Alright, now that our time is consecrated in prayer, we're going to be tackling Psalms 11 through 21 in this lesson, lesson 3 here. And only 10 Psalms, but there's so much here, it's going to be a very long lesson, we'll see how it goes. But what I want to do before diving into Psalms 11 through 21 is just remind you to a couple of things. Number one, generally practical reminder is try to read the Psalms of the lesson before you listen to the lesson because it will help you a lot.
This is poetry and it's very, very well structured, lots of literary devices and repetitions and patterns of themes and words. So you really want to try to absorb the Psalms themselves as much as you can. Hopefully, when you come to the lesson, you're going to get a lot out of the lesson with what I'm going to share with you. The links are the changes.
I'm going to show you how all the Psalms are connected. They're not randomly just thrown together here. They have a theme and they have a development. So if you read the Psalms ahead of time, it will really help you.
Then the other thing I want to remind you is to always have Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 fresh in your mind. Read it all the time. Any time that you sit down for a Bible study on the Psalms with me or really any time you can do it. Try to read Psalm 1 and 2 so much that you have it memorized because the entire Psalter is built upon those two themes.
So right now I'm going to take a little bit of time doing this, but right now I want to reread because they're going to be echoed a ton in Book 1, even in this lesson Psalms 11 through 21 and throughout the whole Psalter. So it's really worth your while to have the themes of Psalm 1 and 2 super fresh in your brain and in your memory because it will just be like this constant refrain throughout the rest of the Psalter. So Psalm 1 remember was, I'll try to do this quickly, but Psalm 1 was the description of the two ways, which is a very important wisdom theme. And again, I'm not going to get on a tangent here, but the Psalms, the book of the Psalms is 100% a wisdom book because all the characteristics of wisdom literature are found here.
The two ways, the fewer of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and so many other things. So Psalm 1 is about the blessed man who walks in God's way, who rejects the way of the sinners. In verse 2 it says that his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates, he haggaz day and night. He's like a tree by streams of water, etc.
But the wicked are like chaff, which the wind drives away by the, the hot summer wind drives away the chaff. The wicked will not stand in judgment and then, or nor the sinners in the congregation, the righteous for the Lord knows the righteous and the way of the wicked will perish. I basically swear the whole thing. So keep that in mind.
We're going to talk, be consistently talking about the two ways in almost every single Psalm, right? The most important thing is the way of the sinners. And though the righteous man is blessed and he meditates on the law, this is going to be important when we get to Psalm 19 as just one example, he meditates on the law. He is fruitful, but the wicked are punished and they can't stand God's judgment, etc.
So we're going to see that a lot in this lesson and others. Then it's Psalm 2. I actually will read all of Psalm 2 because it's all about the anointed one. It's all about the king who suffers but is given victory by God.
So chapter 2 verse 1, why do the nations conspire and the people's plot or haggah in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and his anointed saying, let us burst their bonds asunder and cast their cords from us. He who sits in the heavens, that whole concept, that vision of God sitting in the heavens, we're going to talk about that a ton in Psalms 11 through 21 as well. He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord has them in derision.
He will speak to them in his wrath and terrify them in his fury, saying, I will tell you, I have set my king on Zion, my holy mountain. I will tell you the Cree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage the ends of the earth your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Now therefore, kings be wise, be warned, or ruler to the earth, serve the Lord with fear with trembling rejoice or with trembling kiss the sun. Blessed be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are those who take refuge in him and circle the word refuge because the word refuge is going to be repeated a billion times.
So I want this song to be very fresh for you because we're going to see all these themes about the nations and peoples and kings and rulers fighting against God and fighting against his anointed. But then God is in his heavens and he is laughing at the enemies of David and then he's going to give David mastery and rule over all the nations and the blessed who meditate on the law of the Lord, they take refuge in God. That'll be repeated. Psalm 1 and 2, I repeat, Psalm 1 and 2 is going to be found so many times in the rest of this altar.
