Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Hearer of Prayer, the Gatherer of All Flesh: From Zion to the Nations (Psalm 65:2)

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The Hearer of Prayer, the Gatherer of All Flesh: From Zion to the Nations (Psalm 65:2) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reformed thinking. For a lot of people, prayer can
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  feel like, well, a habit, maybe a spiritual technique or even
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  just a quiet moment of reflection.
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  It's so often seen through the lens of what we're doing, what
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  we're bringing to the table. But today we're aiming for a
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  deeper and I think a more challenging view of what's going
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  on. We're doing a deep dive into
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  just one line of Scripture. It's from Psalm 65, verse 2.
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  O you who hear prayer, to you shall all flesh come.
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  Our whole mission today is to get beyond this idea of prayer
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  to some kind of self help or therapy.
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  We really want to dig into what this verse teaches about the one
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  we're speaking to. And maybe most critically, has
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  someone like us can even have access to him in the 1st place?
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  Because the moment David says that all flesh, which is, you
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  know, frail mortal humanity will come to this holy here, well,
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  you run smack into a huge theological problem, a real
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  tension. How does a pure, a glorious God
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  accept the approach of sinful creatures without frankly
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  incinerating them? The answer, and it's what
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  anchors this entire Psalm, isn't in the quality of our prayers.
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  It's in the divine provision that we find right away in
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  verses 3:00 and 4:00. So this one single verse, it
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  really lays out the absolute reality of worship, who God is,
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  the exclusion of all rivals, who the worshipper is, and the
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  guaranteed outcome. OK, let's unpack this.
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  Let's start with that central glorious identity that the Psalm
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  gives to God. It's the whole reason we're
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  drawn to Him in the first place. It really is the cornerstone of
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  the verse, isn't it? It starts with what is almost a
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  perpetual title for God. Show me at the Fila.
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  The English translation Hearer of Prayer is good.
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  It's accurate. But the Hebrew structure
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  underneath is doing a lot more heavy lifting than the English
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  really let's on. So it's more than just an action
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  he performs. Much more, We're not talking
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  about something God decides to do on a Tuesday or, you know, a
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  temporary phase of his activity. The Hebrew uses what's called
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  the call active participle, and in simple terms, that structure
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  describes A settled, A perpetual characteristic.
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  It is what God is fundamentally and eternally.
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  Think of it like describing the sun as perpetually shining or a
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  powerful river is constantly flowing.
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  It's not something they decide to do, it's what they are.
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  In his very essence, God is a shomiya, the one who hears.
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  He is always eternally attentive.
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  That's a radical idea when you stop and think about it.
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  It's so radical that it inherently challenged.
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  It is almost every other worldview out there.
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  I mean, look at the history of false religion, whether it's
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  ancient polytheism or modern secularism.
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  What do you find? You find men and women screaming
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  into a cosmic void trying to get the attention of a distant or
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  indifferent or maybe just a non existent deity.
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  Right. You think of Elijah and Mount
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  Carmel. Exactly.
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  The prophets of Bale are crying out.
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  They're cutting themselves, and all they get is dead silence.
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  Idols are mute. They have carved ears, as Psalm
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  115 famously says, but they hear nothing.
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  And our world today is often just as functionally mute.
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  Secular naturalism insists the universe is just cold,
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  impersonal stuff, that there's no personal subject listening or
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  responding to human appeal. But the God of Scripture is a
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  living, conscious subject who has defined himself by his act
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  of listening. He doesn't need to be woken up.
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  He doesn't need to be persuaded to pay attention.
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  Attentiveness is just woven right into his divine nature.
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  That detail about the quail active participle really does
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  make the statement far more comforting.
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  It means we're approaching a fixed, constant person, not some
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  fickle judge who might or might not listen based on our mood or
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  his. Precisely.
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  And that leads us to a really crucial theological guardrail
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  here. Why does God, who is omniscient,
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  who knows all things, why does he need to hear our prayers?
