Psalms Lesson 36

Psalm 122 & Psalm 125

Psalm 121 visualizes the pilgrim on his way to Jerusalem for one of the three annual feasts and therefore the pilgrim must pray that God would protect him from the opposition that he faced on this trip. We can apply that principle that in God’s will we’re moving through life and we have the right to similarly pray that our “Keeper would not slumber nor sleep.” I want to review Psalm 121 before we start 122, that as Psalm 121 was structured, verses 5-6 stated a truth about God which if really true makes you wonder why the petition in verses 7-8 is ever made. If it’s really the case that the Lord is our keeper, and “His our shade upon our right hand and the sun isn’t going to smite thee by day, nor the moon by night,” then why is it that the psalmist does pray indeed for that very protection that seems to be promised in verses 5-6.

This is something that probably is as fundamental to prayer as that which we learned earlier in the Psalm series about the boldness of these people in their prayers to God. You recall something that we said over and over again is that the believers in the Old Testament, when they prayed, were very audacious, “get Your hands out of Your pocket God, I’m talking to You,” this kind of thing. Now if that were done in an average prayer meeting certainly eyes would be open and staring to see who uttered that jewel. That is a representation of a certain mentality behind prayer in the Old Testament.

Now the second kind of big idea that I’ve seen in prayer in these Psalms is this idea, that even though something is promised and absolutely certain, sovereignly decreed by God, right in the next verse you often find the psalmist turning right around and praying for it. And this puzzled me when I first took it up because I wondered, if it’s promised, why is he praying for it. Well, if it wasn’t promised, could he pray for it. Let’s turn the question around; if he didn’t have the promise that this was the truth then could he ever pray for it by faith? No, because he’d never be sure that the petition was really in God’s will and not being sure the petition was ever in God’s will he couldn’t pray with faith. So it’s precisely these dogmatic statements that just prefix a prayer section that permits that prayer to be made. As I said last week, the reason why, it seems, God wants us to make petition, even though He’s promised stuff to us, is that He doesn’t treat us as machines; He treats us as people who are responsible under the first divine institution. And therefore He takes pleasure in standing by and letting us do the petitioning. So that’s the truth that we noticed in Psalm 121.

Tonight we come to another pilgrim Psalm, Psalm 122. We’re going to do two Psalms tonight, 122 and 125 and we’ll be done with a short trip through the pilgrim Psalms. I remind you that the pilgrim Psalms start in 120 and continue to 134. So these are all Psalms that have to do with the movement of the pilgrims and they are all prefaced in your Bible “A Song of degrees.” Now let’s look at Psalm 122 for a moment and see by looking at it whether you can tell how to outline it. See if you can spot the major breaks in Psalm 122. Watch for shifting of persons. This is the way to study Psalms, you can do a lot of this by yourself if you just take the time to get in the Word. Based on content we know Psalm 122 is a pilgrim Psalm, it’s not an individual lament necessarily or a national lament or something like that, it’s just kind of a category all by itself so you have to kind of feel your way through. Where would you see a break in the text? [someone answers] All right, between verses 2 and 3. Okay, a break between verses 2 and 3 because verses 1 and 2 the psalmist is kind of talking about something that’s happened, verse 3 he begins to describe something. Where’s another break, can you see another break in the text. [someone answers] Between 5 and 6, why? That’s true, what do you see there that would give a reason why there’s a break? At the beginning of verse 6 you’ve got an imperative verb, “Pray.” All right, verse 3, 4 and 5 are just straight sentences; verse 6 is a petition that’s being made, or a command, exhortation. And those are pretty much the major breaks in the Psalm.

Let’s look at these breaks and see if we can summarize the content. The first two verses is the psalmist recalls his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Remember in Psalm 121 the pilgrim is coming, apparently, to Jerusalem. In Psalm 122 he’s leaving it and he’s describing what his impressions were. So verses 1 and 2 describe his trip, it’s an accounting of his trip. Verses 3-5 is his praise for the city of Jerusalem. And verses 6-9 is where he encourages prayer for the city of Jerusalem.

