Psalms Lesson 14

Psalm 30

Last week we covered the introduction and outline to the new category of Psalms, the individual declarative praise Psalms. These Psalms are the second large category that we will be covering; we finished the individual lament Psalms, and we said that the individual declarative praise Psalms have a proclamation as the first part, which is briefly an “I will praise,” or some synonym of that. It’s a declaration of intent and it continues from the vow to praise that you find in the individual lament Psalms. In other words, in the individual lament Psalms they kind of terminate in a vow to praise and sometimes they spill over into declarative praise but this first category of a declarative praise Psalm, “I will praise,” is the taking up of the praise after the lament has been made.

The second large part of the new category is the introductory summary, and this is the most important category that you’ll ever have in this study because this is the heart of praise. In the introductory summary generally you’ll have one or two sentences and these one or two sentences report what God has done. And so this is the heart of all praise, and by looking at those introductory summaries you will be able to learn what praising God means biblically. It doesn’t mean acting like a screwball with your eyes crossed and foaming at the mouth yelling something about praising God. That is not praising God. So the second section is very important.

And then the third section that you come to is the main section and that is usually divided into three parts. One is a looking back toward the past, sort of reviewing what the lament section did in the individual lament Psalm, then reporting God’s deliverance and then that terminates in a vow of praise, and may add to the vow of praise descriptive praise.

Now the difference between descriptive praise and declarative praise is that declarative praise we defined last time as a thankful report of God’s words and works in history done in response to petition. Declarative is a report of God’s words and works in history done in response to personal petition. Declarative praise always has in mind something that God did in response to something man asked. Then descriptive praise is the generalization where you begin to state your doctrinal truths, the second stage. And by getting these two forms of praise together you should be able to see why or how doctrine developed in the minds of the believers of the Bible. Doctrine’s developed from their personal encounter with God’s revelation of Himself. Doctrine did not develop by speculative thinking. Now it’s true, in the Church Age, men like Augustine, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin have taken speculative thought, the tools of speculative thought, the tools of philosophy, and developed systematic theology. That’s true. But though they have developed systematic theology the original form of the doctrines came in the historic revelation. Okay.

Also last week we said there were some samples of declarative praise to show you how these were used; 1 Samuel 2 is declarative praise because that is a report that Hannah gave. Luke 1 and Luke 2 are also containing declarative praise.

Then we got to Psalm 30 and started to work on Psalm 30. And we came to certain conclusions about Psalm 30. We said first of all that verse 1 fit the category of proclamation. We said verses 2-3 fit the category of introductory summary. And from verse 4 forward you have the main section of the Psalm dealing with looking back, verses 6-7; the report of deliverance, verse 8-10; and the vow of praise, verses 11-12. Also, besides verses 11-12 remember verses 4-5 are somehow jammed in there as far as showing praise. Then we outlined it and tonight we’ll study the Psalm in its outline form.

The first five verses constitute the first half of this Psalm and we summarized it with a big long sentence because the thought takes a big long sentence to summarize. The thought of the first five verses is that David declares his intent to praise Jehovah for His deliverance and David invites the congregation to praise Jehovah for what He has revealed about Himself. So we summarized the thought as David declares his intent to praise Jehovah for His deliverance and invites the congregation to praise Jehovah for what He has revealed about Himself. Incidentally that last sentence fits verses 4-5 in this first section.

[someone says we didn’t go through that] Oh we didn’t. Oh, well…let’s go back, I thought we did. Let’s go back and see how we get this. Verse 1 is the proclamation. Verses 2-3 is the introductory summary; then we have verses 4-5 that appear to be descriptive praise, seemingly out of place, so we put a question mark. Then verses 6-7 is looking back; verses 8-10 is the report of deliverance. And verses 11-12 is some more praise. Now the Psalm follows the stated order except for verses 4-5; they are out of order.

[someone says something] Okay, that’s right, verse 11 would be part of that, and actually verse 12 is almost part of it too because the thing that we said last time was that the deliverance that is spoken of in these Psalms includes a subjective change on the part of the recipient. In other words, the deliverance doesn’t become a complete deliverance until the one who is delivered is delivered enough to be able to stand up and publicly give thanks for it. In other words, the deliverance has to not only loosen the physical external binding things but it has to also loosen up the internal subjective attitudes enough so the person can stand and give praise for it. In other words, the deliverance has to not only loosen the physical, external binding things but it has to also loosen up the internal subjective attitudes enough so the person can stand and give praise for it. And so when that all happens, then the psalmist speaks that he has been delivered. There has to be a loosening of the external circumstances as well as a loosening of the lips and that together is deliverance.