So I want it very fresh for you. All right, now on that, I think I've proved my point there. Let's now dive in and take each of these Psalms one after another. This may be a long lesson.
I have no idea. We're going to take each Psalm one after another now and continue to develop the theme of book 1. So book 1 is Psalms 3 through 41. It's good to have these things memorized and fresh.
It's book 1 is Psalms 3 through 41. And the main theme of book 1 is the suffering but righteous anointed king, the Davidic king, who trusts in God for victory over his enemies. Because of those the various peoples and nations conspire against him. He cries out to God for victory and God gives it to him from the heavens.
All right. So again, also keep in mind that it's all messianic. It's all typological of Jesus. Jesus is the perfect righteous but suffering king who has victory over his enemies and gives the blessed his saints, the generation of the righteous.
Great glory. Okay. So we're going to see that a ton. So Psalm 11, what I'd like to try to do, most of these Psalms are pretty darn short.
There's 6, 7, 8, 9 verses, not very long at all. I guess the exception would be Psalm 18. That's a pretty long one. We might just have to stick to the main themes there.
But what I want to do is read the Psalm. I'm going to give you, before you read it, I want to share with you the main theme of the Psalm, especially as it connects to previous themes. Because I really like, in this Bible study, I really want to share with you not just the typology, not just the personal relevance or the beauty of the Psalms. That's some of the literary imagery.
But I really have a lot of fun seeing how it all flows together, like links in a chain or I think I used the analogy before, like monkey bars. You swing from one monkey bar to the other monkey bar there in the playground because all the Psalms are very much connected. So I'm going to share with you what Psalm we're talking about, the theme of that Psalm and how it's connected to the previous ones, then I'm going to read it and then I'll take you through the notes here going through some of the highlights. All right.
So I'm going to read it in verse 11, verse 1. In the Lord, I take refuge. Okay. I just have to stop.
Just as an example. Immediately with verse 1, you see the word refuge being repeated, like we just read in Psalm chapter 2 verse 12, blessed are all those who take refuge in him. So when you see the word, and I'm not going to say this every single time, but every time you see the word refuge, think of Psalm 2 12. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in the Lord.
So when the Psalm is saying, I take refuge in you Lord, what the Psalm is saying is he is the blessed man. He is the blessed righteous king of Israel who takes refuge in God. Okay. All right.
In the Lord, I take refuge. How can you say to me, flee like a bird to the mountains? For behold, the wicked bend the bow, they have fitted their arrow to the string to shoot in the dark at the upright and heart. If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord's throne is in heaven. His eyes behold his eyelids tested children of men. The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked and the soul hates him that loves violence.
On the wicked, he will rain coals of fire and brimstone. A scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous, he loves righteous deeds. The upright shall behold his face.
All right. Excellent. So what's going on here is the psalmist of David, of course. He's refusing to flee from the wicked.
The wicked that we've been talking about in all the previous psalms, including Psalm 1 into the introduction, but last lesson we looked at Psalms 3 through 10. So the wicked are always being discussed there. He refuses to run from them. And instead, he trusts in God's judgment.
God is in the heavens, judging from his heavenly throne. And he is going to take refuge in God. So fleeing to the mountains, as it says, I refuse to flee like a bird to the mountains. Fling to the mountains in scripture, I have different passages for you here.
Genesis 19, 1st Maccadise 2, Jesus says something similar, Matthew 24. That is a refrain, kind of a repeated refrain of fleeing to safety. When you go to the mountains, you flee to safety like Maccadise and all of his family and friends and friends. Okay, well, he's not going to do that.
His refuge is in God. All right. So the blessed takes refuge in God almighty and doesn't run away. I kind of like that as well, too, because you have to face your challenges.
More often than not, you have to face them taking refuge in God and not run from them. But taking refuge in God is a constant theme in the Psalms, a constant description of God. He is our refuge, our rock. We're going to talk about that in this lesson as well, too.