Now Psalm 122, we can’t develop this fully tonight, but this gives you a theology of the city; you’ve probably been reading stories and articles about the merits and demerits of rural life versus urban life and the evils and so on of urban population. Psalm 122, Jerusalem is the model city and by studying Psalm 122 you can get a divine viewpoint of the city. You can get a divine viewpoint of the city throughout Scripture, but this has a lot to say about urban culture. So this is just kind of a modern problem that you ought to be aware of as you read Psalm 122 because here you begin to have the theology of the city. Verse 1 the psalmist recalls his pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Remember why he goes to Jerusalem in the first place, that worship of God is located at a point in space and time, that God’s revelation occurs at a point in space and time.

Therefore if you are going to have your faith expressed historically and not hanging in thin air some place in some mystical experience in the closet or something, your faith has got to be rooted to a point in space and time. This is why our communion is rooted to a point in space and time. Do you realize that every time when we have communion we too are going back to the city of Jerusalem, because after all, where did the event occur that communion speaks of? It occurred outside the city wall of Jerusalem. So even today, though the Holy Spirit indwells us and empowers us wherever we are, in any point in space, isn’t it interesting that we’re still tied in one of the two liturgies of the Church back to a point, a geographical point called Jerusalem. So keep this in mind, verse 1 is not just for the Old Testament saint. This is why we keep iterating around here 1 John 1:3, that you must have fellowship with the apostles first before you can have fellowship with Jesus Christ. Bible doctrine precedes Christ; it is God’s Word before God; it is the apostle’s word before Jesus, and you cannot get to know Jesus Christ apart from first coming to the physical Bible and you cannot come to God apart from coming to Jerusalem; there is no place on earth where He has revealed Himself as He has at Jerusalem.

So verse 1, though historically it was meant one way and we’re taking it a little bit different, it still honors the location. “I was glad when they said unto hem, Let us go into the house of the LORD.” Notice before this it says “A Song of decrees of David.” And scholars have said aha, here we’ve got a contradiction because the title says and links this Psalm with David, but yet we have certain things like “the house of the LORD” in verse 1 that seems to speak of the temple, it seems to be very, very late. In verse 5 it talks about “the thrones of the house of David,” very, very late. How are these expressions to be reconciled with the title that links it to Davidic authorship. That’s a critical problem that has to be answered as we go through the Psalm.

“I was glad when they said” is not “when they said,” and this shows you a little bit more about the mental attitude of a worshiper in the Old Testament. It’s not the fact the psalmist is glad when they say, he is glad “over those who said,” he is rejoicing not over the time at which they said something, he’s rejoicing over the ones who did the saying. In other words, these are the other believers, his fellow believers who have encouraged him to worship the Lord. Now I’ve been impressed in applying the Word of God as pastor in the congregation here how often it comes out that one believer who is out of it, who is involved in deep carnality, will often be prodded out of that carnality, not by anything I’ve said, they specialize in avoiding me during such times, but the thing that evidently brings them around is the witnessing of another believer by a similar trial and something like this goes on in their head: well, if so and so can do it, I can do it. And so the life of another believer is what brings the person around. So in verse 1 is the same thing, even though the body of Christ hasn’t physically come into being yet in history, verse 1 is talking about the group fellowship of one believer’s effect on another. This is the exhortation of Hebrews, “Exhort one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

So, “I was glad when those people said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.” Now just to show you when people criticize the Bible how often shortsighted their criticism is, and I want to use this as an object lesson for some of you because some of you when you hear criticism of the Bible are naturally disturbed and you want to do something about it. You should feel tension when someone points out a contradiction in Scripture. If you don’t feel tension when somebody points outs a contradiction in Scripture you really are in a bad way because what is shows you is that you don’t think logically. The existence of a logical contradiction doesn’t appear to bother you. Well you should be bothered if there’s a logical contradiction in Scripture.

So therefore, is there a logical contradiction between the title and this verse when it says going into “the house of the LORD” and “the house of the LORD” means the temple. The temple wasn’t built in David’s day so how can it be going into the temple and David’s writing the Psalm. All right, the first thing you do when you run into this kind of a claim is you run to the old familiar tool called a concordance where you really can solve a lot of these problems. It’s like learning how to use the dictionary, it takes a little time but you’ll find it quite useful. Now if you just take the time to look up “house of the LORD,” hold place here and turn to 1 Samuel 1:24, and I think you’ll all agree that 1 Samuel 1:24 was written before David lived, or at least in his childhood before he was king. It’s talking about Hannah, and what does it say, it talks about bringing him “into the house of the LORD,” is that the temple? It can’t be. The temple wasn’t built then. So what have we proved? That the expression beth Yahweh or “house of the LORD” simply means the tabernacle. It does mean the temple but it also means the tabernacle, so the expression by itself doesn’t show the Psalm was written late. And it requires nothing more than about 3 minutes of work to look the expression up in a concordance, but that’s too much to ask for some people.