So technically verse 12 is part of it here too, but I just put the praise down at the end because you remember in the format of the thing these Psalms inevitably wind up, like this one does, and it’s important for you to know this, that these Psalms wind up by stating the beginning all over again, “I will praise.” See how it starts out, I will extol Thee, O LORD;” look how it ends, “I will give thanks unto Thee forever.” You see it ends on the same note it began with. What did we say was the reason why these Psalms do this? Anyone remember why the declarative praise Psalm, after it gives a report of God’s love it turns right around and goes right back to the beginning all over again. Remember the point we made, why the declarative Psalm does this? This is not to be a once and for all testimony; this is to be a testimony over and over and over again. If you want to root this in your thinking, think of communion. That’s an authorized praise form and it’s done again and again and again, as oft as you do this in remembrance of Me. So that’s a repeated phrase form.

[someone says something] The only thing about verses 4-5 is that verse 5 particularly, well first of all verse 4 is an exhortation and an introductory summary generally just states the deliverance; generally the introductory summary is saying I praise the Lord because of this but it doesn’t usually have an imperative in it, where you all do it to. Secondly, verse 5 seems to have more than just something… it’s general all right but if you look at verse 5 doesn’t it look to you as though verse 5 is a statement about God’s character that is general. In other words, there’s a doctrinal insight into how God operates, what He’s like. So that would be descriptive praise; the declarative has already gone over into a descriptive form there because verse 5, he has drawn a conclusion from his experience. Verse 5 doesn’t specifically tell about his personal experience that time; it does that but it does more than that, it’s general.

So when we’re faced with this kind of a breakdown, we’ve located the parts to the Psalm, the next step is to put the pieces back together again. And generally the way it is, again, like the earlier individual lament Psalms, when you see something out of place that should ring a bell. Don’t worry about it, get overly concerned, but just kind of keep it in the back of your head that when you start working through the thing there’s a reason why this man wrote it that way and deliberately kind of jammed it out in that sequence.

There’s such a contrast between verse 4 and 5; verses 4 and 5 split the Psalm up, so you’ve got to do one way or the other. What follows verses 4-5, beginning at verse 6 and following, is a report that looks back. There’s a clear division there. So there’s a division between verses 5-6 that’s clear. The question is, when we break the Psalm up into its basic components where shall we put verses 4-5; shall we tack verses 4-5 onto the bottom or shall we tack it onto the top. I’ve chosen to tack verses 4-5 onto the top four verses because they start off, “I will extol Thee,” it starts out with an intent.

So the way I’ve outlined it is I have taken the first five verses as one big block and then verses 6-12 as the second big block. This is not infallible outlining, this is just the way I personally arranged it. [someone says something about after reading the background… he did this personally as a result of his prayer and petition…] Verses 4-5? Okay, again as I say on these outlines to some degree it’s subjective. And we’ve got to make a decision one way or the other, so the way I’m going to present it is I’m going to run verses 4-5… verses 4-5 is a trouble spot, you can run it here, I have chosen as I say to put it with the proclamation because I feel the proclamation is a declaration of intent and verses 4-5 is that he’s coming on, he’s saying all the rest of you join me. It’s true, like he said, verses 4-5 chronologically in David’s experience would be his new song. Remember we said the “new song will I sing unto Thee, O Lord,” it’s something you spot in these Psalms and the new song doesn’t mean it’s something new that’s never been written before, it means that it’s a new song because its attitude has shifted from the lament to the praise.

So I’ve outlined it as follows, the first five verses that David declares his intent to praise Jehovah for His deliverance and he invites the congregation to praise Jehovah for what Jehovah has thus revealed about Himself. So he’s getting up, he’s declaring his intent to praise and he’s asking that the people join with him. So I’ve made the… again you see the basic components here and this is why once I have outlined the first five verses as I have, that would be part one in the outline, I’ve made verse 1, I’ve made three subsections, verse 1; verses 2-3; and verses 4-5. And that’s how to break down that first major component.

The first verse follows the format that we’ve had. What is the proclamation, what is the proclamation of a declarative praise Psalm? The proclamation section is a vow to praise, so this is David’s vow to praise, and looking at it, it says: “I will extol Thee, O LORD; for Thou hast lifted me up, and hast not made my foes to rejoice over me.” “I will extol” and draw up, and I’ll try to give you some of the word insights as we go along, the word “extol” and the word “draw up” are two near synonyms in the Hebrew. They are not exactly, they’re near synonyms. Now the extolling and the drawing up, both have to do with the imagery of raising, raising up, and so the idea is that what happens in David’s experience must be paralleled in how he works with God. So if God is going to raise David up, then David will also as a result of that raising up, raise God up also. In other words, it’s looked upon here as quite anomalous, for God to raise a believer up out of a mire of lament and catastrophe and not have the believer turn around and bear a testimony that will also raise God up too. If God raises up the believer the believer must raise God up by his praise. You’ll see several cracks that are made inside this Psalm that touch on this very point. This is a good Psalm to start the series on declarative praise Psalms with.