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  Why does this even matter if he already knows the end from the
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  beginning? That's the big question, isn't
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  it? If he knows the sovereign decree
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  in the future, how do we keep prayer from becoming, I don't
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  know, just rote or fatalistic? If we believe he's predetermined
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  all things, aren't we just performing a kind of spiritual
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  theater? That is the right question to
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  ask because the answer completely redefines the purpose
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  of prayer. God hears not to gain data, but
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  to grant fellowship. OK, so it's about relationship,
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  not information. Exactly.
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  We have to reject any system, something like open theism, that
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  suggests God is using our prayers to get new information
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  about the world or the future. He's not discovering our needs
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  as we speak them. Prayer is not a means to inform
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  God. It is the means by which He
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  involves His people in the execution of His own sovereign
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  decrees. So he's chosen to work through
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  our prayers. He's ordained it that way.
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  He's decided that certain outcomes will only come to pass
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  through the instrument of his people's petitions.
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  It's his chosen way of delighting in our dependence, of
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  hearing the sound of his creatures turning to him for the
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  very things he has already promised to give.
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  It's an act of communion. Not, not computation.
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  And this understanding, it carries just immense pastoral
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  comfort, especially for what our source material calls the weary
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  St. Yeah, Every single person of
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  faith struggles with that feeling of divine silence.
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  We pray desperately for the salvation of a loved one or for
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  an end to some relentless suffering.
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  And the answer is delayed or it just seems like the heavens are
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  made of brass. And in those moments, it's so
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  easy to believe he isn't hearing.
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  It is, but we are commanded not to interpret God's hearing based
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  on the immediacy of our feelings.
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  We have to interpret it based on the objective, stated truth of
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  Scripture. A delay in the answer is never,
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  ever a defect in God's hearing. He is not deaf.
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  Instead, it is a design of His wisdom.
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  It's meant to refine our faith, to teach us patience, and to
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  cultivate a sustained dependence upon Him.
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  The objective fact remains, he is the show Maya.
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  He is perpetually hearing and receiving.
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  Our experience has to submit to his revealed character.
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  That reframes the entire effort, doesn't it?
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  It changes prayer from this burdensome duty that we have to
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  perform into a guaranteed interaction because the basis
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  for the connection is his constancy, not our effort or,
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  you know, our eloquence. Now let's look at the exclusive
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  direction of that prayer. David doesn't just say God hears
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  prayer. He immediately follows it with
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  that critical trajectory at Aika to you.
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  Our sources point out that the psalmist uses a technique here
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  called emphatic fronting in the Hebrew.
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  David intentionally shoves that preposition to you right to the
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  front of the claws. It's like the literary
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  equivalent of using a massive spotlight.
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  It just excludes all other possibilities, and it fixes the
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  soul's gaze, one singular, distinct reality.
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  It's a very assertive declaration of worship.
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  And that specific direction to you is really the divine counter
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  argument against all sorts of vague spirituality, especially
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  the modern tendency to make God into a principle rather than a
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  person. The Psalm assaults that we come
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  to a living, conscious, distinct subject who is sovereign over
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  the world. We're not just connecting with a
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  universal energy or an inner cosmic force, and we're
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  certainly not just indulging in some therapeutic self talk with
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  our subconscious. It's a personal address.
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  It's deeply personal, and this direct address this to you.
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  It provides essential clarity and immediately rebukes two
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  major errors. First, it rejects pantheism, the
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  idea that God is confused with the world, that God is
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  everything. Reich God is everything then to
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  you is meaningless. You're just praying to the chair
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  and the air in yourself. You are.
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  And 2nd, it rejects Deism, the idea that divorces God from the
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  world, suggesting he wound up the clock and just walked away.
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  The fact that the ultimate ruler is addressed as a personal you
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  asserts his living imminence, his present involvement against
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  that deist's distant, uninterested designer.
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  So it sets up some really strict doctrinal boundary lines.
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  It connects directly to the historical reform teaching on
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  the regulation of worship. It does.
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  It's so clear that religious worship and prayer is a chief
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  part of that worship is due to God alone.
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  When the Bible says to you it is establishing A strict,
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  unbreachable boundary for our devotion.