Let’s go back to Psalm 122 and now that we know that there’s no logical contradiction here, the term “house of the LORD” can refer to the tabernacle. So, “I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD,” meaning the tabernacle. Now verse 2 unfortunately is mistranslated in the King James because in the day of the King James there was an argument how to translate this kind of Hebrew expression. It’s called a paraphrastic participle, that’s when you have a verb plus a participle together and what it means in verse 2 is “Our feet have been standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem.” It looks back, “Our feet have been standing,” verse 2 is important because it sets the whole motif of the Psalm. The Psalm is not written in Jerusalem, the Psalm is written by the pilgrim after he has gone to Jerusalem. “Our feet have been standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem,” something thrilling, this is the kind of mentality that… the nearest thing that comes to this I think in our own generation is if you recall after the Six Day War on the news programs when they opened up the east part of Jerusalem, do you remember the pictures of the Jewish soldiers coming and the Jewish civilians with them, and kissing the wall, the Wailing Wall, and it was this tremendous desire to get across the Jordanian barriers into eastern Jerusalem to touch the wall. Well that’s the same mentality here, “Our feet have been standing” in Jerusalem. See, that’s the honoring of the urban Jerusalem, the urban structure. This is THE city that is exalted.

Now verses 3-5, this is a praise for THE city. “Jerusalem is builded,” or “is a city that is built,” it is passive voice, the verb “build,” in verse 3 and therefore it is the product of grace. And this illustrates the principle of the New Jerusalem which is now being built by Jesus Christ. Turn to John 14:1, often quoted but not very well understood at times. This is Jesus Christ’s urban culture; Jesus is in the middle of building a city at this point in history and He announces His program of urban construction in John 14:1, “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe” in God, therefore why don’t you get dispensationally oriented and believe in Me. [2] “In My Father’s house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you.” Now here’s where even Christians that should know better are guilt of allegorical interpretation of Scripture. How many of you really think that Christ is providing a geographical place for you. That’s what this means, a tupos, a place, “I go to prepare a place, [3] and if go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself, that where I am, you may be also.” So Christ there is claiming to be building a place and the book of Revelation tells us what the place is, it is the New Jerusalem.

Now that introduces us to the problem of the doctrine of the city. In this day it’s always the urban culture that takes the knocks and rightly so. The fight is which culture is healthier, the rural culture or the urban culture. All right, the first thing about the doctrine of the city is that the first city was built by the apostate Cain. And this colors the city forward in history, is that the city, the great cities of the world are always built by the apostates. Every major early civilization was built by an apostate culture, the Hamites. So urbanization at a very early point in history, in fact at its pioneer origin point, was always a movement by apostate people to seek security in a fallen world. That is the original theology of a city. Why go to a city? Because in the city I can shake my fist at God, I rely upon my fellow man but I don’t have to rely upon the God over nature. It gives me greater freedom because I can be independent of constantly being reminded of God’s providence. In the city I can forget God more easily.

If you don’t believe that, some of you have walked the streets in Chicago, New York, Houston, you know how easy it is to forget God in the middle of a concrete jungle. So the urban culture from the very start was designed as a get-away from God. We talk about getting into the country to get away from the city, but why do people get away from the country to get into the city? To get away, ultimately, from God. So urbanization is associated in Scripture with apostasy. Not that all men do it, but just the general motif is that Cain built it and so everybody flocks to the city with Cain.

2. Most cities in the Scripture are centers for apostasy; it is a general theme in Scripture that the cities are the center of apostasy. Example: the ministry of Jesus Christ. Where did Jesus Christ have his greatest impact, in the rural areas or in the urban areas of Palestine? Answer: rural areas, Christ was crucified, not in the country, He was crucified in the city. Where was the religious hierarchy, in the country or in the city? In the city. Where was it that John the Baptist preached, in the city or in the country? In the country. So throughout Scripture there’s always an antagonism against the city.

