Psalms Lesson 10

Psalm 26:2-12

We continue with Psalm 26, it’s in the individual lament category and Psalm 26 will be the next to the last one that we’ll deal with; Psalm 28 will be the final one and you can be reading that. Psalm 26 will be the one that we’ll finish tonight, and as we said last time, this is a particularly difficult individual lament Psalm in that the five characteristics of an individual lament Psalm, the address, the lament, the petition, the praise and the trust, that these five sections become vague in this one and we dealt with why last week and so this week we just start off by reviewing the format for the overall outline.

We divided the Psalm in four parts and we said that verse 1 could be summarized by the fact that the psalmist summarizes his petition and its justification. That’s verse 1; and then verses 2-8 expands his petition and its justification. From verses 9-11 the psalmist desires a final separation from sinners and identification with Yahweh. Then the final verse, verse 12, the psalmist vows to praise God because his petition will be answered. Those are the four sections of this Psalm. We dealt with the fact that this Psalm is a dangerous Psalm in different respects, one of which is the fact that it can be easily misunderstood by the non-spiritual person. An immature believer can look at Psalm 26 and come out with some pretty wild conclusions. And one of the wild conclusions you can come to looking at it just quickly is that this psalmist is a very self-righteous individual.

Notice verse 1, “Judge me, O LORD: for I have walked in mine integrity. I have trusted also in the LORD; may I not slide.” And the idea seems to be that he dares God to judge him because he’s perfect. And obviously this encounters a few theological difficulties, so that obviously can’t be what the problem is. And so we have to work around this and try to study the Psalm and ask ourselves is this really what the psalmist is saying or is there a deeper truth for us here. So we said the key to the Psalm, understanding the Psalm, is the phrase in verse 1, “walk in mine integrity.” We said that that was the psalmist walking with a clear conscience, that he was free at this point, or at least the point was that as a rule in his life he dealt with sin that became an issue; sin that became an issue to his conscience might not have been immediately dealt with but generally speaking he dealt with it; he didn’t let it sit there are rebel against it and so forth. So that is his claim. We dealt with that last time.

Now in verse 2 we come to the first part of the second section and this second section can be subdivided into two parts, verse 2 and then verses 2-8. Verse 2 is his general petition and then verses 3-8 his justification for his petition. And so looking at verse 2 we are going to discover some interesting truths about verse 2. Oftentimes when we go on in the Christian life we say well, why not pray that God would illuminate our conscience to any known sin; and this is fine and this is often said to be all that should be done. In particular, in Psalm 139:23-24, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me and know my ways, [24] And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” The word “try” or “test” is the same word that occurs in verse 2. Now I think when you look at verse 2 you’re going to see something that may hit you a little when you first look at it, but verse 2 is not just saying, “O God, examine my conscience.

Let’s look at it. “Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reigns and my heart.” That is the content of his central petition. Now the word “examine” here does not mean that God in His omniscience is going to look down and see your conscience. This is not what it means. God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is love, God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, immutable and eternally. But God looks down with His omniscience and He can peer into the heart and see all the sin, and so forth. Now that is correct, there’s nothing wrong with that, it just so happens that is not what is meant in verse 2. Verse 2 is not a call to God to look upon me with Your omniscience and search my heart. That’s not what it says.

Verse 2 is saying something more important than that. The word “examine,” is Hebrew verb that looks like this, bachan, and bachan is a verb that is used to bring under severe trial. To get the flavor of this verb hold the place and turn to Psalm 66:8-12. Here is how this verb is used and in this passage you’ll get a flavor for it. “Oh, bless our God, ye people, and make the voice of His praise to be heard, [9] Who holds our soul in life, and suffers not our feet to be moved.” Then notice verse 10, “For Thou, O God, has proved us; Thou hast tried us, as sliver is tried.” The word “proved” is the same word, “examine” found in Psalm 26:2. Now notice the context of verse 10; is that just referring to God looking at our conscience? “For God has proved us; Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. [11] Thou brought us into the net; Thou hast laid affliction upon our loins.” Look at the intensity of this. [12] “Thou hast caused me to ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water, but Thou brought us out into a wealthy place.” Now that is what is meant by bachan. He is asking God to bachan, and this is the way that this verb is used, that God has proved us as silver is proved. “You have brought us into the net,” you see there’s something severe about this.