So the refuge of God is because he's in his throne, is in his holy temple, his heavenly temple. And that's where he's going to test both the righteous and the wicked. So God does dwell amongst his people in the earthly temple, the temple of Solomon. Really, the temple of Solomon is just a foreshadowing or a type, a glimpse of really the heavenly temple.
And you got to go into the book of Exodus to discuss this a lot more. I do that in the Bible study there, so check it out, where the blueprint that Moses receives or building the tabernacle, which Solomon amplifies, is based on the blueprint of the heavenly temple. So worship of God on earth is a participation of worship of God in heaven. And that's going to be very important in New Testament theology as well.
And also in just our liturgical theology, when we worship God and the holy sacrifice of the mass, heaven and earth are united in this very profound, real metaphysical way. And so our worship of God on earth is a participation in the heavenly worship. So when you're seeing this in the Psalms many different times that God is in heaven, he's in his throne in his holy temple in heaven. There's this participation that heaven and earth are really governed by his justice and his righteousness and his mercy.
All right, well in this case it's talking about how he tests both the righteous and the wicked. So the wicked it says here on the wicked he's going to rain coals of fire and brimstone and a scorching wind shall be the portion of the cup. Couple of things here. So again, it connects with Psalm 1 because remember the wicked are like chaff which the wind drives away.
Well, chapter 11 to 6 here about how the scorching wind shall be the portion of the cup. It's a repeat of chapter 1. So there's a connection immediately, but the fire and brimstone part here recalls the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah, a very, very famous story in Genesis chapter 19 where fire and brimstone rains down from the heavens upon the ungodly and the wicked in those cities and really all the cities around those two major ones in the valley. So there's a reminder here that everybody should know about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and what happened to them.
So the Psalmist is saying that's going to happen again to the wicked of any age that really fight against God and is anointed one. But because the Lord is righteous himself and this is a constant title of God in scriptures, he is righteous, he is holy, so therefore he loves the righteous man and woman of course. He loves the righteous and he's got the righteous one will see his face. So there's a contrast between the wicked and the righteous.
That's all of Psalm 1. It's a development of the two ways and the punishment or the reward that's going to be given to the wicked and the righteous respectively. But the reward for the righteous is much more beautifully developed here in Psalm 11 and later on as well about seeing God's face. That is a great reward of intimacy and friendship with God.
Now Moses, to see God's face is throughout the entire Bible as the greatest of all of our rewards that the righteous could have. He could have that intimacy and friendship with God to talk to him face to face as a man speaks to a friend. So Moses did have this privilege during the Exodus. But then unfortunately after the golden calf he loses this privilege because he has solidarity with the sinful people and he's no longer able to see God's face even though he desires it.
But he did have that ability to speak to God in the tabernacle face to face for a while. Then he loses it and then ultimately in the transfiguration his wish is granted where he does speak to Jesus face to face and so his prayers answered. So he desires to see God's face and to see the face of Jesus is to see the face of God. So that's kind of a cool beautiful connection.
But Moses really is the model of this in the Old Testament of talking to God face to face. And Moses and the Exodus that's a lot of Exodus background imagery and all of the Psalms. And we're going to see this a little bit as we go through it. But seeing God face to face is exemplified so beautifully with Moses.
Now the holding God's face is what we call the beat to the vision. That's what the real joy of heaven is all about. And there's so many different verses in the Old Testament and the New Testament that describe that I have Job Chapter 42 verse 5 for you where at the end of the whole long book of Job after all of his sufferings he just simply says to God I have seen your face and I'm sufficiently happy. Like I'm happy just to see your face.
And that's where he really matures and converts in his like kind of court case against God. Psalm 42 to every just a couple of these for you. Psalm 42 verse 2 says my soul thirsts for God for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?
So it's describing this longing to see God's face. Jesus speaks about this and the sermon on the Mount's right. Bless our the pure heart for they shall see God. Seeing God is something that only the pure and heart can do.
Only the righteous can do. First John chapter 3 verse 2 is another one I have for you. Really beautiful on that same theme. Let me flip ahead.