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  There's no confusion possible about the object of our worship.
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  That specificity is absolutely critical.
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  Yes, because the human heart is, as Calvin said, an idol factory.
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  It's constantly looking to insert something or someone else
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  into that spotlight. And that human tendency to
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  insert intermediaries is precisely what this verse just
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  demolishes. Throughout history, sinful flesh
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  has tried to build these complex ladders of devotion.
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  Saints. Angels.
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  Human priests. All of it trying to bridge the
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  gap between ourselves and the Father.
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  The thinking is always I am too impure to approach the throne,
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  so I have to ask someone holier to do it for me.
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  But Song 65.2 sweeps that whole architecture away with that
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  emphatic to you. It doesn't say to the Saints or
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  to the appointed ecclesiastical authority.
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  It directs the approach only to the hearer of prayer.
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  The New Testament confirms this with absolute precision.
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  There is only one mediator, Christ Jesus.
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  We have immediate access through Him, which means the entire
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  structure of secondary intercession is doctrinally
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  excluded. We reject the practice of
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  seeking help from anyone who is dead because our access has been
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  perfectly and permanently purchased by the one high
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  priest. And if we broaden that scope a
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  bit, that exclusive address directly confronts the spiritual
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  pluralism that defines our current era.
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  The cultural assertion is that, you know sincerity is the only
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  currency that counts, that all spiritual roads lead up the same
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  mountain. That cultural sentiment is
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  entirely undercut by the grammar of this verse.
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  The prophecy that all flesh will come is not a validation of all
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  religions. It's a prediction of the
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  eventual triumph of the one true God, the God of Zion, the God of
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  Abraham. To come to any other is not to
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  pray, it's to engage with a lie or a substitute.
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  So the destination matters. The destination is everything.
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  If the destination were vague, the nature of the God you
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  addressed wouldn't matter. But because the destination is
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  Adika, A distinct, specific holy person, all other spiritual
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  paths are rendered null and void.
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  The direction of the soul determines the destiny of the
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  man, and that direction must be exclusively God Word.
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  The soul is designed to find its rest only in its designated
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  home. Trying to address anyone else is
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  like trying to find true north with a compass that only spins
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  aimlessly. You'll feel perpetually off
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  kilter, always searching, never arriving.
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  OK, so we've established the attentive character of God and
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  we've established the singular target of our approach.
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  But that very singularity, the holiness and exclusivity of the
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  destination, it leads us straight to the terrifying
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  question, who is actually qualified to make this approach?
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  Who is this immense worldwide gathering that's destined to
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  approach the hearer of prayer? And David chooses a word that's
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  meant to be profoundly humbling. It's almost shocking when you
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  juxtapose it with the glory of God.
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  He says Kolbyshire, all flesh. He doesn't start with the pious
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  or the powerful or the spiritually gifted.
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  He starts with those who are temporary.
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  Flesh. Flesh.
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  The term Bashar is just loaded with theological significance.
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  It's the scriptural counterpart, spirit or stone.
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  It emphasizes creatureliness, frailty, weakness, mortality.
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  To come as flesh is an inherent admission of absolute bankruptcy
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  and need before an all sufficient God.
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  We are dust born, we're blood pumped temporary creatures.
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  We pray because we are Busher and He is the everlasting God.
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  We are the dependent variables in the universe, entirely
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  contingent on Him. That sense of frailty is what
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  the modern world works so hard to deny though.
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  We're told to be self reliant to affirm our own strength.
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  When you read this, it sounds like the necessary motivation
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  for prayer is desperation, not confidence, and that's a hard
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  position to take in a culture built on self esteem.
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  It absolutely contradicts the entire ethos of humanism.
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  The whole modern project promotes self-reliance.
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  It tells us we're the masters of our own fate, that we're capable
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  of solving all problems with our own reason or technology.
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  Psalm 65.2, just by calling us flesh, demolishes that pride.
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  True prayer, meaningful prayer, begins precisely where
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  self-reliance ends. And even within the visible
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  church, this is a direct challenge to what's often called
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  the prosperity gospel. Which elevates man.