Now another area that demonstrates how this bachan is used is Psalm 95:8-11 and here it’s a little different, here man is trying God instead of God trying man. In Psalm 95 here’s another usage of the word and again this usage will give you more of an idea of how it’s used in Psalm 26. “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, as in the day of temptation in the wilderness, [9] When your fathers tempted Me, proved Me, and saw My work.” Verse 9 is bachan, notice how it is used. [10] Forty years long I was grieved with that generation,” in other words, when God is tested God suffers. In Psalm 66 when man is tested, man suffers.

Now, when we come back to Psalm 26 and you look at this thing, and it says “Examine me, O LORD,” he is calling for a similar test. That’s mysterious, what’s he doing asking for trouble. You can get enough of it without asking for it. Why is this? Let’s go on to the second verb. “…and prove me,” this verb in the Hebrew is nasah, and this means to also test and it is used for the testing in Deuteronomy 8:2 and 8:16 when Israel is out in the wilderness being tested by God. It’s a rugged test. So if that’s the case, then we have two verbs in verse 2 that are tough verbs. And the last one, the third of the three in verse 2, “try” is the word tsaraph which means fire, by the way, this should ring a bell with some of you, what are the angels called that are closest to God, the seraphim and that means the burning one, and it is a word that connotes intense holiness. So that the seraphim are the ones that protect the holiness of God, so to speak, they surround Him, and this was the Hebrew word tsaraph, and it was used… it’s a metallurgical term, it was used for smelting or ores, to heat them up and then to let the pure metal float off.

Now here’s what’s interesting; if you form the analogy that’s used in verse 2 we can take this back over into the Christian life and understand what the psalmist is doing. The first thing that he’s asking, “try my heart and my reins,” is he is literally asking to be heated up, just as you dump ore into a furnace to heat it and then the precious metal will melt off at a certain temperature. Now he is asking for the same thing; the analogy is in place of heat he’s asking for a test, or testing circumstances. And in place of the precious metal, what is it? And that’s the key to this interpretation. He’s asking that he be tested. Can any of you, based on what we said last time about “walking in my integrity,” and this kind of dare that he’s making to God, can any of you figure out what he’s trying to prove here. In other words, it’s not that the psalmist wants the trouble, this is not some sort of an I’ve got to get twenty brownie points tomorrow, quick, so God make me suffer. He is not playing with this kind of a request; he’s not doing that. But he is asking for it in order to arrive at some point. And you can argue, if you look at verse 1 it can’t be he’s arguing, oh test me in order to mature me, because already he’s claiming in verse 1 that he has been mature. So why the test?

Why do you think there would be a test in here? Do you see why he would ask for this kind of thing after he’s made the petition in verse 1 and phrased it the way he has? [someone says something] Okay, now how would the test do that? [someone says something] Okay, very insightful here. Look at verse 12, notice the verb in verse 12, “My foot stands in an even place,” now we’re going to get to verse 12, I’ll show you this is not present, this is future, remember verse 12 is your praise section, but just notice the verb. See, he’s looking down the end of time and looking back, my foot stood in an even place, it stood on the platform and was stable under this pressure.

So the test here, and this is an important part, and the reason why I’m making such an issue out of verse 2 is that this reveals to you how the Biblical writers thought; they thought differently than we westerners think. And that is, that we would say well why does God have to test us, after all, isn’t God omniscient, why bother with going through this Mickey Mouse when God is omniscient and He knows any way. The answer is that in the Bible only history counts, not ideas. Only historical performance counts. And this is very important. Jesus Christ did not save us with just the idea of redemption. He had to get dirty and die in history; only history counts. This is a very vital mentality; I’m going to show you now a passage in the New Testament where this comes out loud and clear. But if you’ll just master this point, that to the Jew what he is saying is God, show historically what I am; that’s what he’s asking. In other words, let me have an opportunity of proving myself. David is not saying in the Psalm, there’s not a hint that he thinks he’s going to fail but it’s not pride either. The nearest thing we can do to connote the thought here is God, give me an opportunity to show myself. It’s not pride, it’s an anxiousness to perform for the Lord is what it is, “Lord, give me an opportunity.”