But the Bible doesn’t leave it there because if we just had those two points we would be like a lot of philosophers and a lot of the hippies today who would say all right, then to hell with the city, we’ll go back into the country and set up our communes and go back to a more rural type of life. But the Bible doesn’t say that, that’s not the answer either; that’s just going to the days of fallen man in the country, that’s all. You can’t get away from the fall, whether in the country or the city.

The answer is that by grace the city too will be saved and the city will be saved and the model is New Jerusalem. Isn’t it interesting that in the final pages of God’s Word it is not the country that is the dwelling place for the saints, it is the city that is the dwelling place for the saints, all crowded together in the New Jerusalem. Now why is it that the city is the final resting place? Because the city is a higher level of life than the country, eventually, it can be, because people are closer together and more dependent on one another in the city and that’s what makes the cities the living hell they are today because fallen man living with fallen man cannot coexist, but regenerate man in resurrection body living with regenerate man in resurrection body, he doesn’t want to be separated from his fellow man, he wants to join with him and so the city becomes a place of salvation, and thus in God’s Word you have a movement from the country to the city but it’s always a movement by God’s grace. God builds the city not man. The New Jerusalem doesn’t come from construction; the New Jerusalem comes from heaven down.

Now Psalm 122 where it says verse 3 “Jerusalem is built,” that’s passive voice and it means the voice of grace. So the reason the psalmist praises Jerusalem isn’t because he’s praising any and all cities, he’s praising one city because that city is built by grace. Jerusalem is built as a city that is compact together, it means effectively and efficiently built.

And then in verse 4 he describes the city, “Where the tribes to up, the tribes of the LORD, unto the testimony of Israel, to give thanks unto the name of the LORD.” Now “the testimony of Israel” is the commandment of the Law. Turn to Deuteronomy 16:16 to see what the testimony of the Law was. In Deuteronomy 16:16 God told the people to commemorate three annual feasts to him. “Three times a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which He shall choose, in the Feast of Unleavened Bread, in the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Tabernacles, and they shall not appear before the Lord empty.” There is the decree of God, that is the testimony of God that orders the people to come together in the city, because it’s at the city where they will worship God, not in the country. The people will crowd together and as a group corporately worship God; the place will be the place that the Lord thy God shall choose, and He chooses the city, but it’s a city built by grace, and that’s the city that the psalmist is praising here.

Psalm 122, “…the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, to fulfill the testimony of Israel,” that’s obedience, “to give thanks unto the name of the LORD,” and the word “give thanks” is the Hebrew word yadah, and that is the word to praise. There’s your word to praise. So that shows you something else about the city. Where is the greatest praise given? In the city. Verse 5, “For there are set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David.” This would indicate the dynasty of David, “the thrones of the house of David.” What does that mean? That refers to the application of the Word of God in the area of civil justice, but by way of inter application of this interpretation, it simply means that’s the place where you go to learn the Word and to learn its application in every area of life. And that’s why the praise occurs at the same place. Notice the teaching of the Word and the praise of the Lord occur together; you don’t have one without the other.

Now finally verses 6-9, the last section of this Psalm. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love Thee.” Now the prayer for the peace of Jerusalem, if you ever have some Jewish friends, if they’re orthodox they still pray for this. In fact, if you have some Jewish people who are orthodox and you get a chance to, ask them if you can go to their home when they have Passover so you can watch them when they go through Passover, just watch and as you watch them you’ll hear them say, because they have a Jewish prayer book, somewhere in the course of their prayer, the father of the house will say “next year in Jerusalem.” And that’s part of the Jewish prayer down through the centuries anticipating that next year they can come together with all their Jewish friends and worship Jehovah at the city of Jerusalem, the geographical spot on earth. So here is that early mentality back in the psalmist day, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem;” the Jew is constantly aware that his fortunes rise and fall with the city of Jerusalem and if you pray for the peace of Jerusalem you pray for the peace of the Jewish people.

We can extend that as Gentiles; if you pray for the peace of Jerusalem you not only pray for the peace of the Jews but you also pray for your own peace because Romans 11 says that there will not be world peace on earth until Jerusalem comes under the control of Messiah and when Messiah is in Jerusalem and Jerusalem has peace the rest of the world will have peace. If Jerusalem doesn’t have peace then the rest of the world will not have peace. Now in the first line of verse 6 this is how it sounds in the Hebrew. This is a takeoff because Jerusalem, you can hear the two words, Jehu-shalom, and shalom is the Hebrew word for peace, and so when this was said it read [sounds like: shalah shalom Jehu-shalom]. It’s a play on the word “peace,” and the words that are translated “prosper” in verse 6 and “peace” and “prosperity” in verse 7 are all shalom or [sounds like: shavom], so this Psalm, when it was chanted, it was actually just a rhyme.