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  It elevates man almost to the status of a little God who is
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  capable of commanding reality with His words.
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  This Psalm reminds us that we approach the throne of grace not
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  as partners or equals, but as those who are made of earth,
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  looking to the transcendent One who created the earth.
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  If you genuinely feel strong and capable on your own, you have
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  functionally acknowledged no need to pray because you haven't
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  yet embraced your true identity as basher.
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  So the identity of the petitioner is defined by
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  weakness, but the scope is it's universal.
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  Yes. While the term flesh grounds us
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  in our frailty, the Word all expands the vision to a
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  universal prophetic certainty. David's focus moves immediately
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  from Zion to a global horizon. He's ensuring that the prophecy
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  includes the nations, the Gentiles.
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  This is a crucial pivot point. It indicates that God's purpose
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  was never limited to the chosen nation of Israel.
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  The God who is the hearer of prayer is the God of the whole
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  earth. And this lines up with so many
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  other Old Testament prophecies. It does.
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  It aligns perfectly with the prophetic anticipation that the
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  nations will eventually stream to the Lord.
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  The purpose of God's covenant with Abraham was always meant to
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  bless all fairies of the earth. This universal scope, captured
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  by Cole Basher, indicates that God's plan includes A worldwide
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  pilgrimage and a global worship gathering.
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  OK. But before we move on at the
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  solution for how flesh can approach, we have to put up that
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  necessary guardrail here. The promise that all flesh will
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  come has often been twisted to support universalism, the idea
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  that every single individual will eventually be reconciled to
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  God. That distortion completely
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  mounted the nature of God's access.
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  The scope is certainly globally wide, but the access is defined
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  entirely by God's cleansing and electing grace, which we're
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  about to see in verse 4. The coming is a prediction of
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  God's triumph, not a guarantee of individual salvation for
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  every single person whoever lived.
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  So how do we understand all flesh will come?
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  Well, our sources rightly point out that there are two ways
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  Kolbosk will come to God. There is a coming for salvation
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  which is voluntary and motivated by faith and repentance, and
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  then there is a coming for judgement, which is compulsory.
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  It's forcible. The Apostle Paul affirms this
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  universal submission when he writes in Philippians that every
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  knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ
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  is Lord. Every knee believer and
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  unbeliever. Every single one.
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  So the fundamental question for every human being is whether we
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  choose to come now in repentance, or if we are forced
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  to come later as subjects of judgement.
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  The universality of the coming is inescapable, but the
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  condition for blessed safe access is singular atonement.
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  And that brings us right to the hinge, the core theological
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  problem that the Psalm refuses to ignore.
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  David has set the stage a holy God the hearer, on one side and
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  a weak, sinful subject, flesh on the other.
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  These two realities cannot intersect without a catastrophic
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  event unless something changes immediately after the invitation
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  in verse 2. David pivots to the colossal
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  obstacle in verse 3. When iniquities prevail against
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  me, you atone for our transgressions.
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  And the source material is just essential here.
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  Sin creates A terrifying, unbridgeable separation between
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  sinful flesh and the holy God. Isaiah stated it so clearly.
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  Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your
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  God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He
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  does not hear. So our sin is the barrier to the
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  hearer of prayer. It is the barrier.
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  The Holy God cannot just ignore sin.
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  That would compromise His essential justice and His
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  Holiness. If flesh tries to approach the
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  divine presence without mediation, the result is
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  consumption, not communion. And David is brutally honest
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  about that human condition. He uses the phrase De ray
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  avenant or matters of iniquity, and he admits that these sins
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  prevail against him. That Hebrew verb is so strong it
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  implies an overwhelming military force.
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  It suggests that the worshipper is spiritually conquered,
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  completely overcome. This is the law doing its
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  crushing, necessary work. It exposes our utter
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  disqualification from approaching the throne.
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  Our hands are unclean. Even our most sincere prayers
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  are stained by our pervasive guilt.