Maybe an illustration would be the boy who sits on the bench, second string, all football season and he just pleads with the coach to give him a chance, just five minutes on the field, just put me in the game to give me a chance. Now that’s what the psalmist is saying in verse 2. As long as I sit on the bench, he says, You in Your omniscience know what I am like but I don’t, and none of the Christians really know until the nitty gritty, until I actually get into the historical situation and actually perform one way or the other. Only then do I really know. This is related to the thing that oftentimes happens in exams in school; oh, I knew this thing but I just couldn’t think of it for the exam. But the exam offers the historical opportunity to find out whether you really know it or not and if you don’t know it and can’t remember it you obviously don’t know it too well. See. And you can delude yourself into thinking, oh yeah, I know that, but when the chips are down and you actually have to historically perform, then do you.

Now do you see then why Psalm 26:2 is more than just “O Lord, examine my conscience.” The Jew didn’t think in terms of just things going on inside his head; that was true, things were going on in his head. That was true, things were going on in his head, but that wasn’t the main issue. The issue was: what was he really like. And he couldn’t tell what he was really like until he had a chance to historically perform. Now convert that over into your Christian experience. If you were in the position of verse 2, “Examine me, O Lord and prove me, and try my reins and my heart,” you would be requesting an opportunity to demonstrate your spirituality. How many would dare make that petition. Do you see? It’s quite a bold petition.

Turn to Romans 12:1 and you’ll see where Paul is talking about exactly the same thing, and if you master the thought from Psalm 26 not you’ll be better able to understand Paul in Romans 12:1-2. Maybe this will make it click with some of you a little bit better than this verse has before. Romans 12:1-2 is the famous dedication verse, but let’s look at it. “I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. [2] And be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” Now the word “prove” in verse 2 carries the same thought content as those verses in Psalm 26:2. In other words, the proving in verse 2 is a bringing into historical existence the perfect will of God. In other words, what Paul is saying, look, here you are believer, you’re faced with some situation. In that situation you can prove what is the good and perfect will of God by going on positive volition, utilizing the resources that you have by virtue of your position in Christ, and as a result you can produce something, divine good. And you can manifest into history God’s will. Now that’s what the last part of verse 2 is saying, that you may prove, that is, may you bring out into the open.

You see, the reason why the Bible uses this like, the smelting of ore, is that this divine viewpoint may be right up here in your mind; you may have it down in your mind, but the trouble is there’s a lot of impurities connected with it, such as –R learned behavior pattern in your soul, and these –R learned behavior patterns get in the way of that divine viewpoint and so under pressure God puts enough pressure upon us so that all these –R learned behavior patterns fail. In other words, we have certain pet gimmicks that each one of us uses to get around problems in our life. And so what God does, He deliberately engineers a little situation that will make every one of those things fail. And when all those things fail, what is left? The divine viewpoint, and finally somewhere along the line we wake up, go on positive volition and bring it forth.

Now, this is why Paul says in verses 1 and 2a of Romans 12, why in order for this proving to occur there’s got to be some previously met conditions and that’s why he says, “I beseech you, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable,” in other words, he says before you get into the situation, go on positive volition, “and be not conformed to this world,” that is be not absorbed by human viewpoint, “but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” And that precedes the proving. In other words, this proving is the end result, that’s the fruit, that’s the effect, but the cause, the positive volition, and notice the mind must be renewed. The renewing of the mind has to do, first you have to go on positive volition, that’s the fist thing he’s mentioned here. And by this Paul means to get in shape for the test. And in getting in shape the mind will be renewed and the renewed here simply means to be strengthened; the human spirit will strengthen your mind so that your mind will be able to concentrate on divine viewpoint and the divine viewpoint will be able to overflow into your soul and produce this.

So Romans 12:1-2 is really saying the same thing as Psalm 26 in this area, and it’s saying that God’s will must be historically performed. Turn back to Psalm 26. The next phrase at the end of verse 2 is “test” and this is the same word, tsaraph, “test by fire,” so to speak, “my reins and my heart.” Now again we are back to the Hebrew culture and back to what these terms mean. The “reins” would correspond to what we would call the adrenal glands. And the “heart” the heart. There’s no need to extract these things; it is true that the Jew had a sense of more than just the organ heart.