The enemies, again, it’s debatable, when you have this Psalm, the question is on the heading “A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the house of David,” well we don’t know when that dedication really occurred is the problem. In fact the word “house of David” is by itself a vague term. However, in 1 Chronicles 22 we have some background that might fit the Psalm.

Let me just make a remark at this point, a remark that I had made earlier, and that is when you come across the Psalm don’t do what many of the scholars in the 19^th century did and they apparently had the view come hell or high water they were going to put these Psalms into some specific historic mold. And there would be big scholarly debates, did this Psalm occur at this point in David’s life or did this Psalm occur in this point in David’s life. And frankly, a lot of unproductive work was done through this. If the Holy Spirit has not seen fit to inform us by the Psalm heading, and by the Psalm heading your Bible should have had that under the Psalm, if it doesn’t you have a translation that is depriving you of part of the Word. But that’s called the heading of the Psalm, and if the Holy Spirit hasn’t put historical information into the heading there’s no way under the sun we can perfectly match it. This is one of the those things.

All we do know is that in 1 Chronicles 22:1 we have the only other occurrence of this particular phrase in David’s time. “Then David said, This is the house of the LORD God, and this is the altar of the burnt offering for Israel.” The debate about the house of the Lord is that that was a title used of the temple of Solomon and one doesn’t expect to find it here, particularly “the house of David.” “The house of David” could be his family, but that doesn’t appear to be the way it’s used. It appears to be a building, so this is the nearest thing to it, 1 Chronicles 22:1 and here it doesn’t refer to Solomon’s temple, obviously, it refers to the tabernacle as it existed before the temple. Now if you continue reading in 1 Chronicles 22 you’ll see what David was doing.

Verse 2, “And David commanded to gather together the strangers who were in the land of Israel; and he set masons to hew wrought stones to build the house of God. [3] And David prepared iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the gates, and for the joining; and brass in abundance without weight. [4] And cedar trees in abundance; for the Sidonians, and they of Tyre, brought much cedar wood to David.” Now normally you think of Solomon doing all this but Chronicles definitely says that David prepared the way for his son. Verse 5, “And David said, Solomon, my son, is young and tender, and the house that is to be built for the LORD must be exceedingly magnificent, of fame and of glory throughout all countries. I will, therefore, now make preparation for it. So David prepared abundantly before his death. [6] Then he called for Solomon, his son, and charged him to build an house for the LORD God of Israel. [7] And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the LORD my God. [8] But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars; thou shalt not build an house unto My name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in My sight. [9] Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about; for his name shall be Solomon,” which means rest, “and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. [10] He shall build an house for My name.” Now there you have the changeover.

By the way this also gives you background to show you why Solomon wasn’t too much of a spiritual giant because he let this thing slide. His father, David, had started the project before he took the throne and once Solomon got on the throne, what did he build first? He stopped this project and he spent 14 years building his own palace, and then seven years he finally finished David’s little project. And it shows you the attitude of the son, he didn’t take after the father.

So this is one section that shows David’s interest. Now apparently, and the text doesn’t supply us with the information, David somewhere in the time when he was preparing for the house and he had dedicated the ground and so on, just before that had happened, he apparently had gotten sick as a result of divine discipline in his life. This was physical discipline administered by God.

So now if you turn back to Psalm 30 you should be on the lookout for certain key phrases that will occur in this Psalm that will be a tip off to some of this background. To finish our comment on verse 1, the enemies are not really known here; we can’t define them exactly; either they were the Gentiles around about, it could have been Absalom, it could have been some people in his own family, we just don’t know; we can’t get historically definite here.