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  So if we came based on our own sincerity or our own goodness or
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  our religious performance. The only righteous thing the
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  hearer of prayer could do is execute judgement.
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  The moment we acknowledge that our iniquities prevail, we are
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  at the end of ourselves, and that is the necessary
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  precondition for truly understanding the Gospel.
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  But right at that point of crushing confession, David
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  shifts from human failure, my iniquities prevail, to God's
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  glorious and immediate action. You atone for our
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  transgressions. It's a breathtaking pivot.
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  It's the law gospel dynamic in perfect operation, just
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  compressed into a single verse. The Law drives us to confess our
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  utter spiritual bankruptcy, and then the gospel immediately
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  assures us that God himself has provided the solution.
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  And the word he uses for a tone is the Hebrew khafar.
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  It is a rich, highly specific Levitical term.
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  OK. So it's not just forgive in a
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  general sense. Not at all.
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  In its most basic sense, it means to cover, to purge, or to
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  make propitiation. And crucially, it is not God
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  simply waving away sin with a casual dismissal.
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  That would be cheap grace, and it would compromise his justice.
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  Instead, Kafar describes the violent act of covering sin
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  through a prescribed bloody substitution.
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  Back to the Old Testament sacrificial system.
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  Yes, in that context, the worshipper could only approach
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  the hearer of prayer because the blood of the sacrifice had been
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  spilled covering the offense. The animal died, the man lived
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  and was granted access. The basis of approach is not the
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  intensity of human petition or the frequency of human
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  performance, but God's prior act of propitiation, His covering of
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  sin. And this distinction is
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  paramount, isn't it? Especially for understanding
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  access. From a Reformed perspective, the
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  only safe ground to approach God is the gospel ground,
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  justification by faith alone, accepted through the provided
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  merits of another. We come because God is merciful
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  enough to provide the solution to the very problem we created.
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  And this divine initiative leads directly into verse 4, which is
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  why it's perhaps the most glorious statement in the entire
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  Psalm regarding access. He says blessed is the one you
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  choose and bring near to dwell in your courts.
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  And notice the shift in pronouns.
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  The shift is everything. Notice he goes from the first
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  person singular me in verse 3. Iniquities prevail against me to
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  the divine second person active verbs in verse 4.
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  You choose and you bring near. So access isn't something we
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  earn. It's not an earned reward at
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  all. It is purely a gift of divine
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  initiative. The language is unmistakable.
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  This is a reformed understanding of effectual calling and saving
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  grace. God does not merely extend an
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  indifferent invitation that we may or may not choose to accept.
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  Like a waiter offering a menu, He actively draws those fairies
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  he has chosen, overcoming their natural sinful resistance and
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  granting them the ability to come in faith.
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  OK, here's where it gets really interesting.
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  So grace then, is not the prize we get after we successfully
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  come to God. No grace is the very reason
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  anyone comes at all. That's it exactly.
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  And this entire logical foundation, God's hearing, the
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  need for atonement, the subsequent nearness, it all
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  finds it's perfect historical culmination in Christ.
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  Yes, the Old Testament sacrifices were just the
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  shadows. They were the promissory notes.
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  In Christ we find the substance. He is the true atoning
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  sacrifice, and He is the only perfect mediator between God and
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  man. Which means the New Testament
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  reality makes prayer utterly bold.
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  It does. We draw near, not on the basis
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  of our prayers being sufficient, but on the certainty of His
• 19:27
  blood, as the writer of Hebrews insists.
• 19:30
  Since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the
• 19:32
  blood of Jesus, let us draw near with a true heart in full
• 19:36
  assurance of faith. And our access is secured not
• 19:39
  just by his past sacrifice, but also by his present ministry.
• 19:42
  That's right, Christ always lives to make intercession for
• 19:45
  us. He is standing at the right hand
• 19:47
  of God as our advocate. So God hears our prayer because
• 19:51
  it is filtered not by our merit, but through the perfect merits
• 19:54
  and constant intercession of His Son.