“…they shall prosper that love Thee.” The ones that love Thee will of course be the believers and the ones who love Thee are defined because verses 3-5 says what it is about Jerusalem that they love. What are the lovers of the city of Jerusalem? Tourists that like to trot through the streets? No, the lovers of the city are the lovers of those things mentioned in verses 4-5, lovers of the functioning of the Word of God. So “they shall prosper” and the word “prosper” is a neat word for believers, it means relax. Relax from the trials and toils of life. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem” and then you can relax from all the pressures because when Jerusalem has her peace there will be no other pressures.

Verse 7, “Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.” This is speaking of economic blessing in a real physical way, and then in verses 8 and 9, he says, “For my brethren and my companions’ sake, I will now say, Peace be within you, [9] Because of the house of the LORD our God, I will seek thy good.” So there are actually three reasons given; first the welfare of fellow countrymen, that’s the word “brethren,” the welfare of neighbors, “companions,” and “the house of the LORD” is the temple or the tabernacle. For those three reason the psalmist prays for urban salvation. And notice in urban salvation in the Bible, not in sociology class, but in the Bible urban salvation is tied to the temple. You cannot have urban salvation apart from the Word of God in the city, and the two cannot be separated. Urban renewal without the Word of God preached is a farce. And then finally “I will seek thy good” means I will seek to apply the Word of God in these areas.

Are there any questions in Psalm 122? [someone says something] Three reasons in verses 8-9, the brethren, that is the fellow countrymen, for the sake of all the Jewish people. The companions, those would be his immediate friends, those are the people that said to him let’s go worship in the house of the Lord, verse 1, [tape turns, apparently what he says about Psalm 125:1-2a, “They who trust in the LORD shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. [2] As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about His people from henceforth even forever,” is missing]

…today is still being used. Where do you think that the Israeli army put their anti-aircraft missiles. On the same hills around Jerusalem. The hills around Jerusalem are therefore a picture of the fact that before the invader can touch the city, he’s got to touch these hills. All right, if that’s the analogy, then follow it through throughout verse 2, “So the Lord is around His people,” what does that mean? That for someone to touch a believer means he first has to touch the Lord Himself. Now that may not seem like much to you so I’m going to show you some references that carry this theme on.

Turn to Zechariah 2:4-5; in Zechariah 2:4-5 the angel of the Lord, which is Jesus Christ under the Old Testament economy, says, now He’s giving Zechariah a message and actually the angel, verse 3, is an interpreting angel that’s standing by to interpret the words of Christ to Zechariah. “The angel that talked with me went forth, and another angel went out to meet him. [4] And said, Run, speak to this young man, saying Jerusalem shall be inhabited as towns without walls,” what does that mean? Prosperous, no need for military defense, you don’t need walls. Why? Verse 5, “For I, saith the LORD, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her.” “I will be the wall” and there will no invader touch My city because I am the mountains around her.

And then verses 8-9, “For thus saith the LORD of hosts,” notice there’s His military name, “the LORD of armies, After the glory having sent Me to the nations which spoil you, for he that touches you, touches the pupil,” the “apple” means pupil, “the pupil of His eye.” Now look, you know how sensitive it is to touch your eye, if you have contact lenses in our dusty climate know what misery you go through when you get dust on those contacts. When you get something in your eye you know what it is. All right, that’s the expression that’s meant to communicate here in verse 8, God is so sensitive, remember, this is an anthropomorphism, He’s trying to communicate to us out of heaven what it would be like if we were sitting on His throne, He’s trying to communicate how He reacts and He’s saying that anybody that touches Israel is to Me like a piece of dust in your eye. Now that’s a powerful illustration of how it affects God when His children are touched. And therefore it shows you how when His children are spanked and disciplined how we are disciplined often times by satanic means, God is hurt too, because He’s as sensitive when we are touched as we would be to something that gets in our eye. Next time you get something in your eye and you’re frustrated, instead of saying damn four or five times remember that this is a picture of the Lord and this is how he feels when He is hurt spiritually.