Verses 2-3, David gives the heart of his praise; verse 1 was David vows to praise. You see, “I will extol Thee, O LORD,” that section links with the common section that you get in the lament psalms. Verse 2,“O LORD, my God, I cried unto Thee, and Thou hast healed me. [3] O LORD, Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave [sheol]; Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.” So verses 2 and 3 summarize what God has done; that is the act, that is the heart of the praise, and that is what David gives praise for. I shouted for help means… it’s related to the word “deliver,” it means he cried for salvation and God healed him. Verse 3, “O LORD, Thou hast brought up my soul from the grave; Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit” is very suspiciously parallel to another Psalm, Psalm 16, “Thou shalt not suffer Thy holy one to see corruption,” which is the prophecy of the resurrection of Christ. So it appears, again, we can’t be dogmatic, but Psalm 16 may be out of the same general period of life. If it is the typology is beautiful with Jesus Christ because if it is then David was threatened with death before he would see the first fruits of the kingdom, and if God would make him stay alive then he could see the first pieces of the temple that was to be built in his day. And Jesus Christ, before He died had the first disciples that would be the pieces of the temple of God which the Church and bride of Jesus Christ, but He did not live to see it congealed into one building. That happened on Pentecost, after Christ departed. And so similarly David gathered the materials for the temple but never saw them built together in one. Do it looks like there is a typology or an analogy of correspondence going on between what’s happening in David’s life and what will happen in the life of the Messiah to come.

Then verses 4-5, David, after having declared his intent to praise God, turns to the congregation and he asks them to praise God because God has revealed through David something about how He works. So he says all the rest of you who are believers, you owe it to God to join in the praise. So verse 4, “Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. [5] For His anger endures but a moment; in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” That is the general truth that David is going to teach the congregation by his experience.

Now verse 4 is parallel, and in verse 4 we have a very interesting insight into doctrine and the Christian life, and to get it you want to first look and observe the parallel structure of verse 4. “Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His name.” So let’s write these two sentences out and see if you see something. Sing ye saints; praise at the remembrance of His holy, literally, and “name” is understood. Sing and praise, parallel verbs, both mean approximately the same. That’s parallelism; what is the connection between “saints” and “remembrance of His holy name?” Well, the hint comes in the word “saints;” if you had a concordance and you were studying this on your own you should look up the word “saints” here and see that this really is not the usual word for “saints.” This is a word, you’d think, since the words “saints” is used in the first part of verse 4 and “holy” is used here, usually “saints” is an English translation of “holy ones.” That’s what you’d expect to find, but you don’t find it. What you find is that the word translated “saints” here is a word which comes from chesed, which is the word for loyal love.

As I said earlier there are two Hebrew words for love, ahav and chesed. This is loyal love, and this one which is kind of elective love. The difference between ahav love is that ahav love is love that the person chooses to express, independent of any prior arrangements. That’s ahav love; that’s when you get someone loving because they choose to do it, it’s a sovereign love, ahav love; God loved Abraham; what does it mean God loved Abraham? It means God picked Abraham out and He loved him, it’s love by choice. But chesed is love by covenant, it means to love after an arrangement has been made. Now the Hebrew language has this word that looks like this for chesed, so when they wanted to make it into a plural noun they did this to it, put a little yodh in there, that’s that little thing. That’s what Jesus said, by the way, one jot or yodh shall in no wise pass from the Law till all be fulfilled. Do you know what Jesus meant? That little thing. That letter isn’t even going to pass out of the Law until it’s all fulfilled.

Okay, there is a word that means one who is characterized by a loyal love. Now why does David use this, “ye saints of His,” that means that they are people that depend upon a covenant relationship with God. There’s a whole theology in the use of these words. Now watch it, you’ve got to follow the reasoning here. He doesn’t call the believers believers here; he doesn’t call the believers saints here, he has a special label he is calling the believers, which draws attention to the fact that they live within a defined legal relationship with God; they are covenant people. If we were to properly translate this word we should translate it, “Sing unto the LORD, O ye covenant people,” the people that are locked into God by covenant.

Now that explains the second part, “give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.” Why would a covenant people give thanks to God’s holy name? Let’s see if someone can put this together. Why, if the believer is looking upon his relationship to God as a covenant, why should he give thanks, having that mentality why should he give thanks when he sees God’s holy name revealed as it was in David’s experience. [someone says something] Okay, at the remembrance of His holy name, the remembrance is drawing attention to a specific event. Now notice, if a western man had written this, verse 4, instead of a Hebrew he probably would have said, “Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the concept of His holy name.” That’s the way our western minds work; we think of the concept of God’s holy name and the concept is something to give thanks for. What is the difference between the western mentality of giving thanks for the mere concept or just the concept of the doctrine and what David is saying here.