• 19:57
  The great truth of Psalm 65.2 is that we are welcomed not because
• 20:00
  we are naturally brave or worthy, but because the barrier
• 20:03
  of sin has been irrevocably removed by Christ's flesh,
• 20:07
  allowing our poor temporary flesh to approach the eternal
• 20:10
  God. So if Christ is the perfect
• 20:12
  foundation that secures this approach for flesh, then that
• 20:15
  initial vision of all flesh coming must expand globally,
• 20:19
  which naturally leads us to the redemptive historical
• 20:21
  fulfillment of the Psalms great prophecy.
• 20:23
  Right. Psalm 65 is situated in Zion,
• 20:26
  which was the appointed city of David, the location of the
• 20:29
  Tabernacle and later the temple. Zion was the center of covenant
• 20:33
  worship. It was the only place where
• 20:35
  authorized sacrifice spoke of substitution and where the
• 20:38
  presence of God was uniquely known.
• 20:40
  But. It was never meant to be the
• 20:42
  final destination. No, Zion was always designed to
• 20:44
  be a launching point, not a spiritual cul-de-sac.
• 20:47
  It was a foretaste of something infinitely greater.
• 20:50
  The vision of God was expansive from the very beginning.
• 20:53
  I mean, think back to the promise to Abraham.
• 20:55
  It included all the families of the earth being blessed through
• 20:58
  His seed. The prophets consistently
• 21:00
  anticipated a day when the Gentiles would join the worship
• 21:03
  of Israel's God. Isaiah in particular.
• 21:06
  Yes, Isaiah specifically looked forward to foreigners joining
• 21:09
  the Lord, declaring that God's house shall be called a House of
• 21:13
  prayer for all peoples. Notice that consistent logic all
• 21:17
  through the Old Testament prayer is central because the temple
• 21:20
  signifies access, and that access was never intended to be
• 21:23
  ethnically sealed. Psalm 65.2 sounds that same
• 21:27
  global note that the God who hears prayer will not be sought
• 21:30
  only by 1 nation or one tribe, but by Khol Bashar, all flesh.
• 21:35
  Which sets the stage perfectly for Christ's ministry.
• 21:37
  When Jesus walks into the temple, his actions aren't just,
• 21:40
  you know, moral complaints. There were prophetic
• 21:42
  declarations about the Temple's true destiny.
• 21:44
  Yeah, it's a great way to put it.
• 21:45
  When? He cleanses the court of the
• 21:46
  Gentiles, driving out the money changers.
• 21:48
  He insists that the temple should be a House of prayer for
• 21:51
  all nations. He is explicitly quoting Isaiah.
• 21:54
  And he's recentering the whole focus on access to God, moving
• 21:57
  the emphasis away from commerce and ritualistic nationalism.
• 22:01
  But then comes his staggering foundational claim that
• 22:04
  recenters the entire meaning of Zion.
• 22:07
  He says destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it
• 22:09
  up. And John in his Gospel explains
• 22:12
  clearly that Jesus was speaking about the temple of his body.
• 22:15
  This is the crucial, irreversible, redemptive
• 22:18
  historical shift. The physical temple was merely
• 22:21
  typological. It was the God appointed shadow.
• 22:24
  The true permanent meeting place between God and sinful man is a
• 22:28
  person, the Incarnate Son. He is the new temple.
• 22:32
  He is the true temple. Christ becomes the fulfillment
• 22:35
  of the Psalmist's logic. God is the hearer of prayer and
• 22:38
  sinners from all nations come because Christ provided the once
• 22:42
  for all atonement. That the Levitical system could
• 22:44
  only prefigure The whole structure of Psalm 65.
• 22:47
  Hearing, atonement, nearness, and coming, it all sharpens into
• 22:51
  perfect focus at the cross and resurrection.
• 22:54
  Access is opened. Prayer becomes bold because the
• 22:56
  true Temple has arrived and the true High Priest intercedes for
• 22:59
  us from the Father's right hand. And from Christ the horizon just
• 23:03
  blows completely open, exactly as Psalm 65.2 prophesied.