Now to show you this is not just an Old Testament theme but is carried over into the New Testament, turn to Acts 9:5. In Acts 9:5 Jesus Christ confronts Saul on the Damascus Road, rather a startling experience for Paul from which he never recovered, thankfully. But when the Lord speaks to Paul what does he say in verse 5? What has Paul been doing? Killing believers, making mincemeat out of believers, his pastime. But in verse 5, “Who are You, Lord?” And the Lord said, “I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.” Now was Paul touching Jesus physically? No. Where was Jesus when this was being said? Wasn’t He at the Father’s right hand? If Christ was at the Father’s right hand, how can Paul persecute Jesus? Notice it doesn’t say Christ, now why doesn’t Jesus His title, Christ, here? Because every time in the book of Acts, and in any New Testament epistle for that matter, when you have the word Jesus used alone it’s to stress His humanity. And when Christ is saying Paul, you persecute My humanity… Paul could have said wait a minute, I’m not touching You. But we know, therefore, that the body of Christ on earth persecuted by demonic agency or human agency, whenever that body is persecuted Christ is personally involved; just like in the Old Testament when a believer was hurt it was like a piece of dust in God’s eyes. So that should give you a little bit more of the understanding of God’s action at the other end of the line, when you think that He’s not interested when you’re getting clobbered.

Back to Psalm 125. You can always argue against this and say well, yeah, but that’s in His eye and I don’t feel it. But the point is, if I’m standing here and we’re having a conversation, whether we’re discussing a medical point or a psychological point, how can you tell how something hurts me or not; you can’t measure it, I defy you to take one machine known to science and measure anything that hurts me. You can’t; there’s only one way, one human being can tell if another human being is hurt and this is if the human being that is hurt will tell you. If the human being who is being hurt cannot communicate that by words to somebody else, then somebody else can never enter into the sufferings. And that is the most that you can enter in; when somebody who is being hurt can tell you that he is being hurt. Now that’s what God is doing here, He is telling us verbally by revelation, He says I know you can’t feel, you can’t put a machine on Me and tell me I’m hurt but I tell you verbally that when believers are persecuted it hurts Me. Now that leaves us in one of two positions, we can either say that this is a lot of hot air and that God really doesn’t mean this, He means something else, or we can interpret literally and say yes, okay God, nobody else can check on You and I’m in the position I would be with any other person, I can’t tell whether you’re being hurt unless you tell me, so therefore I take the same position toward God. I can’t tell whether God’s being hurt unless God tells me. Well, that’s what God is telling me here.

Psalm 125:2, “As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the LORD is round about His people from henceforth even forever.” Eternal security.

Verse 3, here is an outward evidence of this. Now this is a very peculiar argument and you have to take it slow to understand. Usually when you have “For,” it refers to something in past time. Usually it refers to a past event and that past event is used as evidence for the assertion that’s being made. But in this case, one of the rare cases I’ve seen in Scripture, in this case “For” refers to a future event because these were people being persecuted in Nehemiah’s day and the persecution was continuing, but in verse 3 it is a future event that is used to justify a statement about God. “For the rod of the wicked,” and “the rod of the wicked” is the political power, “rod” is scepter, and it is a symbol of governmental power and authority, “For the rod of the wicked one,” that is the persons situation, “shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous,” and “the lot of the righteous” here, if you look it up in the concordance, check its usage, it means the land of Israel. And what this is saying is that the political supremacy of the Gentiles shall not remain over the land of Israel; they shall not forever persecute us.

Remember the illustration I gave earlier, here you have the Persians and you have the Jews, that’s Nehemiah’s day, 516 BC. 1973 illustration, Satan and his hordes over the church of Jesus Christ on earth, and this would say, by way of analogy, that the rod of Satan shall not rest upon the body of Christ. The rod of Satan shall not rest upon the body of Christ.

Now verse 3, the most exciting part of Psalm 125 in my own thinking is the purpose of why the psalmist can say this is an absolutely certain future event, “lest the righteous one,” that’s the believer, “but forth their hands unto iniquity,” and the word “iniquity” means violence. And the picture is that I know God can’t let this go on because if He lets it go on the believers are going to crack, they’re going to fall apart, sooner or later every person has a limit to what they can endure. And so what verse 3 is saying is that God will respect the limit of pressure that you can take as a believer. He will not allow you to be tested above that which you are able? Why? He has his own self-interest in mind as well as yours because if He allows us to go on into a situation where the pressure becomes truly unbearable, then we will rebel against Him and our hands will take up iniquity, mental attitude bitterness on the inside and on the outside overt acts of violence.