Can someone spell out the difference between the Hebrew mentality and that. [someone says something] Okay, this is what I’ve been trying to get across in this divine viewpoint framework of attaching doctrine to historical events. See what he’s saying, the Hebrew had the doctrine though the Hebrew probably couldn’t have been articulate as we can in saying well this is this doctrine, this is that doctrine, this is this doctrine, or something. Probably the average Jew wouldn’t have done this. But the average Jew would have had just as rich a concept of God, in fact probably more so, because he could have said oh yeah, God is like the time that He did that. Whereas we would say God is holy he would say God is like the time that He did that. Now why would the Hebrew man come up to us and talk that way, God is like the time that He did such and such, God is the kind of God that delivered us from Egypt. See what he’s doing? He’s locking in on the events, and here it’s very important to see that word “remembrance of His holy name.” That gets rid of any western human viewpoint you may have. That shows you the emphasis on history once again.

Verse 5 is why these covenant people should give thanks upon remembrance of His holy name. Now literally, although it’s read “remembrance of His name,” we might say it’s understood to say “the remembrance of the manifestation of His holy name.” That’s what he’s really saying, “Give thanks when you remember the manifestation of His holy name,” or the revelation of His holy name. Verse 5 is what His holy name is. Verse 5 gives you the content to “holy name.” Do you see? By the way, there’s another little thing in here about holiness. Why, and this is something that comes up over and over again in the Psalms, we might as well come to grips with it tonight because if we don’t tonight we’re going to have to some time.

Why do you suppose that the central attribute of God in these Psalms is His holiness? There’s power, all the other attributes are there but why do you suppose this attribute is stressed by the men who write the Psalms more than any of the other attributes of God? [someone answers] All right, you’re thinking of the concept of holiness as apartness, separateness. Okay, that’s basically the Hebrew meaning for holiness, separation. But here we’ve emphasized over and over again the extreme personal-ness of the Psalms. Now how are we going to get these two things together? We’ve just said over and over again the Psalms show the tremendous personality, God reacts and so on, and He’s really in there, He’s not just divorced, yet we’ve got this concept of holiness all the time. Now what’s going on here? [someone says something] All right, he’s gone back to Psalm 8 where it quotes the Hebrew doctrine of man and that is, “What is man, that God is mindful of him.” In other words, God, in all of His holiness, takes an interest in man anyway.

[someone says something]. Okay, holiness here provides you with a mental corrective device so that you don’t trivialize God. Now you see up to this point we’ve made God very intimate with man, in other words, God really is intimate and He blows up and gets mad and gets angry. That’s what this Psalm is saying, along with the other Psalms. So you’ve got this tremendous… God is very close to man because God bounces off man, so to speak He reacts, there’s reaction going on. But if we just said that and left it there, without saying anything more, we would have a danger after a while thinking that way, of making God to be quite trivial and secular. He’s getting too familiar. Remember how, in 1 Samuel, how when the cart was coming back with the ark in it, how the men were killed because they were just kind of gawking at the thing; in other words, God doesn’t want to be trivialized either. He will maintain His position, but it’s precisely the position that is our salvation because it’s that holy position that He maintains that under girds His covenant, etc. This is why in Exodus 20:5-6 where it deals with the family situation, this is why God says “I am a covenant keeping God and I visit the iniquity,” do you see the connection, the covenant and the judgment upon iniquity, “and I visit the iniquity unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Me, but I visit My blessings upon the thousands of them that love Me,” thousands of generations of them that love Me in any given family.

So since we have this kind of a thing, God as the covenant keeping God, how do you know, since holiness we tie in with justice, and +R, how can you measure God’s righteousness and His justice? Only by what He has revealed, and isn’t what He has revealed basically the content of His great covenants. So when you have the covenant, that is the Law, once you have that available you have the terms by which you measure your relationship with this just and righteous God. It’s the yardstick that measures and defines our personal relationship with God and we can tell whether we’re in fellowship or out of fellowship by checking our thought patterns against the yardstick of the Word of God. It’s a simple test but it’s there; you always have a yardstick to test. You don’t need to wallow around in some hyper subjectivism some place. God has defined the nature of His personal relationship with us.

All right, if God is a covenant keeping God, then do you see why the people are very, very concerned that His holiness appear continually. It’s that which is behind the covenant. Do you see now why in 1 John 1:9, what are the two attributes of God in 1 John 1:9, and they’re not love. “He is faithful and just,” now doesn’t it strike you that 1 John 1:9 doesn’t deal with the attribute of love, when actually 1 John 1:9 is the provision, is a gracious provision for the sinning believer, but isn’t it strange that 1 John 1:9 doesn’t mention the word “love.” It mentions instead His justice and His faithfulness because you see it’s that that defines the relationship. This is why the public out here, because they haven’t had any Old Testament teaching is all screwed up in thinking about the God of the Bible, because they’ve heard a few little sermon-ettes for Christian-ettes on the love of God in the New Testament. And now God is love, and we go around talking about Jesus and love, and love is God and God is love and Jesus is love and love is Jesus and all the rest of it. What does the word l-o-v-e mean? It’s lost all of its content; you can’t have any love unless you have holiness because you haven’t got any kind of a relationship to measure love by. How do you tell love from non-love. You’ve got to have the firm foundation first. So this is why these people aren’t concerned with the love of God at this point; the love of God doesn’t even enter into this Psalm right here. It’s His justice that enters in and His holiness; that enters in as the center of discussion.