Actually there are four bodily terms in Scripture that are repeated over and over: the “heart,” the “reins,” if you have a New Scofield this is one of the criticisms of the New Scofield, they have done a sloppy job in this phrase “heart” and “rein,” they changed around and some of the phrase is mind and heart and they’ve actually reversed the terms; they’ve done a very poor job in this; they should have left those things alone because those were technical terms and in their attempt to make it more readable they have just blown the whole thing. And then “bowels” which refer not just to what we call the intestines but the whole lower abdomen. And the we have the other one, “stomach.” These two terms are used of the emotions, primarily. In other words, when you see those words, the Jews had no word for emotions. It’s very interesting, we in the west have a word, we call it emotions, it’s a nice little abstract concept. The Jews didn’t; they thought of emotions in terms literally of how it hurt right here, in their stomach, and the physiological effects that it had on them; that is how they called emotions, so that they never got their, so to speak, their abstractions separated from their body; they were very bodily centered.

And then the heart and the reins are couplets; that is these two often occur together and usually in this kind of context, verse 2, this type of thing, God, test my heard and my reins. Jesus Christ tests the heart and reins in the book of Revelation, so the term occurs again and again in the Bible. Now when these two terms are used it appears to mean God examine my whole soul. In other words, this is going to be a test that will involve everything; the heart and reins are used primarily two organs that would be most concerned with the time of testing; heart because it’s supplies the mind with blood, and the heart because it changes its pulse; the reins because apparently they knew enough medicine to realize that the adrenal controlled the involuntary nervous system, etc. they caused changes and so forth. So the idea here is that the mind is going to be… the mind plus the conscience equals heart. The reins apparently… sometimes can be mind but most of the time they too refer to emotions but emotions integrated to the heart. In other words, this pair, “heart and reins” refers to the working system.

And so what it’s saying is Lord, test my whole being. Now isn’t this interesting, because he is asking that God would bring a trial into his life that would affect him totally, as a total person, and he wants to get a readout on what is there. David is saying Lord, I have walked in Thine integrity, I have walked to what I know to be true in my conscience, but I want you to historically vindicate this by bringing a situation up in my life in which I will have to perform. And I’m going to learn one of two things, I’m going to demonstrate to you the spirituality I have that is potential and will be made actual in that experience, or secondly, I will discover a shortcoming in myself that right now I’m not aware of and I’ll find out when the mud hits the fan. But David wants that and this is the spirit that he uses. It is not this morbid thing, oh God, I’ve got to suffer; it’s not that at all and that’s the wrong attitude. Don’t ever pray a prayer like that because that can be answered overnight, instantaneously; if you want suffering you’ll get it real fast. That’s all Satan needs, that’s a good way to open yourself up to satanic attack, is to pray for suffering.

You don’t need to pray for suffering, God will take care of that. But this is a different attitude, this prayer is a prayer, Lord, examine me that You and I both, so to speak, can see where I stand; that’s the point, and if it involves suffering so be it, but it’s not primarily oriented just to suffering; it’s oriented for a thorough examination. Now you can see the mind and heart of David in this, how concerned he was that his life be pure in God’s sight. And he was willing to risk having some trouble in order to get this thing straightened out.

Now in verses 3 and following in this section, 3-8 is the justification. Here’s why he is so confident that this test will work to his benefit and he will come out the winner and pass the exam. So verses 3-8 give a series of reasons why; these reasons are basically two-fold. The first reason, found in verses 3-5 and the next reason found in verses 6-8. The first reason is that he has practiced separation. And this Psalm is going to teach us what real separation is, and the other one is that he has practiced allegiance to God.

Okay, let’s look at the separation passage, verse 3-5, “For thy loving-kindness is before mine eyes; and I have walked in Thy truth. [4] I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with the dissemblers. [5] I have hated the congregation of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.” Now if you just took verses 3-5 out, obviously you’d come to the conclusion this guy is a nut. This guy is proud, etc., what’s the matter with him. Verses 3-5 are simply saying nothing more or less than this, that over the years it has been a pattern of my life to divorce myself from the human viewpoint crowd, not physically, but in my behavior pattern.