First John 3, 2. Behold we are God's children now. It does not yet appear what we shall be. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is.
And on that verse I want to just quickly explain the beatific vision to see God as he is. That's what heaven really is. We typically think of heaven as just a really great day. You know the sun is shining the birds are chirping.
I'm in a good mood. I got a good night's sleep. I feel healthy and energetic. Everything is going my way.
I have a great feast in front of me of food and wine and whatever it might be right. But that's not what heaven is. I mean heaven is for sure all the joys and happiness of earth magnified a bajillion times. But truly heaven is the beatific vision to see God to know God and to love God as God knows and sees and loves himself.
Which is going to be a perpetual unveiling to our poor human souls and the faculties of our soul. And all of eternity contemplating God as who he is. That's just powerful. And so the catechism talks about this in numerous paragraphs.
But I just gave it to you paragraph 1045 because it sums it up nicely. This is the beatific vision which is what heaven is. In which God opens himself in an inexhaustible way to the elect. I love that word inexhaustible.
He opens us, opens himself to us in an inexhaustible way. And it will be the ever flowing wellspring of happiness and peace and mutual communion. That is what heaven is going to be. And so this is my point here in Psalm 11 is going to come up again later on, later in the lesson.
This is what the psalmist desires. See your face. The psalmist knows that only the righteous are going to see the face of God. The unrighteous are going to be judged and they're going to receive the punishment to fire in brimstone like those people at Sodom and Gomorrah.
So the upright to the righteous will be hold his face. That was Moses' privilege. That is the constant proclamation of the Old and the New Testaments. The sea God as he sees himself.
So the blessed man, the man who takes refuge in God like Psalm 2 says is going to see the face of God in his presence. And we'll unpack that more as we go along as well. So I hope that makes sense here for just Psalm 11. We talked a lot about that.
But it's just a really wonderful development of Psalm 1. We're going to be getting to describe a little bit more details what the reward will be for the righteous, the way of the righteous, but the punishment for the way of the wicked. All right. Enough about that.
Let's move on to Psalm 12. Now Psalm 12 continues the theme of God's judgment on the wicked. The wicked are going to be called the sons of men or the children of men. We actually really just saw that in chapter 11 verse 4.
You can underline that. So the Lord is in his holy temple. We're going to see that theme be repeated many times. And his eyelids test the children of men also called the sons of men.
It's all just the synonyms right there. So children men or the sons of men, they're going to continue to be judged. So Psalm 12 continues that theme of God's judgment on the wicked or the AKA children or sons of men. So let's read it now.
It's very short. Help Lord for there is no longer anyone that is godly, for the faithful have vanished from among the sons of men. Everyone utters lies to his neighbor with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the Lord cut off all flattering lips, the tongue that makes great boasts, those who say with our tongue we will prevail.
Our lips are with us. Who is our master? Because the poor are despoiled because the needy groan. I will now arise as the Lord.
I will place him in the safety for which he longs. The promises of the Lord are promises that are pure, silver refined and affernous on the ground purified seven times. Do O Lord protect us, guard us forever from this generation. On every side the wicked prowl as vileness is exalted among the sons of men.
So really chapter 12 there's kind of an inclusion going on. The Psalm begins and ends as book inverses talking about the sons of men who are vile and wicked. Okay, so it's a lament Psalm continuing the theme of God's judgment on the wicked and it begins by the psalmist bemoaning that everyone is ungodly. There's all people are ungodly now and we saw before in chapter 10 verses 6 and 11 and 13 if you flip back there you'll see that the wicked all of his thoughts are there is no God and he thinks in his heart I shall not be moved and he thinks in his heart God has forgotten hidden his face and he says in his heart you will not call us into account.
