It is often said that there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. Psalm 90 speaks of a far greater certainty that Western society is rapidly overlooking – the everlasting God. Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God, the Psalm begins (90:1-2).
In the same way that Isaiah 40 paints a big picture of a majestic God, so in broad brush strokes verse 2 of the Psalm speaks of the magnificence of the Lord God: He is the everlasting One. Unlike his creation which is subject to constant change, God’s very being, his essence, remains the same throughout eternity.
Written by Moses, who is spoken of as ‘the Man of God’, Psalm 90 is possibly the oldest Psalm. A prayer for wisdom, the opening lines express an assurance that God has been the dwelling place for his people throughout all generations because he himself exists in eternity – he is from everlasting. As the psalm unfolds the significance of God being our dwelling place becomes clear: without God, we are truly without a sure home.
But God’s majestic eternal nature opens up three themes we need to consider: our transience, the depth of our broken relationship with God, and our need for mercy.
Transient. You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers (90:3-6).
Compared with God, from whose perspective a millennium is but a day, our life is brief. Like new grass we flourish one day and are gone the next. Yet ironically, we tend to live as though we will live for a thousand years.
John Calvin comments: ‘Although we are convinced from experience that men and women… are taken out of this world,… yet the knowledge of this frailty fails in making a deep impression upon our hearts , because we do not lift our eyes above the world’ (Calvin, Psalms).
Broken. The psalm seems to move abruptly to the theme of God’s justice and anger. But there is a logical flow – from the theme of God’s eternity to our all too brief life-span. Drawing from Genesis 2 and 3 Moses refers to the way we were designed as the glory of God’s handiwork and yet we became the shame of his creation. The shadow of death now hovers over us all (Genesis 3:19).
Verses 7 and 8 tell us: For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Again, this is not said out of bitterness or anger: it is the reality. We have justly brought God’s condemnation upon us. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, must be our prayer (verse 12).
Within us all, there is an awareness of eternity. Augustine, the 5th C Bishop of Hippo said, “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”
Mercy. The concluding verses become a prayer for God’s mercy. With a boldness that reflects the opening line of the Psalm, Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations, Moses prays that God will reverse our situation. In verse 3 he had echoed God’s words to humanity: You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” Now his prayer is that God will turn back (return) in mercy towards us so that we might live (verses 13-17).
Acknowledging the reality that life is not easy for anyone, Moses boldly prays for a reversal of life’s experience in verses 14 and 15: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
The New Testament reveals how God has opened a further dimension in answer to this prayer. In 2 Corinthians 4:17 we read: …This slight momentary affliction is preparing us for aneternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). Outwardly we experience pain and suffering now, but inwardly, through the Holy Spirit working within us, we begin to taste the glory and joy of eternal life.
The unbelieving world whose eyes are glued to the material things of life, will not understand how God’s people cope with life. But God’s people press on because we have the power of Jesus’ resurrection at work within us. We see that the troubles of this world are like a drop in the bucket compared with the greatness of the glory to be revealed.
Moses’ prayer concludes: Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands! (Psalm 90:16-17). Certainty. We have it in Christ the Lord.
It seems that many today in the West are searching for identity – be it in terms of race or ethnicity, gender or orientation. And an outcome of this quest can be guilt and fear, deceit and anger.
In our changing ‘identity-seeking’ world, it is easy to feel the pressure of doubt and the darkness that it can bring. It’s therefore encouraging to meditate on what the Psalms tell us about where our true identity can be found. Let’s consider Psalms 42 and 43 – the two psalms that form the beginning of Book II of the Psalms.
The writer had been forcibly taken from his home city of Jerusalem into exile – probably at the time when king Jehoash of the northern kingdom of Israel, defeated king Amaziah of the southern kingdom, Judah (2 Kings 14:14).
As a deer pants for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… Psalm 42 begins. The imagery of a deer desperate for flowing water, not a camel or wild animal, introduces the pathos of the psalm – a yearning for the living God. God seemed as remote as water in a desert. Any talk of joy and peace seemed futile.
Far from home and from the temple in Jerusalem where it seems he had led the worship, the writer asks three times: Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you so disquieted within me? (42:5, 11; 43:5).He was depressed, disturbed and vulnerable in his relationship with those around him. They taunted him with the haunting question that we can hear today: “Where is your God?” (42:3)
Many of us know what it is like to move away from the comfort and security of family and friends, or to lose our job or watch someone close to us suffer. A good part of how we respond will depend on whether we believe that a good and loving God has not only made us in his image, but has also rescued us. This understanding will affect our spiritual awareness and our sense of identity – as is happening in these two psalms.