Let’s look at verse 3, “For Thy loving-kindness is before mine eyes; and I have walked in Thy truth.” The word pair “loving-kindness” and “Thy truth” is that familiar word pair that we’re studying in Proverbs 3, it is chesed. Chesed is covenant love. And so David says Lord, I am locked into a covenant arrangement with You. You have a certain way of operating on me, by virtue of my position, just like today God’s chesed love, or His covenant love for us as Christians is controlled by our position in Christ. So we have the covenant love, the chesed, and David says this is always before me. In other words, what he means by this is is that the covenant demands obedience. And he said I know my position and I know what You expect of me, and this is not said in pride. Verses 4 and 5 are not proud verses, they simply flow out of verse 3. Verse 3 is simply saying Lord, I know what you require and I followed it, and it’s on my mind continually that You demand obedience in every area. And this is why he said “And I have walked in Thy truth,” to the best of my knowledge I have walked in truth. This is not sinless perfection in verse 3; this is simply a rule of life; David is claiming at this point that he has a pattern of godliness in his life. [tape turns]

[Verse 4, “I have not sat with vain persons….” Now both these clauses, the “sitting” particularly, means not just sitting down in the company of somebody, in other words, if David threw a party he wouldn’t have on the invitation, are you a vain person, you can’t come to my party. It wasn’t anything like that at all. The idea was that sitting with somebody meant you agreed with their whole orientation of life; you went along with the whole operation, so that here you meet somebody with human viewpoint and they just control your business attitude, they controls your attitudes toward marriage and home, they control your attitudes toward money, security, etc. Sitting with vain persons” means you absorb their things.

Now we have to be careful about the doctrine of separation, there’s a true doctrine of separation and there’s a false one. And it’s very easy to get legalistic and legalists will always distort the doctrine of separation. This is where we’ve got this ridiculous thing in Christian circles, in some areas of the country even today, women will not wear lipstick in Christian circles, and they look ghastly, but nevertheless, this is something that’s supposed to be a great sign of spirituality. And when my wife was visiting this area of New England she was in a social gathering and she was introduced as a minister’s wife, and someone said you can’t be a minister’s wife, you look nice. And it was just a normal reaction because you’re supposed to look awful; this is considered the standard operating procedure for this part of the country. Now that’s legalism and that’s pseudo-separation. That’s when we separate on the basis of some little stupid thing.

And separation can be carried to very harmful extremes ideas of people separating from organizations because they smell apostasy way down in the thing some place. For example, we have had people that have said well Dallas Seminary is apostate because they haven’t banned Billy Graham and Billy Graham has compromised on some of his campaigns so because Dallas Seminary hasn’t banned Graham from the campus, they haven’t asked him to speak either but they haven’t banned him, therefore Dallas Seminary is compromising and we can’t support Dallas Seminary. In other words, it’s this pseudo-separation kind of thing. And this goes on and you’ll read about it, so if you see the word “separation” don’t let it throw you. There is a true doctrine and here’s the true doctrine. And the idea of the man of vanity, or the males of falsehood is talking about the idea of people with human viewpoint.

Now guess what? How can you separate from human viewpoint if you don’t know divine viewpoint? You see, there’s no way that separation can be… and this is why you have people trivialize the doctrine of separation. They want to be separated, they say oh, I live a separated life, and they wear their clothes a certain way and wear their makeup a certain way and they do things and don’t do other things, they don’t go to the movies but they’ll watch TV for three hours a day, and all the stupid stuff like this. And this is called a separated life. Well, there is such a thing as a separated life but it has to do with getting divine viewpoint and using it and not allowing yourself to be tugged along and pulled by human viewpoint; that’s what it is, that’s the separated life.

And the word “dissemblers,” [4] “I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers.”] is an interesting word in the Hebrew, it means cover-up-ers, it means to cover up and it’s in the passive voice, and it’s reflexive actually here, those who are covering themselves up. And this is very interesting because this word tells you immediately the character of a person that lives on human viewpoint. Let’s pause and look at this a little bit from the standpoint of the psychology of the soul.