Chapter 10 which was the last song we talked about in the last lesson it's about the wicked thinking in his heart, desiring his heart all these wicked things but now in Psalm 12 he's openly speaking against God with his lips and his tongue. So what was in his heart and his thoughts in chapter 10 are now being spoken openly by his lips and his tongue in chapter 12. You see the development there and there's kind of an interesting little structure in so chapter 12 verses 3 and 4 it mentions lips and then tongue then tongue then lips is kind of an A, B, A structure right there, A, B, B, A lips and tongue then tongue then lips. So they are completely speaking with their lips and tongue all of these evils that really flow out of their heart.
Now when I was reading this it makes me think of St. James, the gospel not the gospel but the epistle of James chapter 3 James launches in and the number of verses 1 through 12 he launches into these warnings about the dangers of the tongue. I'm going to try to flip there right now and read a little bit for you. The tongue has always been a great potential for good for worship of God but for evil where we curse God and we speak evil of our brothers and our sisters.
So for example we'll go to chapter 3 verse 2. I'm not going to skip. Verse 1 is actually really scary for me but I'll start right there. Not many of you become teachers for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
That always makes me a little scared because I'm a teacher right like oh boy I better be very very careful here. But about the tongue he goes on in verse 2 James chapter 3 verse 2 we all make many mistakes and if anyone makes no mistakes in what he says he is a perfect man able to bridle the whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses that they obey us we guide their whole bodies. Look at ships also though they are so great and are driven by strong winds they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs.
So the tongue is a little member in both of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire and he goes on to talk about the dangers of the tongue that we have to curb the tongue and we have to master it lest we cause great evil with it. So I think of James chapter 3 here when the Psalmist in Psalm 12 verses 4 and 5 are talking about the evil lips and the evil tongue that the wicked have in proclaiming various blasphemies against God and against his anointed there. Now Psalm 12 does go on to say that God will come to the aid of the victims of the ungodly who speaks at horrible things.
The poor and the needy God arises verse 5 to save them and place them in safety for which he longs. And we can count on this because the promises of the Lord are pure like silver refined seven times. That is really lovely. So seven is the number of the covenant.
So whenever I see seven whenever you see seven you need to think covenant. So what's going on here is that the promises of the Lord are like his covenant that is pure and precious. Precious like silver right refining seven times so it's pure and precious and you can trust in God's purity. So God's pure words and his pure promises are contrasted here with the impure words of the ungodly.
And the Psalms are always these repetitions and contrasts and doublings and all this stuff. So the wicked have impure lips and impure tongue but the promises of the Lord those are pure. So trust him because he will be faithful to his covenant and his promises are pure and precious like more than silver. Okay and then there's one more little plea here at the very end in verse seven.
Lord protect us and guard us forever from this generation. You can underline this generation that will be contrasted here in a second as well. So this generation the generation of David is wicked and evil. Now there's an echo here the word generation to the generation of Moses.
Now the generation of Moses that didn't go so well for them did it. The generation was judged because they were wicked and there's an echo to the generation of Moses. So there's the generation of Noah which I'm getting this outright correctly. There's a generation of Noah that was wicked and judged and there's the generation of Moses that is wicked and judged because remember that entire first generation of Israelites that left Egypt they all died in the wilderness except for Joshua and Caleb.
So they're judged and they're because of their wicked and they died. And then also in Jesus' own generation he'll save us in the gospels. He'll lament the wicked and evil generation of his own time and they too are judged by the Romans in the year 70. So now David's generation is evil.
So when you see this you know to save me from this evil generation think of Noah and Moses and Jesus where God delivers his righteous one from the unrighteous wicked people that live all around him. Alright so hope that makes sense then. So then Psalm 13 another lament Psalm this is a development because the Psalmist is now impatient. He is lamenting the delay of God's judgment on the wicked.
Right? So we've just been talking about the wicked in many previous Psalms especially Psalm 11 and 12 in this lesson. But now he trusts God but he's impatiently waiting for God to do something about this. That's what this the flow is the link in the chain so far.