The Psalm writer points us to the beginning of a solution when he says: I say to God, my rock, “Why have you forgotten me? (42:9). As with most experiences in life, we need to begin by admitting our feelings to God, even asking him questions. This requires honesty and courage.
Furthermore, we learn that we need to address our inner self, our soul. Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a renowned 20th century English preacher wrote: ‘The main trouble in this whole matter’ of feeling downcast ‘is that we allow our Self to talk to us instead of us talking to our Self.’ The psalm-writer’s soul has been depressing him, crushing him, so he stands up and says, ‘Soul, listen! I will speak to you: “Hope in God; I shall again praise him, my help and my God”.’ We mustn’t allow the taunts of others or our own feelings to dominate.
Throughout these two psalms we see the movement from darkness, to admission, to self-exhortation, and then to prayer: Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people, the writer says; Send out your light and your truth; let them lead me… (43:1, 3).
Confident in God’s love and mercy, he is assured of the day when, again filled with joy, he will sing songs of praise to God. Psalms 42-43 urge us to move beyond believing things about God, to actually sensing God’s living presence, whoever we are, and whatever our situation in life.
The one true God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the source of our true identity – not our race or gender, not our social status or political disposition. Our true identity is grounded in God who is our maker and our redeemer.
When we have this assurance ourselves then we can begin to communicate it to family and friends around us.
Blaise Pascal, the French philosopher wrote: ‘Men despise religion. They hate it and are afraid it may be true. The cure for this is just to show that religion is not contrary to reason, but worthy of reverence and respect. Next make it attractive, make good men wish it were true, and then show them that it is’.
It is worth our while considering Psalm 19 which CS Lewis regarded as ‘the greatest poem in the Psalter and one of the greatest lyrics in the world’ (Reflections on the Psalms, p.56).
The Psalm begins: The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world (19:1-6).
The Psalm speaks of God’s witness to himself in the ever-repeating pageantry of the sky, day after day and night after night. And, as day follows night, they pour forth speech. Although there are no spoken words, these elements of the universe of themselves speak of a God of order who has taken the initiative to put the universe into existence. The very nature of these elements reveal not just the existence of God, but his eternal power and glory.
The opening lines of Psalm 19 tell us that no one can say, ‘I never knew about God.’ ‘Look around you,’ the writer says. In St Paul’s Cathedral in London, an inscription to its architect, Sir Christopher Wren reads: ‘If you are looking for a monument (or testimony), look around you.’
God’s Law. Suddenly, without warning, Psalm 19 speaks about God’s Word (Law):The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; … (19:7).
C.S. Lewis points out a thematic connection. Just as the heat of the sun reaches everywhere and pierces everyone with its power, so God’s Law is like the all-piercing, all-detecting sunshine. The words of verse 7 are key to understanding the Psalm.
The Psalm-writer uses images showing his delight in God’s Law; it reveals God’s good and pure will, is sure and morally right. ‘True’ in Hebrew has the idea of holding water. God’s Word (Law) is dependable and trustworthy. It revives andleads to wisdom.
Sweetness. So the writer can say – or perhaps, sing: More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey, and drippings of the honeycomb (19:8).We might say this of God’s grace and love, but Psalm 19 speaks thus of God’s Word (Law).
The Psalm is telling us that in God’s revelation we find truly stable, well-rounded directions for living. God’s Law, God’s truth, answers big questions for us about life and lifestyle.
The nations surrounding ancient Israel were pagan. Yet too often God’s people succumbed to the temptations of their neighbors’ religion with its sacred prostitution and child sacrifice. It was only when God provided a wake-up call that their hard hearts were softened and they saw again how appalling these practices were.
Reflection. The Psalm-writer considers his own life before God: Moreover by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. But who can detect their errors? Clear me from hidden faults (19:11).
‘Nothing is hidden from God’, the writer says. He notes that our sins can be hidden to us because they are often part of us (19:12-13). However, in the same way that nothing is hid from the sun, so God’s truth searches all the hiding places of our blinded hearts.
C.S. Lewis’s comment on Psalm 19 speaks into our lives and our world: ‘In so far that this idea of the Law’s beauty, sweetness or preciousness, arose from the contrast of the surrounding Paganisms, we may soon find occasion to recover it. Christians are increasingly living on a spiritual island; new and rival ways of life surround it in all directions… None of these new ways is yet so filthy or cruel as some Semitic paganism. But many of them ignore all individual rights and are already cruel enough. Some give morality a wholly new meaning which we cannot accept; some deny its possibility. Perhaps we shall all learn, sharply enough, to value the clean air and “sweet reasonableness” of the Christian ethics which in a more Christian age we might have taken for granted’ (Reflections, p.57).
