{ "version": "1.0.0", "segments": [ { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "10.4", "endTime": "20.835", "body": "Greetings. Welcome to Biblical Reflections. This is your host, Andrew. We are in our second series. We're looking today at Psalm 89 to inform us on our praise and prayer life." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "21.235", "endTime": "64.61", "body": "The superscript here for 89 is a maskil of Ethan the Azerite. Now remember, if you're reading the old testament and you don't know how to pronounce anything, this elderly man who had emigrated from Holland, who was an elder in church or who had been used to say to me and others, you know, when you get to these hard to pronounce words, say them very fast and no one will know whether you're doing it correct or not because they don't know how to pronounce it either. Alright. With that little funny, let's go on. Psalm 89 is a community lament, but it celebrates the Davidic kingship as God's special gift to his people." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "66.225", "endTime": "106.005", "body": "The heir of David is the divinely appointed ruler over Israel whose task is to faithfully lead the people. So the Davidic king is a gift that God gives the people in order to help them to honor the covenant, which means of course that the people must pray for the Davidic king to lead them out of their current disaster. Now as we get into this, the current disaster is obvious. The nation has been destroyed by the Babylonians. Jerusalem has been destroyed, the temple has been destroyed, most of the people have been killed, a remnant has been carried off." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "106.80499", "endTime": "117.81", "body": "So obviously this is a community lament. Let's look now. This is quite a long Psalm. This goes 52 verses long. I'm gonna begin with one through four." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "118.21", "endTime": "138.75", "body": "I will sing of the steadfast love of the Yahweh forever. With my mouth I will make known your faithfulness to all generations. For I said, steadfast love will be built up forever. In the heavens you will establish your faithfulness. You have said, have made a chosen I have made a covenant rather with my chosen one." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "138.83", "endTime": "176.51501", "body": "I sworn to David my servant. I will establish your offspring forever and build your throne for all generations. Shelah. God's covenant with David expresses God's steadfast love and faithfulness to his people. Now we could go back and look at second Samuel and I think it's chapter seven where God makes a covenant with David that his heirs, his descendants will set on the throne of Israel forever." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "177.235", "endTime": "195.91", "body": "So that is the basis of, like, okay, God, remember remember you said this, and we we wrote it down. So and they're asking this because Jerusalem's gone, the temple's gone, and the king's gone. So, like, what's going on? Let's say, read now five through eight. Excuse me." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "195.91", "endTime": "206.625", "body": "Five through 18 rather. Let the nations praise you. Excuse me. Let the nations praise your wonders, oh Yahweh. Your faithfulness in the assembly of the holy ones." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "207.105", "endTime": "232.41501", "body": "For who in the skies can be compared to the Yahweh? Who among the heavenly beings is like the Yahweh? Oh, Elohim, greatly to be feared in the counsel of the holy ones, and awesome above all who are around him. Oh, Yahweh Elohim Sabaoth. O Lord God of hosts, who is mighty as you are?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "232.57501", "endTime": "246.87001", "body": "O Yahweh, with your faithfulness all around you. You rule the raging sea when its waves rise. You still them. And remember this is a metaphor for the Gentile nations. So he is sovereign over the Gentile nations." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "247.19", "endTime": "269.885", "body": "Picking up in ten, you have crushed crushed Rahab. So Rahab was thought to be a mythical beast sort of representing chaos, sort of like the dragons that you see in in the Chinese mythology. You have crushed Rahab like a carcass. You've scattered your enemies with your mighty arm. And again, this is poetry and we're using some poetic terms to show God's sovereignty." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "270.62", "endTime": "288.02502", "body": "The heavens are yours, the earth also is yours. The world and all that is in it, you have founded them. The North and the South, you have created them. Taber and Hermon joyously praise your name. You have a mighty arm, strong as your hand, high your right hand." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "288.505", "endTime": "317.255", "body": "Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne. Steadfast love and faithfulness go before you. Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, oh Yahweh, in the light of your face, who exalt your name all day and in your righteousness are exalted. For you are the glory of their strength, for by your favor our horn, that is power, is exalted. For your shield belongs to Yahweh." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "317.255", "endTime": "333.87", "body": "For excuse me, for our shield belongs to the Yahweh. Our king is the holy one of Israel. Here is praise to God. Notice that it goes in steps. He is above all of the the powers, all of the heavenly powers." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "335.07", "endTime": "369.71", "body": "He is above the Gentiles. His mighty deeds are recounted such as creation and Exodus, at least poetically. The attributes of God is praise such as righteousness, justice, steadfast love, faithfulness, and power. Therefore, any people who are the people of God who we just described are blessed, are blessed. And so they're they're praising God and saying we are blessed because we are your people and your sovereign over all." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "370.66998", "endTime": "388.105", "body": "Now we get to 19 through 37. Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one and said, I've granted help to one who is mighty. I have exalted one chosen from the people. I have found David my servant with my holy oil. I have anointed him anointed him king." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "388.425", "endTime": "415.515", "body": "So that my hands shall be established with him, my arm also shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, the wicked shall not humble him. I will crush his foes before him and strike down those who hate him. My faithfulness and my steadfast love shall be with him and in my name shall his horn be exalted. I shall set his hand on the sea and on the right hand on the rivers." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "415.915", "endTime": "452.84", "body": "Again, exalting the power of the king and his hand will be over the Gentiles. He, that is king versus David shall cry out, you are my father, the God and the rock of my salvation. I will make him the firstborn. David was not the firstborn, he was the youngest, but again this is a metaphor for being the highest and further explains, I will make him the firstborn that is the highest of the kings of the earth. My steadfast love I will keep for him forever and my covenant will stand firm for him." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "453.56", "endTime": "491.655", "body": "I will establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of heaven. If his children forsake my law and do not walk according to my rules, if they violate my statutes and do not keep my commandments, then I will punish their transgression with a rod, their iniquity with stripes. But I will not remove from him my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness. I will not violate my covenant or alter the word that went forth from my lips. Once for all I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "492.13498", "endTime": "503.99002", "body": "His offspring shall endure forever. His throne as long as the sun before me. Like the moon, it shall be established forever. A faithful witness in the sky. Skies." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "503.99002", "endTime": "552.805", "body": "So now in their prayer, they're reminding God, hey, you know you So this covenant that God made with David is points out here in '36 37 that is forever and that the witnesses to this covenant that is to David and through all of his heirs who will sit on the throne is a forever covenant and the witnesses are the sun and the moon, which, you know, in human expression, you know, never go away. So it's like forever. It's just a again, a poetic way of saying that this covenant is forever. It's just a problem though. The king's gone." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "553.7", "endTime": "561.3", "body": "The temple's gone. The city's gone. The nation's gone. And it don't look like it's ever coming back anytime soon. So what happened?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "561.86", "endTime": "609.425", "body": "This next portion, 38 through 45, before I get there I should say what God had said in the covenant of David is if the king sinned, an heir, that he would punish that Davidic king for his or her excuse me, for his transgressions, but he would never take his love away from him. In other words, he wouldn't subsequent sin by a descendant would would not remove the covenant. That is how forever it was. Now let's go into '38 through '45, and this is a description how the nation had been destroyed by the Babylonians. But now you have cast off and rejected." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "611.24", "endTime": "623.0", "body": "You are full of wrath against your anointed. You have renounced the covenant with your servant. You have defiled his crown in the dust. You you have breached all his walls. You have laid his strongholds in ruins." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "623.825", "endTime": "640.39", "body": "All who pass by plunder him. He has become the scorn of his neighbors. You have exalted the right hand of his foes. You have made all his enemies rejoice. You have also turned back the edge of his sword and you have not made him to stand in battle." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "640.79004", "endTime": "682.29504", "body": "You have made his slender to cease and to cast his throne to the ground. You have cut short the days of his youth and you have covered him with shame. So this is a pretty graphic description of how the nation was destroyed by the Babylonians and sometimes he's talking, writer singer is talking about the king, sometimes talking about the nation, kinda goes back and forth. Again, this is poetry. You know, all that's true and if this was after the destruction of the Babylonians in five eighty six BC and you were there." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "682.775", "endTime": "703.22", "body": "So all the people of any quality or means or smarts or abilities were taken to Babylon, only the losers were left. Okay? In the what was left of Israel. So we don't know when this was written. It was actually probably written in Babylon, but they're they're telling us what it looked like." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "704.355", "endTime": "728.47003", "body": "And they're like, what happened? What what happened to this covenant that you were gonna make forever? What they don't say is that it's following the covenant. And if you listen to my stuff before, God made a covenant with the people, the Hebrew people, the the children of Jacob. There were 12 tribes, 12 sons." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "729.11", "endTime": "764.455", "body": "And Moses was the one who took them out of captivity and slavery and they wandered around in the desert for forty years. But before they started wandering, they went to Mount Sinai and God said, will you be my covenant people? Now a covenant is a contract and there are certain rules, so God will bless you, but but you have to honor and obey him. Now, there's far more to the covenant than the 10 commandments, but, you know, that's kind of the big 10. Honor the Lord your God, you know, have no other idols before him, you know, no other gods before him, don't worship idols." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "764.695", "endTime": "780.69", "body": "These kinds of things. Well, they rebelled within a very short time. And so God said, okay, fine. You don't wanna go to the promised land? And so he let them in a circle for the next thirty nine years until they all die." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "780.93", "endTime": "821.23505", "body": "So now a new generation rises up to take the place of the parents and grandparents and they're gonna go into the promised land. But Moses is not allowed to take them in, and that's another story. But Joshua is going to take them into the promised land. Before they do, however, Moses is not he's still alive and he has the new generation swear a covenant, the same covenant, but this time, and we can read about it in Deuteronomy, and that is the last book that Moses wrote, It's very clear. It's much clearer and easier to read Deuteronomy because obviously Moses is getting a little more practice here as he goes." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "821.47504", "endTime": "859.97504", "body": "And this time God adds a series of blessings and curses which amount to progressive discipline. So if you don't follow the covenant then you get one of the curses and hopefully that will turn you as a nation back to following the covenant and honoring God and not other gods or idols. So hopefully that happens, but you don't. You pray and say deliver us, God delivers them, and by and by they go back and they do more, they do worse. And it's just a constant cycle of them rebelling more and more against God." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "860.99", "endTime": "891.17", "body": "And this progressive discipline starts from, well, the harvest will be bad, you know, maybe maybe the animals won't have as many sheep, you know, so you'll be poor. Maybe your own families you won't be able to conceive. So there'll be drought and just but the progressive discipline is just like progressive discipline in the modern workplace. You know, first time you're late, you get an oral reprimand, you know. If you continue, maybe get a written reprimand, maybe get some time off." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "891.41", "endTime": "931.01", "body": "If you continue not to do well, might get demoted and the ultimate penalty or capital punishment in the modern workplace is you get fired. Well, the ultimate progressive discipline under the covenant was the nation will be destroyed and you'll be sent into captivity, a remnant. And maybe after you've been in captivity a long time, maybe the remnant will come back and be reconstituted. So the writer here doesn't talk about what they did. They rebelled against God continually." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "931.01", "endTime": "961.35504", "body": "In mentioned this before in other places, Ezekiel who is in the second wave of the captivity is actually in Babylon and he the final final destruction hasn't happened yet. He's taken in the spirit and he has shown what's going on. The priests are worshiping other gods. The the important people, the wealthy people are engaged in pedophilia. Okay." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "961.35504", "endTime": "983.49005", "body": "The point simply is they had reached the point of the the final discipline. They earned this. So, you know, when they're asking, implying that God isn't honoring the covenant, he is. They they just don't talk about what they did to get to this point. Alright." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "983.49005", "endTime": "999.065", "body": "Now we go to 46 through 51. How long, oh Yahweh, will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire? Remember how short my time is? For what vanity have you created all the children of man?" }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1000.24", "endTime": "1019.465", "body": "What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol, Selah? Lord, master, where is your steadfast love of old? Which by your faithfulness you swore to David. Remember, oh master, Lord, how your servants are mocked." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1019.785", "endTime": "1063.11", "body": "How I bear in my heart the insult of many nations with which your enemies which your enemies mock, oh Yahweh. With which they mock the footsteps of your anointed. So the people now ask the singer now ask God to show his steadfast love by restoring the Davidic covenant and this kind of throws in there, you know, these Gentile nations that did this to us, they're mocking you. So, you know, kinda help us out here. The important thing I think for us is it is a prayer that has faith that God will answer." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1063.11", "endTime": "1092.4299", "body": "He's not seeing it, that's for sure. Just like our our prior Psalm 88, I mean, the person who's praying hasn't seen it yet, but he continues to pray. And so that's the good part here, is even though, you know, they're feeling hopeless, alright, yet they're continuing to pray and to ask God, you know, honor the covenant. Now what they don't know that we we at this point, however what is it? Twenty five hundred years later." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1093.95", "endTime": "1098.6699", "body": "Twenty six hundred years later. No. More than that. Yeah. That's right." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1098.6699", "endTime": "1136.085", "body": "That beat that long ago. Is that God did has honored the covenant because the king did return. Jesus Christ is the Davidic king. He is the descendant of David and he rose from the dead and will live forever and he will ever reign as the Davidic king, both God and man. Fully God, fully man, one person with two natures who died on the cross to take away the sins of the world and that is a gift and you get that gift by believing it in faith." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1136.565", "endTime": "1155.98", "body": "And folks, faith is believing what you don't see. Once again, we see people who do not give up and they still have faith. And that is what we need to have is faith. We know our Lord is coming back. He told us." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1157.5", "endTime": "1181.08", "body": "We see that and we have to continue to have faith even though right now times are just as bad as they always were, maybe worse. The last verse in Psalm 89 is actually not part of the Psalm. And let me read it. Blessed be the Yahweh forever. Amen and amen." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1181.48", "endTime": "1209.07", "body": "This is the closing doxology that that concludes book three. I think I mentioned at the beginning, there's a 150 Psalms and they're not exactly numbered evenly, but they're divided into five parts and this is book three. This is the end of book three. Friends, let us go to the Lord in prayer. Father, help us be faithful people." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 1", "startTime": "1209.4701", "endTime": "1230.72", "body": "We know we're not on the covenant, but you've asked us to be faithful and to honor you. To love the Lord God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength, love your neighbor as yourself. Oh father help us to do those things that we may be faithful people. Raise you and thank you in Jesus' name." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1233.44", "endTime": "1252.615", "body": "Thank you for joining us on Biblical Reflections today. We're so grateful for listeners like you. Your encouragement helps us share God's truths worldwide. If inspired, support our mission with a donation at cogworksmedia.org. You can also catch our other podcasts like the bible in three d anywhere that you get your podcasts." }, { "speaker": "Speaker 2", "startTime": "1252.855", "endTime": "1254.295", "body": "Thank you and God bless." } ] }