• 23:07
  The risen Lord sends the Gospel outward, commanding that
• 23:10
  repentance and forgiveness of sins be proclaimed to all
• 23:12
  nations. Yes, the Day of Pentecost then
• 23:14
  becomes this dramatic signal of the prophecies fulfillment that
• 23:18
  in gathering of languages, Parthians, Medes, Elamites,
• 23:21
  visitors from Rome. It's the direct realization that
• 23:25
  the promise of all flesh is now being realized through the
• 23:28
  Spirit. The barriers are falling.
• 23:30
  Paul takes this global inclusion, and he articulates it
• 23:32
  as a core design principle. In his letter to the Ephesians.
• 23:36
  He describes the Gentiles who were once far off as being
• 23:40
  brought near through Christ's blood.
• 23:42
  The Atonement created one new man in place of two.
• 23:45
  And the result. The result is that both Jew and
• 23:48
  Gentile have access in one spirit to the Father, the church
• 23:52
  itself, composed of people from every background who have been
• 23:55
  chosen and brought nearby grace, becomes the holy temple in the
• 23:58
  Lord, a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
• 24:01
  So Zion's initial prayer promise has gone global because the true
• 24:04
  temple has arrived and the Spirit is gathering worshippers
• 24:07
  from every corner of the earth to approach God through Christ.
• 24:11
  But the final consummate fulfillment is still ahead of
• 24:14
  us, which confirms the eschatological certainty of the
• 24:17
  text. Absolutely.
• 24:18
  The final outcome is guaranteed by the one who hears prayer.
• 24:22
  We see the vision captured magnificently in the Book of
• 24:25
  Revelation, where the apostle John witnesses a vast multitude
• 24:29
  that no one could number, and they are gathered from every
• 24:32
  nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages.
• 24:36
  They are standing before the throne and before the Lamb,
• 24:38
  crying out salvation to God. The ultimate fulfillment of
• 24:42
  Kalbushar. It's the perfect realization of
• 24:45
  David's prophecy, the historical path from Zion's local worship
• 24:49
  to Christ's singular sacrifice to the worldwide mission to the
• 24:52
  nations. It is one unfolding story
• 24:55
  guaranteed by divine purpose. The God who hears prayer has
• 24:58
  purposed by atoning grace to gather Cole Basher to himself,
• 25:02
  resulting in worldwide endless worship.
• 25:05
  That magnificent vision demands A practical response from us
• 25:07
  today, but before we get to application, we have to put up
• 25:10
  some doctrinal guardrails to make sure we don't twist this
• 25:12
  truth. That's why.
• 25:13
  The first error the Psalm guards against is universalism.
• 25:16
  As we already discussed, we really have to stress that the
• 25:19
  coming is defined by God's choosing and cleansing.
• 25:21
  In verse 4, the scope is global, but the means of access is
• 25:26
  graciously restrictive. The coming is secured by grace,
• 25:31
  not assumed just by virtue of being human.
• 25:34
  A second error to reject is the temptation toward mysticism and
• 25:37
  the reliance on new subjective revelation.
• 25:41
  Our confidence in prayer has to rest entirely on God's
• 25:43
  established character and the objective written truth of
• 25:46
  Scripture. Prayer is not a private pipeline
• 25:49
  for fresh, authoritative messages that supersede the
• 25:52
  Bible. That's a key point.
• 25:53
  God's definitive speech is in His Word, and prayer is our
• 25:56
  speech to God in response to that word.
• 25:59
  The confidence of this Psalm is anchored in the objective fact
• 26:01
  of atonement, not in the fluctuating feelings or
• 26:04
  experiences of the person praying.
• 26:06
  And finally, we have to confront the error of technique or
• 26:08
  pragmatism. We must resist the idea that
• 26:11
  God's hearing is some kind of mechanism we control, where a
• 26:14
  lever we can pull to get guaranteed results.
• 26:16
  The modern church often suffers from this pragmatic
• 26:19
  reductionism. It treats prayer as an optional
• 26:22
  spiritual growth hack or a pregame pep talk before the real
• 26:26
  ministry of programs and strategies begins.