Now verses 1-5 are the first part. Let me finish verse 5, this is the generalized truth that David wants all believers including us because now we’re part of his congregation, he wants you to see this truth out of his life that God’s anger endures but for a moment, but the Hebrew is even more picturesque. Now that’s a proper translation but let me just give you a very stilted translation from the Hebrew that will show you this. “A moment is in His anger, a lifetime is in His favor.” That’s the way the Hebrew expresses it; in other words, it’s a picture of a road an a man walking along the road and a moment of the time that you’re on the road is experienced under the wrath of God, but a lifetime is experienced under the blessing of God. Now what is the road? The road for the New Testament Christian is from the time he accepts Christ, the time that’s He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in phase three; phase one the cross; phase two from the time of the cross until death, and during phase two the Bible pictures it as a road, and David would say even you Christians in the New Testament, there’ll be a moment on the road when you are under the wrath of God, but no matter, because the lifetime, in fact, all eternity will be experienced under His favor and under His acceptance. But this is a point that there are rocky places in the road in every believer’s life and this is something to remember.

And this is another parallel in verse 5, “for in His anger is a moment; in His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.” This is a tremendous imagery and again the only way to do it is go to the original languages. The word “endure” means to come and lodge for the night; it was used of a traveler on a road, he’s continuing the metaphor of a person going along on the road at night and the traveler comes and he lodges. Here “weeping” is the traveler, and “weeping” comes to the door and spends the night. And this is a picture of the momentaryness of the thing. Weeping comes and spends the night but he says morning comes suddenly, and this is borrowed from the ancient east, where in the clear desert skies the sun, when it comes up it comes up quick, there’s no warning of it, you don’t see it bouncing off the foggy, hazy atmosphere, suddenly it’s dark and then it’s light, the sun comes up very suddenly and dispenses with the night. And this is what David is saying; the grace of God comes and dispenses with a moment that is spent under His suffering.

Now I think verse 5 would be something that we could all apply in one sense and that is at least David recognized in his life when he was under the anger and when he wasn’t. And yet I still find believers that can’t tell one from the other. You ought to be able to discern whether God’s angry at you personally right now or He isn’t; whether He’s satisfied or He’s angry, and that’s a fundamental element to the Christian life.

Now beginning in verse 6 we have the last section, verses 6-12, and here I have indicated this section summarized as follows, simply as David declares the details of God’s deliverance, verses 6-12. David declares the details of God’s deliverance. In this section we have a first part, verses 6-7; a second part, verses 8-11, and the third part verse 12. These are the three sub sections of verses 6-12.

Now let’s look at verses 6-7. Remember, what’s the first thing you look for in the main section of a declarative praise Psalm. In the main section what’s the first thing you look for? A looking back and a review of the problem, so we should suspect to find it there, and sure enough, verses 6 and 7 David reviews the problem. Now this is a problem that was tempting to him in the latter part of his life. Before I discuss verses 6-7 can you define what his problem is. See if you can come up with what his problem is? How did David get out of it? Very simple. Over-confidence. “And in my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved.” “In my prosperity,” and the word “moved” here is a play on the next phrase; verses 6-7 go together. In verse 6 the word “I shall never be moved,” that verb is used of earthquakes and moving of the earth; it means tremors, earth tremors.

Now if you look in verse 7 you see why he used that verb in verse 6. Do you see the imagery? What is the imagery; can you pull this imagery together and pinpoint at least the zone of David’s life. Sometime when he was prosperous he said “I’ll never be moved, [7] LORD, by Thy favor Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong,” what period of David’s life would this be? And what do you suppose his mountain refers to. What is the mountain in Israel, the mountain of mountains that’s mentioned again and again in the Psalms. [someone says something]

Apparently, whether it’s Absalom or not the idea still is that he’s got into Jerusalem by this point and he’s established his kingdom from Mount Zion, and apparently he’s toward the end of his life because God has prospered him. But notice the human viewpoint of verse 6, “in my prosperity, I said, I shall never be moved,” what’s the human viewpoint in there; there’s just two letters that have to be changed. “My,” because the next phrase, verse 7, in the Hebrew begins “but I,” and there’s the contrast, you see. “But I” is in verse 6 is a strong contrast to what has gone before, “But I said in my prosperity I shall never be moved.” Then notice verse 7 follows, “LORD, by Your favor…” Now verse 6 is what he said, verse 6 is a restatement of his human viewpoint mental attitude. Now verse 7 is an explanation of why the human viewpoint was wrong. Verse 7 wasn’t actually done back when he had the problem, but now he can look back and say oh yeah, it was supposed to be this way.