Now it’s true that believers will do this and their hands will take up iniquity but that’s because their real level of capacity is up here. Suppose this is your divinely designed limit; suppose we design a little scale; now you can’t measure that scale and I can’t measure that scale, nobody can except God, but there is a scale that every one of us has and as we grow spiritually that scale gets higher and higher. But wherever you are on the maturity scale you have so many units of suffering that you can take, as far as God is concerned, before you’ll crack. And He knows exactly where it is and so He will allow the pressure to build up and to build up, build up and oh, I can’t bear it, I’m at the end of my rope. No you’re not, because if you were at the end of your rope God would stop it because He knows that your end is right there, and subjectively you’re not aware of that; subjectively when we get under pressure we think the end of our rope is down here somewhere and the pressure builds up, oh, I’m at the end and the pressure gets worse, and I’m at the end, and it still gets worse, I’m at the end, well if they were at the first place what are they on now.

There is an end to your rope and this Psalm as well as 1 Cor. 10:13 is identifying where that end is, and it’s saying at the end stands a guardian for you, that God is never going to let the pressure… it’s as though guardian angels are right there with a tremendous barrier and Satan can put pressure on you through circumstances, through all sorts of ways and they just stand there with their arms folded; this believer has a limit and we are here and we stop you. And that is what is taught here in this Psalm, “the rod of the wicked shall not…” because if it extends to the end of their rope “the righteous will put forth their hands to iniquity.”

Now verse 4 turns around and petitions that this comes to pass; this may be teaching us, incidentally, how to use 1 Cor. 10:13 in our experience. “Do good, O LORD, unto those that be good, unto them that are upright in their hearts.” In other words, Lord, this is Your promise, enforce it. Now in grace God enforces it anyway, because He’s never going to let you be tested above that which you are able, but God wants us to actively appropriate that promise. He wants us to actively appropriate it by a deliberate choice. God, “do good to them that are good,” these are the believers.

And verse 5, this is a warning, and the Psalm concludes on this warning note. And this is a warning against people who think they’re at the end of their rope when they’re really not. Historically the illustration, going back to Persia and the Jews in 516 BC, historically the Jews were under a tremendous amount of political pressure; historically some of them began to crack and the place where they began to crack was when they reverted to idol worship. The book of Nehemiah will give you some of these illustrations if you want to see the history of this. Some of these people cracked and became informants against Nehemiah, while they were building the wall and so on, and they became traitors to their country. Those are the people mentioned in verse 5.

Verse 5, “As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity,” now “those that turn aside” is a participle describing their character are believers who give up before the end, the real end of their rope is reached. These are the quitters, these are the people who always throw in the towel before the race is over. And these are the renegade Jews in that generation, those that “turn aside unto their crooked ways,” their “crooked ways” means they are turning to another way which is false. A false way is that this is the end of my rope, not something 20 yards on down the line, this I declare by my autonomous authority, is the end of my rope and I’m not going to take any more. And that is an act of rebellion against God. When you say I am not going to take any more you are asserting your personal authority against His. It’s His authority to decide how much you will and will not take, not yours, because He and He alone knows where the end of your rope is located.

And as for those who turn aside, “the LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity,” the word for “iniquity” here doesn’t mean evil, it means that which is unprofitable, and it speaks of human good. “Iniquity” is the word used so often in Ecclesiastes, that which is unprofitable, vanity is unprofitable, that kind of thing, and so here you have the idea of people that do a lot of things and its absolutely unprofitable. The quitters and the people who give up always try some human viewpoint scheme that never does a thing. It gives temporary relief only and has no value and it doesn’t last; it’s sheer temporary gimmick.

But finally on an optimistic note the Psalm concludes, “peace shall be upon Israel.” In other words that don’t quit, those that stick it out, those that stay in the land, with their loyalty to the land, that’s where the peace is coming. Peace is going to come geographically to the land so don’t be a screwball and be a traitor, go outside the land, go back to Persia, go back there, peace isn’t going to be there, peace is going to be in Israel so don’t quit.