In recapturing the ‘exultant sweetness’ of God’s truth, we can show an unbelieving world around us more effectively what Blaise Pascal suggested – namely, we can make our faith ‘attractive’ and so make others ‘wish it were true, and then show them that it is’.
The starting point is with you and me. So, to conclude with the Psalm: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.
In our social media driven world that gives voice to ‘my’ feelings one question surfaces: ‘Who or what are we?’
Shakespeare’s Hamlet put it this way: What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculty! In form, in moving, how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god! (Hamlet, II.ii)
Interestingly Psalm 8 paints a picture of the insignificance yet the greatness of humanity framed by the words: O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! Between these bookends, the Psalm explores the meaning of God’s majesty together with the meaning of humanity.
Despite the late Stephen Hawking’s pronouncement that ‘science makes God unnecessary’, from the outset the Bible is clear: In the beginning God created heaven and earth… And Psalm 8 speaks of God’s majestic glory throughout creation: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; (8:3)
Insignificant? Awakened to the greatness and majesty of God, perhaps as the writer looked up at the night sky and saw the myriad of stars etched against the darkness, he voices his response, speaking of the work of the fingers of God. And as he reflects, we can feel the question exploding in his mind, ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?’ (Ps.8:4)
When we honestly reflect on this weighty evidence, we will be even more amazed that the God who put it all together is interested in us, let alone cares for us. For the question of verse 4 is not a question about human greatness but about how something so small and insignificant in the universe could be raised to greatness.
Indeed, Stephen Hawking raised this question in his A Brief History of Time where he wrote: ‘We are such insignificant creatures on a minor planet of a very average star in the outer suburb of one of a hundred billion galaxies. So it is difficult to believe in a God that could care about us or even notice our existence’.
To which Dr. H. Fritz Schaefer III replies: ‘My response to that statement by Hawking, and to others that have said this over the years, is that that’s a silly thing to say. There isn’t any evidence to date that life exists anywhere else in the universe. Human beings, thus far, appear to be the most advanced species in the universe. Maybe God does care about us! Where Hawking surveys the cosmos and concludes that man’s defining characteristic is obscurity, I consider the same data and conclude that humankind is very special’ (Stephen Hawking, The Big Bang and God).
Dr. Schaefer’s words reflect the words of Psalm 8:5-8 where we read: Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
Greatness. In creating us God has placed us only just under the position of the heavenly beings. His intention from the first was to invest in us a royal sovereignty, crowning us with glory and honor.
Psalm 8 takes us back to Genesis 1:26: Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.”
These words were God’s words to Adam. But as Genesis 3 tells us, we who are the glory of God’s handiwork became the shame of his creation. Because we have failed to honor him in our lives, we lost the perfect dominion he had given us. But, in God’s mercy that is not the end of the story. Psalm 8 is not just a statement of wonder: it is also prophetic.
As we look back with our New Testament glasses on we see that God has potentially restored our rule or dominion through Jesus Christ – the second Adam. Jesus who was and is, man as man is meant to be, set aside his power and glory, and taking on human form gave up his life, thereby conquering the power of sin and death. Now crowned with glory and honor, Jesus will crown all his followers with the same honor and glory.
CS Lewis commented: ‘There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization–these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendors’.
In his Everlasting Man, GK Chesterton comments: ‘three or four times at least in the history of Christendom the whole soul seemed to have gone out of Christianity, and almost every man in his heart expected its end’.
He remarks on a pattern, ‘the creed (of Christianity) had become a respectable thing, had become a ritual thing, had then been modified into a rational thing; and the rationalists were ready to dissipate the last remains of it, just as they do today…’ Chesterton was writing in 1925.
I draw attention to Chesterton’s observations because they touch on the apprehension of many Christians today – namely, that such is the hostility towards Christianity that its voice will be inevitably be shut down in the public forum. Certainly, progressive secularism reckons it will have the final word. But will it?
Psalm 3 is the first Psalm that has the title, ‘A Psalm of David’. It is one of fourteen psalms specifically linked to events in David’s life – here the occasion of Absalom’s rebellion that we find in 2 Samuel 15:13ff. OLord,how many are my foes! Many arerising against me; many are saying of my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God”, Psalm 3 begins.
The opposition against David was personal and determined. Many are rising against me, he says. Significantly, he comments, many are saying… “There is no salvation for him in God”. It’s how we are sometimes tempted to feel today: ‘God won’t step in to help us’.
Response. But consider how David responds: But you, OLord, area shieldabout me, my glory, andthe lifter of my head. (Ps. 3:3). With imagery that progressively expresses his sure trust in God, David speaks of God’s protection, the honor (glory) God bestows on him, and God’s assurance that enables him to carry his head high. God heard David’s call and answered: Icried aloud to theLord, and heanswered me from hisholy hill (Ps. 3:4).