And so verse 7, “LORD, by Thy favor Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong,” in other words, my prosperity Lord is because of Your grace, not because of anything I did, it’s Your grace all the way. “By your grace.” Can you think of some personal experiences in David’s life that would have permanently made him cognizant of the fact that any blessing he ever got would be by grace? [someone says something] But after David got to be king, of course this could be mixed up in the chronology but the Bathsheba incident, and Uriah. David committed all the sins that you can name, no church would have David as a member probably. David teaching Sunday School, he raped some lady, we don’t have those people teach our children. Can’t you just image that in the average fundamentalist Sunday School? See that’s how far out fundamentalists are on the concept of grace. One thing that’s killing fundamentalism today is legalism. And it’s ridiculous.

Here’s David, committed every sin in the book, and he’s perfectly accepted and God is blessing him. Do you think God’s compromising? No, God is a God of grace, that’s why. So David should have known all along that any blessing he had was by grace. So “By thy grace,” or “Thy favor Thou hast made my mountain to stand strong.” And then he goes on, “Thou did hide Thy face, and I was troubled.” In other words, after the prosperity I was troubled, it’s a periphrastic participle which means I was continually troubled the whole time you were hiding Your face, and by the way, verse 7 shows you the spiritual sensitivity of a man of grace, a man who has learned to get rid of all his self-righteousness, and his churchanity and has learned to relax with God’s grace, who will always know when God’s angry at him; he will be sensitive to know when he’s in the favor of God and when he’s out of favor with God, and here it is, right here. “I was troubled all the time that you hid Your face from me.” That’s how I knew, how did David know? Because he was having trouble in everything he did, that’s how David knew something was wrong.

Verses 8-10 is what he did about it. “I cried unto thee, O LORD, and unto the LORD I made supplication.” By the way, footnote on verse 8, there is a beautiful illustration of the switching from the second to the third person, even in a parallel verse, and this is why I cautioned you earlier, don’t try to outline by the flip-flops from the second to the third person. Sometimes that happens, but this verse should be a verse of warning to you that right smack in the middle of the verse David can be talking to the Lord and then he looks down and talks to the congregation. Now this is a peculiarity of the Hebrew mentality, why they do this up and down, up and down. But it’s something that goes on all the time they’re worshiping. One moment they’re talking to God, the next moment they’re talking to the congregation about God; then they talk back to God, then they’re talking to the congregation about God. Second person, third person, second person, third person, over and over, flip-flopping. But that’s typical of their kind of worship.

“What profit is there,” now verse 9 is how he prayed, “What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth?” What principle does verse 9 show that we’ve seen over and over and over and over and over again? The bargaining Jew, and here we see it again. See where they got their training in bargaining; they bargained with God for about fourteen centuries. So the idea here is in prayer, a real bargaining was going on. Now every once in a while you get some pious Christian that says well, I just tell God once and that’s all. Now you don’t get that from this. It says “I cried unto Him,” and it says I continually cried unto Him, verse 9, “I went down to the pit? Shall the dust praise Thee? Shall it declare Thy truth?” These are all imperfects and it means that he must have said this more than once. So all I can say is that the bargaining process went on over a time interval. Now sometimes that is true, when you can go to God with a prayer request and you get perfect peace and relax. That is a rule that sometimes is valid. All I say is it’s not always valid and the proof is right here. David didn’t pray this prayer this way, David went over and over and over this thing, until he got satisfaction; bargaining session went on.

And notice why, verse 9, notice the basis of all bargaining with God. Notice he doesn’t say God, if you’ll get me out of this jam I’ll give you a tithe of my business, or if you get me out of this jam God I’ll go ahead and become a minister. Or if you get me out of this jam then I’ll give You a thousand dollars or something. No bargains, the bargaining here has to do with the glory of God; God if you don’t answer this prayer request then I can’t have an opportunity to glorify You; that is the bargaining. That is the bargaining process!