What is going to be true about a person who’s living on human viewpoint. Their mind is full of human viewpoint, their conscience has some God-consciousness in it and what little God-consciousness there is in the conscience, it will have an interaction with this human viewpoint and start to condemn it. So such people usually have a big fat guilty conscience, but they don’t want you to know that, so therefore they begin to cover up. And this involves all sorts of things, how they act, how they talk, anything so that you never even get a hint that they’re having trouble in this department, so that people, the Bible says, who are in rebellion against God, that includes believers too are generally going to be phonies, to some degree. The more spiritual the person is scripturally the less phony he will be. Now since the fall, all of us, basically, have a phony streak. But the point is that the people who cover up, it’s a niphal participle and it means they habitually do this; they habitually are phonies by refusing to appear as they really are; they’ll always cover up with some sort of sweet thing and this is why even in religious circles you’ll have these people.

Verse 5, “I have hated the congregation of evildoers,” apparently these were a group that were influencing the throne in his later life, or they were just the hacks that gathered around Jerusalem to influence policies of the nation, and this is what he’s worried about and he has nothing to do with that crowd, and he never was popular with this crowd. David was persona non gratis around these circles; he would not go along with them at all. So, “I have hated the congregation of evildoers, and will not sit with the wicked.” Same kind of concept.

Now verses 6-8 are the positive; verses 3-5 the negative, the separation that he has practiced. Today the separated life would include getting a firm grasp on the divine viewpoint framework and it would mean that you’re going to have some trouble, in business it means you’re going to have some trouble because it means that you are going to have to do certain things certain ways because of your allegiance to the Lord Jesus Christ and that is the way it’s going to be done and there may be some rough times that you’ll have with your superiors or your peers, whatever group you happen to be in. It will mean that you will have some times in graduate programs sometimes at the university because you think a certain way, they don’t think a certain way and they don’t like it, and you’re going to have to say that’s tough, this is the way I am. And this is what it means by a separated life.

Now the positive side, verses 6-8, “I will wash mine hands in innocence; so will I compass Thine altar, O LORD, [7] That I may make known [publish] with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Thy wondrous works. [8] LORD, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honor dwells.” Now here we have a question. When we went through this Psalm last week we asked you to point out the five sections; one of those sections is praise. Now in verse 6-8 we have what appears to be a praise section, but if you’ll notice carefully it isn’t. Why? A praise section would be I am going to do this, I vow to praise, and it looks that way when you read the King James, because in verse 6 it looks like it’s all future tense.

But can some of you argue whey this is not a praise section, looking forward to what is going to happen in the future, but simply a description of what has already gone on in the past. I know that the verbs in verse 6 are future but I’ve told you imperfects can mean habitual presence too. Can you see anywhere in verses 6-8 a verb that anchors you in past time, that would argue that this isn’t something future but this is a description of simply what has happened in his life. In verse 8, “Lord, I have loved the habitation of Thy house,” that’s a summary of what has happened. Verses 6-7 go with that, so verses 6-7 also are past, not future. You see in the Hebrew there are two tenses, the perfect and the imperfect. The imperfect can be future or it can be present. If it is in the present it’s usually translated with a “may” or “can” or “habitually,” and the translators usually in the King James just put it automatically in the future because they followed the Septuagint. But the perfect is usually translated past, it can be present and when it is it is what we call habitual type, it can even mean a future past and there’s one of these coming up.

But the perfect tense is used in verse 8 and the imperfects in verse 6. So really what it says in verse 6, “I wash my hands I innocence; so that,” there’s a result clause at the end of verse 6, “so that I may compass Thine altar, O LORD.” What does this correspond to in the Christian life? In the Old Testament he’s using the imagery of the priesthood, how they had to wash their hands before they handled the sacrifices. What corresponds to that? Confession. “If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” So the analogy in the Christian life in verse 6 would mean that confession must precede worship, always; always has to! And so this is the result, “that I may compass Thine altar, O LORD.”

Now in verse 7 here’s what worship looks like in the Old Testament, “That I may publish [make known] with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all Thy wondrous works.” Now this is parallelism, synonymous parallelism. The word “thanksgiving” is towdah and that word actually is praise. Using the fact that verse 7 is a parallelism, verse 7a and 7 b, both mean the same thing, what do you see in that verse that tells you about what praise was in the Old Testament? [someone says praise was a declaration of something] Okay, and see how this contrasts? The word “praise the Lord” in the Old Testament meant tell about His historic deeds. And then you here some Christian say praise the Lord, praise the Lord, something like that. What’s that mean? Sometime when I’m around these people I’ve wanting to just start reading the Gospel of John. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, okay, I’ll read the Gospel of John, I’m praising the Lord. I probably wouldn’t get through the first two verses before I’d get rudely cut off. This results from a wrong impression from the Old Testament.