David’s reference to God’s holy hill is striking. Absalom was intent on setting himself up in the city of Jerusalem and there make his own decrees. But David knew of a higher authority whose word, symbolically (and literally) spoken from Jerusalem, is supreme. A New Testament example of this confident faith is found in Acts 4:23-31 where God’s people, in response to the release of Peter and John in Jerusalem, prayed for boldness in testifying to Jesus as the Christ.
Such was David’s peace of mind in the face of Absalom’s rebellion that he lay down and slept. He awoke again sustained by the Lord. No longer was he afraid of the thousands who opposed him.
But as Derek Kidner comments (Psalms 1-72, p.55)), ‘Refuge is not enough… To settle for anything less than victory would be a virtual abdication’. David prayed: Arise, OLord! Save me, O my God! Under God, David had the responsibility to carry out his calling as God’s king.
Let me suggest that we too have a calling, amongst other things to partner with the Lord in the work of announcing the kingship of Jesus Christ to people around us. Yet too often our apprehensions silence us. Let’s pray with the first believers in Jerusalem who prayed: Grant to your servants… to speak your word with all boldness (Acts 4:29).
Psalm 3 concludes with the assurance: Salvation belongs to theLord; your blessing be on your people! Notice that David’s focus is no longer on himself; rather, it is on the Lord and his salvation and blessing.
Psalms 3-72 (Books I and II) tell us in poetic form something of David’s experiences – his suffering, failures, and weaknesses. But we also read of David’s trust in the Lord and of God’s supernatural intervention bringing new life and hope in times of apprehension and despair. In fact, the pattern of David’s experiences foreshadow the experiences of his great successor, Jesus Christ, especially in the hostility that nailed Jesus to a cross, but also in God’s intervention that raised him to new life.
To return to Chesterton’s theme about the dying and rising pattern of Christianity through the ages, he comments, ‘When Christianity rose again suddenly and threw them (‘the rationalists’), it was almost as unexpected as Christ rising from the dead.
Will you join me in praying that the Lord will give us all a new love for him; a love that creates in us a longing to bring others to a sure knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? Who knows, in the mercy of God we may see a fresh rising again of interest in his good news. We may see again many turning with joy to find their true home in him.
Our world is not getting any better. Indeed our Western world seems to be increasingly wrecking itself on the rocks of unadulterated selfishness. Where do we turn for hope?
The Book of Psalms reminds us that in the midst of the day-to-day realities of life, our only hope is to turn to the Lord God for his help and to his Word for his wisdom.
Psalm 2, the second of the two foundational psalms (Psalm 1 is the first) jumps straight in with a question: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain against God and his king?’
And, in setting the scene for the whole Book, it continues with words that speak of the futility of humankind: Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us” (Psalm 2:2-3).
Why is it that men and women, created beings, plot against their creator? And in anticipation of the events that led to Jesus’ death, why is it that kings and rulers – Herod and Pilate – conspire together to bring down God’s elect king? And why is it that men and women speak of God’s instruction as bonds to be broken and cords to be cast off? Hosea 11:4 speaks of God’s cords of kindness, and Jesus invites us to come to him for his yoke is easy and his burden is light (Matthew 11:30).
With this beginning, Psalm 2 introduces a theme that bubbles through the psalms – namely the plotting of men and women against their creator. At the same time we are introduced to two other characters we find in the Psalms, God and his anointed King.
We then read God’s response: He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision. Then he will speak to them in his wrath, and terrify them in his fury saying, “As for me, I have set my King on Zion, my holy hill” (Psalm 2:4-6).
And in verses 7-9, God’s king now speaks: I will tell of the decree: The Lord (that is, God) said to me, “You are my Son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.” At Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration, God the Father proclaimed him his Son in words drawn from this verse – and also from Isaiah 42:1. When Jesus commissioned the apostles, he emphasized the nations and the ends of the earth, taking up this promise concerning God’s King.
In the final verses the Psalm-writer comes back with words of warning for the nations, the kings and rulers: Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled (2:10-12a).
Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72: Tyndale) comments, ‘God’s patience is not placidity, any more than His fierce anger is loss of control, His laughter cruelty or His pity sentimentality. When His moment comes for judgement, in any given case, it will be by definition beyond appeasing or postponing’.
And, in words that draw us back to Psalm 1, the psalm-writer concludes: Blessed are all who take refuge in him – that is, the Son. As Kidner sums up, ‘There is no refuge from Him: only in Him’.