Let me read it for you chapter 13 verse 1. How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I bear pain in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and answer me, O Lord my God, lighten my eyes lest I sleep the sleep of death. There's a threefold, lest going on, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say I have prevailed over him and lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken. But I have trusted in your said, your merciful love, my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to the Lord because he has dealt bountifully with me. All right, just six verses there, that's it. All right, so he is impatient. He knows that God will judge the wicked from, as we saw in chapter 11 from his holy temple, his throne in heaven, his eyes see all the children of men and the wicked will have judgment following all this stuff.
But now he's impatient and he says how long, four times, he says how long until your judgment comes. And there's also another connection that we saw. Remember in chapter 11 verse 7, the righteous and the upright will see his face. So we talked at length about that's the beat of the vision.
That's the hope of heaven at the righteous will have eventually to have friendship with God. And now he's saying how long will you hide your face from me to see God's face. This is being delayed here. Now I find all of this very, very relevant.
I try it my hardest not to make current event applications with all of this with current corruptions and whatever politics or the church or anything like this. But many times we pray the words of the Psalmist and we say how long Lord until your justice reigns. We know that there's the wicked out there. How long until you do something about it?
Because quite frankly, I'm sick and tired of watching the wicked take advantage over the poor and the vulnerable, right? So I think this is totally relevant. Like in the words of St. Athanasius from the introductory lesson, St.
Athanasius says the Psalms reflect all the movements of the human soul. You know where we want to be righteous and we seek the face of God and we know that God will judge the wicked. But for crying out loud, it's taking forever, right? It's taking forever and we want God to do something about it as fast as possible.
And our heart is sorrowful like the sorrowful heart of the psalmist here, despite all the attacks of the enemy. All right. So again, we can really, really relate to all these powerful beautiful prayers. They're very raw, very real prayers here.
Now in the end, he trusts in God mercy. And that's a constant refrain also or a theme in the lament, or lament Psalms. The lament Psalms are real. They're tough.
They're raw crying out to God for vengeance or for help or for assistance because they're lamenting a particularly bad situation. But they always accept for really Psalm 88. They always end on some kind of moment of trust in God, praising in God's mercy and just waiting on him. So he's never despairing, but he isn't distressed, but he never disbears.
So that was that last verse in chapter 13 verse 5. I've trusted in your said, your merciful steadfast covenant love. So now my heart rejoices. So this is a great lesson on patience.
And so I provided for you a quote from St. John of the Cross. It's found in your name of our Bible. But he says, St.
John of the Cross says, all souls understand that if God does not immediately grant what we seek and what we need, he will not leave him waiting long if they persevere and prayer and do not allow themselves to become either dismayed or discouraged. That's really lovely. We very much can be impatient where we do trust in God and our hearts do rejoice in him. But we're like, God, how long until this happens?
Let me say one more thing on that, by the way. So as we study the Psalms a little bit more throughout these next number of lessons together and we look at lament Psalms and even more imprecatory Psalms, which as I explained in the introductory lesson, imprecatory Psalms call for vengeance on his enemies. He's calling for justice against his enemies. Now that's a very real desire of the human heart, but it's the New Testament that teaches us that we need to take that very normal natural desire and we need to transform it by grace by praying for our enemies.
Now God will bring justice. Don't worry about it. Like he is the true avenger, as the Psalms say. So he will avenge all injustices on his good time.
But the Bible will say Ezekiel, 1 Timothy, 1 Peter, and Timothy, they're going to say God is patient with the wicked, hoping that they would repent because he does not delight in the death of the wicked. So while we're sitting down here saying, God, how long until you take vengeance on the enemy of your people, he's saying to us to be patient, he's in control, he will have justice, but in the meantime we need to pray for their conversions, which is hard. We need to love our enemies and forgive them if they repent, have that forgiveness ready to give to them if they ask for it. Okay, so there's a lot to the whole biblical picture about this.
But again, the Psalms do present very real emotions of impatience, of desire for justice. All right, that's enough for Psalm 13. Now let's move on here to Psalm 14, another lament Psalm. Hey, this is Dr.
Nick. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at Scriptureandtradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want. So thank you so much.
God bless you and keep setting your Bible.