who reigns. These are some of my favorite prayers in the entire Psalter because they teach us how to pray in difficult days. Expound. When you are in the difficult days, turn to God, and seek him so that you might live.

Book four ends with Psalm 106. Psalm 106 is just a poetic retelling of the exodus story. After the Psalmist tells the exodus story in Verse 47, the psalmist cries out “Save us, oh Lord our God, and gather us from the nations that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise” Book four ends with the people calling out to God to rescue them from exile. How do you think that book five opens?

Psalm 107 “Oh give thanks to the LORD, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever! Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, whom he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Some wandered in desert wastes, finding no way to a city to dwell in; hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them. Then they cried to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. He led them by a straight way till they reached a city to dwell in. Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man!” In other words exile is over; it is time for a new exodus. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. We sat in the darkness and when we cried out to God he answered us and has brought us back into his promises and into the promised land. This is amazing.

Something else very special happens in book five. You start to see more psalms of David; only one thing is different. These Psalms of David do not have superscriptions but are messianic psalms of David. Where David is looking forward to the new David, the new messiah King who will sit on the throne and will rule and reign forever, psalm 109 is another psalm where David is surrounded by his enemies; he is calling out to God, and David says this “With my mouth I will give great thanks to the LORD; I will praise him in the midst of the throng. For he stands at the right hand of the needy one, to save him from those who condemn his soul to death.” David needs someone to save his soul, who will be the one to stand in his place? Who shall save his soul from death? Enter Psalm 110 the most quoted passage in the entire bible. Psalm 110 is quoted 24 times in the New Testament. Why? Because this psalm tells us of the true and better Messiah who comes and defeats all of his enemies and has come to rule and reign over Israel. This is the messiah; this is the one better than David. Jesus himself quotes this to refer to himself.[1]

This messiah king has won his decisive battle over the enemies and now the people start to praise the Lord. In this section of book five, we have the Hallel psalms. Hallelujah means to praise the Lord and they all start the same way.

Psalm 111- Praise the LORD! I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart, in the company of the upright, in the congregation.

Psalm 112- Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!

Psalm 113- Praise the LORD! Praise, O servants of the LORD, praise the name of the LORD! Blessed be the name of the LORD from this time forth and forevermore! From the rising of the sun to its setting, the name of the LORD is to be praised!

This goes on, then in 118, there is a change. Psalm 118 talks about opening the gates of the city so that this victorious messiah king can go into the temple to worship it says “Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the LORD. This is the gate of the LORD; the righteous shall enter through it. I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the LORD’s doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

And once this messiah King enters the temple what does he do? In psalm 119 he immediately expounds upon the goodness of the word of God, for 176 verses.

After Psalm 119 we have the Psalms of accents. From Psalm 120-134 these are the songs that the people would sing as they would make the annual journey to the temple for the Passover and for the festivals. These Psalms depict Isaiah 2:2-4 “It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and shall decide disputes for many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

The Psalms of accents depict the people of Zion as the highest mountain and the people of God are walking, streaming into Zion singing these songs of God’s faithfulness. And the reason they are going to the mountain is to worship YHWH and to hear the word of God taught by the messiah King as he sits on the throne. And it is glorious. There will be no more battle, no more violence, no more exile, all of God’s people will be united and will worship the King in all of his glory.

Then the rest of the Psalter is praise. Many more Hallelujah psalms. Psalm 148-150

There is no more fitting way to conclude the Psalter of God’s church, then by praise.

Let us pray.

[1] Matt 24, mark12, Luke 20, acts 2, etc..…