Now verse 10 is a repeat of his petition, “Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be Thou my helper.” That’s etzer and it’s the word used for Eve, the wife in Genesis, “LORD, be Thou my helper,” and it’s the same word used for a wife in God’s Word.

Verse 11, this is a report of what’s happened, the petition has occurred, you see verses 6-7 is the situation, verses 8-10 the petition, now verse 11, here’s what God did. “You hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness.” The “mourning” and the “gladness” notice includes what by way of deliverance? What’s included with deliverance as well as his external circumstances. What is the emphasis of those very nouns, “mourning” and “gladness?” The inner mental attitude has been changed. Deliverance when done by the hand of God will include a change on the inside and not just a change on the outside. In fact, most deliverances of God are internal only, and later on external. But this is the big thing, “Thou hast turned,” this is all mental attitude, verse 11, mental attitude!

Now there’s something else though in verse 11 that speaks of an external manifestation of the inner mental attitude. What are the two nouns in verse 11 that speak of the external reflection of the internal mental attitude. Two nouns, “sackcloth” and “dancing.” Anybody know what sackcloth was used for? It was mourning, clothes of mourning, and the Jew when he was in mourning would actually wear a special suit; it had to be made of cheap material because he tore it in half, and he would wear clothes of mourning. So here were people that, you might say, let it all hang out. They wore their clothes to reflect their inner mental attitude. And dancing, David did this and one time his wife didn’t like it, a very interesting cultural thing, but the dancing was what David often did. In fact, many of the dances were apparently recorded in a book called The Wars of Jehovah, and they put their dancing along with their military proficiency. And they weren’t the only nation in the ancient world to do it, the Greeks also did this.

So verse 11 speaks of the inward change and the mental attitude, the external, and then there’s one final phrase in verse 11 that is connected with a phrase in the New Testament. And let me just summarize that last phrase in verse 11, “you have put on clothes,” or “you have put clothes on me with gladness.” Now you remember in the New Testament so often it says “put off the old man, and put on the new man,” that phraseology is borrowed here; it’s an Old Testament way of speech and Paul is just bringing it up to date. And the old man and the new man would be the soul, the outward manifestation of this inner change. And David, speaking of gladness, put on gladness, he’s using the same phrase Paul would say, put on the new man. In other words, gladness, instead of gladness it would be the character of Christ. And that tells you a little bit about Paul’s thinking when he’s talking about putting on the new man, the fruits of the filling of the Holy Spirit. The inward change that is to be worked out, and it’s the same phraseology.

Finally verse 12, this is the vow to praise, and as I said all declarative praise Psalms ends with a vow to keep on. Notice how verse 12 starts, what is the end of it all, “To the end that my glory may sing praise to You,” now “my glory” is a Hebrew synonym for soul because the glory is that which is seen by men. And the soul is the combination of the body which is seen plus the spirit which is not seen, that equals the soul, the life, and that is called the glory. So “with my glory will I praise You.” How will I praise You? I will praise You with my spirit and with my body. How does David pray with his body? You just had it in verse 11. What’s he doing by praising God with his body? He’s dancing. How’s praising God with His spirit? The inner mental attitude. So he’s doing both, and this is why he says “To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent.” Notice the last part, this is something that will go on and on in these declarative praise Psalms and this is one reason why I took this one as the first one, because verse 12 shows you the heresy of having God do something and being silent about it.

Now let me suggest a test that can be applied in your own personal life. If God has delivered you, relatively speaking, from the major areas of human viewpoint, the corollary to that will be that you will have the courage and the relaxation to be able to speak out for Jesus Christ in any situation. And you won’t have a retarding spirit of fear, a spirit of oh my lord, this guy is going to tear me apart or something like this. That lingering fear is an expression of a lingering human viewpoint in your mind. So if you have been delivered in the Biblical sense of the word from human viewpoint, you will have the audacity and the courage to speak out. Now all of us suffer from this, because we’re all only partially redeemed. But this offers us a little test that how much are we being noisy, so to speak, in the good sense about God, or how much are we silent Christians, I witness by my life not by my lips, see, this kind of thing. Will you please tell me how someone is going to believe in Christ by looking at you; they’re going to believe in Christ because someone tells them verbally how to trust in Christ. They’re not going to get it out of thin air. Angels aren’t going to tell them; you’re going to tell them.

And so this is the thing, that I might “not be silent, O LORD, my God, I will give thanks unto Thee forever.” The last word, “forever” means that ultimately praise should be practiced in this life because this is what is going to happen for all eternity. So by praising God in this life you are actually doing something that you will be doing forever and ever and ever and ever.

Our time is over.