Look at verse 7, “That I may publish with the voice of praise,” comma, same thing, “and tell of all Thy wondrous works.” And he is talking there, the “wondrous works” is the Hebrew word for miracles, may I tell all of Your miracles, O Father. In other words, a recounting of God’s works in history, and in his own life. See, there’s nothing wrong with giving your testimony in public; nothing wrong with this if you know how to do it. We’re not against giving your testimony, this is fine; the only reason we don’t have more of it here is because I discovered that once you start it then everyone has to give a bigger one than the one that went before and it gets to be kind of spiritual king of the mountain, who can give the most fabulous testimony about what God has done. So we stopped that, but testimony can be given if it’s given doctrinally. And here’s how to give it doctrinally; relate the works of God in your personal life back into God’s historic program. So that when you do give your testimony of what God has done in your life it relates back to his overall historic plan.

“That I may publish with the voice of praise, and tell of all Thy wondrous works. [8] LORD, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honor dwells. What do you suppose “Thine honor” refers to. Don’t just read that too fast, that is a special term; to what does it refer. First look at the first one, “Lord, I’ve loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place where Thine honor dwells.” Anybody guess? [someone says something] Yes, it would refer to that but there’s a Hebrew… it’s kabowd and kabowd is the word for glory, it’s the Shekinah glory, it is the dwelling, the supernatural presence of God in that temple. Now what does that tell you about David’s attitude in verse 8; what is he really saying, “I have loved the habitation of Thine house, and the place where Your honor dwells.” What does that tell you about David’s central concern? If the Shekinah glory is the very presence of God Himself. Don’t you see the complete openness, the simpleness of David’s faith; he wanted to be where the presence of God was. And as we’re going to see in Samuel, David goofed and everybody is fond of pointing out David’s sins, but isn’t it interesting that this was the attitude of this guy and though he’d get out of it, and he’d goof and goof and goof and goof badly, he goofed so badly that I doubt there’s a fundamentalist church around here that would accept David for membership. But God didn’t seem to have any trouble. Why? Grace, God was perfectly content because this was his attitude.

Now what about verse 8 would correspond to our Christian life? We said verse 6 is confession and we worship, verse 7 would be Christian testimony today, particularly about the finished work of Christ and His resurrection physically from the dead; verse 8, “I have loved the habitation of Thy house,” what do we do as believers that comes closest to doing what he did in verse 8. Where is the glory of God dwelling today? [someone says something] The Holy Spirit indwells every believer so that our bodies are a temple, and yet also in the tabernacle the Holy Spirit was there and was teaching through the priesthood, through the design of the thing, divine truth, and [can’t understand word] the canon of Scripture. So we’ve got two things in our experience today that correspond to verse 8; Christian fellowship and I mean fellowship, where it is real Christian fellowship. Or, coming to where the presence of God is could also be to us the seeking and the hungering after… coming to know God in His Word, the attitude of hungering and thirsting for the Word of God.

It’s always been a mystery to me, and in the years that I’ve been pastor I’ve never yet been able to put myself inside the head of a particular kind of person. I can generally sympathize or at least empathize with certain types of people and their rebellion because I’ve been through it myself, and I can kind of conjure up in my mind what must be going through their mind. But the one thing I have never been able to figure out is how people can walk in here one Sunday every month or something and trot on out, hear the Word of God and do absolutely nothing about it and come trotting in here three or four weeks later, sit and look at the fluorescent lights, count how many we have in each socket, etc. while the Word of God is being taught. I never could figure this out, and yet we have it. And all I can say is that since God promises that His Word will not return void, these people are damning themselves, because they are saying that they can sit here and listen and be bored to tears with the very words of God Himself; that is what the text is. I preach the text, my voice isn’t the voice of God, but the text of the Scripture is the voice of God and if people are bored to tears with that they have some serious problems, because it would be no different, and this is going to be hard, but it would be no different than if Jesus Christ were literally physically here. Their attitude toward this book is identical with their attitude to the person of Jesus Christ. There’s no difference; if Christ were here what would He be teaching? This, and so if they’re bored with it they’d be bored with Him.

Let’s go to verse 9, verses 9-11, this is the Psalmist desiring final separation. Here’s his petition, another petition of his. See, each one of these sections begins with a petition; verse 2 is a petition that starts the section; verse 9 is another petition, “Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men, [10] In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.” Obviously you see now he’s talking about the business community, the colleagues that he has in politics, etc. This is the group. [11] “But as for me, I will” not “I will” but I usually or habitually
walk in mine integrity;” he is saying that I walk by my conscience. Now the tension that David expresses in verses 9-11 is the same kind of tension that every born again believer is going to face and it will be a source of frustration in your life, whatever area you may be in. You may be in the service, you may be at the university, at the job, this frustration is going to be normal and it’s just part of being in Satan’s world.

So he calls two times upon God in verse 11, and he says, “redeem me, and be merciful unto me.” Now those two verbs also prove that this is not the psalm of a legalist. The word “redeem” is the word for ransom, and it is the same word translated in the New Testament to buy with blood. And so therefore here’s the man who walks in his integrity and yet it’s proof here that he doesn’t see himself as morally perfect; he sees himself only that up to now he’s followed pretty much his conscience. But he obviously is not saying he’s morally perfect or he would never say, Lord, “redeem me.” Why is he saying “redeem me”? Simply because he knows he’s morally imperfect and he needs somebody to pay a price. The word ransom emphasizes the fact that a price must be paid; that price was paid by Jesus Christ on the cross and don’t ever, ever, ever, ever, get in this modern evangelistic jag where we invite Jesus into our heart to solve all of our psychological difficulties. That’s not the gospel; the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ has died for our sins. That is the gospel, and that is the only gospel there is. So when you witness to someone you make it clear when you lead them to the Lord there’s one reason and only one reason why they’re accepting Christ; they’re accepting Christ as Savior from sin and if they don’t accept Him they’re going to hell. You may shy away from fire and brimstone but the point is that Jesus Christ’s cross is the only way of salvation. And the person becomes a Christian by accepting Him and leave off the inviting business. Jesus Christ is our Savior and we must believe on that fact.

The other phrase “be merciful” means the word grace, and that’s the other part of the atonement. One word looks at what Christ does on the cross, He buys our sins away from us, so to speak, He sets us free, that’s the price that is paid; the other phrase, “be merciful” means that God must act in loved toward us. God is a God of love and He’s also a God of righteousness; God is sovereign, God is righteous, God is just, God is love; God is just, justice says death for in; love says no, I want to cope with the problem but if love is going to cope with the problem it’s got to do so without thwarting justice or otherwise God erases part of His own character. This is what’s wrong with the idea, well I don’t see why we have to have this bloody slaughterhouse religion, why can’t God just forgive sins? Simple, if He just forgave sins He wouldn’t be just; He’d be compromising His righteous standards; God doesn’t just forgive, He must forgive on a base and the base is a paid price, the price Christ paid on the cross. So love goes ahead and does this and then righteousness and justice can meet and we can have our salvation.

So these two verbs in verse 11 are critical and they prove beyond the shadow of a doubt this is not a legalist who wrote the Psalm. Then finally verse 12 is the praise section; it is a vow to testify to the public about what God has done. Lament Psalms always terminate in this. “My foot has stood,” past tense, “in an even place; in the congregations” plural “will I bless the LORD.” Now David is looking ahead of time and this is how one of these past tenses… this is called the perfect of confidence and it is used in promises in the Old Testament. Here’s the idea; a man standing here, here’s your time line, and he looks into the future and he comes to rest at some point in the future, and, as it were, he takes a time machine forward and he sits there and then he turns around and looks back at the answer. He’s on the other side of the answer. And this expresses the extreme confidence these believers have. In other words, this man is asking for trial and he’s already in verse 12 said I see time and the trial has come, has gone, and I have been victorious and I have perfect confidence because it’s as though I’m already ahead, the trial is all done and I’m looking back and I was victorious. That is the perfect of confidence.

“My foot has stood in an even place,” and so the result, I will praise God “in the congregations,” I will bless Him in these congregations; those are congregations of believers.

If you will study Psalm 28 and try again to identify the five sections in Psalm 28.