• 26:29
  Psalm 65 just refuses that commercialized view of
• 26:32
  spirituality. It humbles the church because it
• 26:34
  forces us to acknowledge that God's hearing is the free
• 26:37
  attention of the sovereign Lord. He owes us nothing, yet He gives
• 26:41
  us everything through Christ. Our attempts to manipulate Him
• 26:44
  with intensity or technique are rejected.
• 26:47
  True prayer is simply humble, dependent communion.
• 26:50
  OK, so if this expansive truth is true, that God is the
• 26:53
  perpetually attentive hearer and our access is secured solely by
• 26:56
  the atoning merits of Christ, what is this demand of the
• 26:59
  individual believer today? Well, the first.
• 27:01
  Demand is startlingly straightforward.
• 27:03
  If God is the hearer, then prayerlessness is functional.
• 27:06
  Atheism. Wow, it is.
• 27:08
  It's living as if God were deaf or distant or just irrelevant to
• 27:11
  the actual outcomes of our lives.
• 27:13
  We must pray frequently, plainly and with desperation, not
• 27:16
  because we have to persuade God to be kind, but because his
• 27:19
  character is defined by attentiveness and he waits for
• 27:21
  our dependence. And second, our confidence has
• 27:24
  to be secured by Christ's merits, not by our own
• 27:28
  self-assessment of our spiritual intensity.
• 27:30
  Yes, we come to the throne of grace with confidence in what
• 27:33
  Christ has done, but with humility and who we are.
• 27:37
  The Christian never has to worry about whether they prayed hard
• 27:39
  enough, long enough, or loud enough, because the
• 27:42
  effectiveness of the prayer is tethered to the infinite merit
• 27:45
  of the Sun, not the finite merit of the Sinner.
• 27:47
  And the third demand? Constant, humble repentance.
• 27:51
  We have to begin where David began, confessing that
• 27:54
  iniquities prevail against us. We have to constantly flee to
• 27:58
  God's mercy through the Mediator.
• 28:00
  Our prayers must be shaped by what Scripture teaches about
• 28:02
  God's holiness and his cleansing power, rather than by our own
• 28:06
  fleeting moods or our desires for comfort.
• 28:09
  A revived prayer life begins with confessed guilt and trusted
• 28:12
  pardon. And beyond the individual
• 28:14
  believer, what does this magnificent vision demand of the
• 28:17
  Church, the corporate body gathered in the new Zion today?
• 28:20
  Well, corporate prayer is not an optional feature.
• 28:23
  It's not an expendable meeting slot.
• 28:25
  It is the fitting, necessary public expression of a God
• 28:29
  centered dependent people. The church that allows corporate
• 28:32
  dependents to be replaced by human theatrics, slick marketing
• 28:35
  or sheer administration is becoming dangerously wheat.
• 28:39
  So it should be central. Psalm 65 calls congregations to
• 28:42
  seriousness, and they're praying to corporate confession, united
• 28:45
  supplication, and overwhelming Thanksgiving for the grace that
• 28:49
  grants them access in the first place.
• 28:51
  And furthermore, the vision of all flesh must force us into
• 28:55
  expansive praying. The local church's petitions
• 28:58
  have to be widened beyond private internal comforts or the
• 29:01
  immediate needs of the congregation.
• 29:02
  Right. Our prayers have to match God's
• 29:04
  global purpose. Exactly.
• 29:06
  This means deliberately petitioning for the advance of
• 29:08
  the Gospel to unreached peoples, for persecuted Saints across the
• 29:11
  globe, for the conversion of the lost, and for faithful,
• 29:14
  courageous leaders. Our prayers must be as wide as
• 29:18
  God's promise to gather all flesh.
• 29:20
  And for those in leadership within the church and family,
• 29:22
  pastors, elders, fathers, the demand is clear.
• 29:25
  You have to model desperate dependence.
• 29:28
  Straight. The leader who is too busy to
• 29:29
  pray is, by this standard, too busy to be faithful.
• 29:33
  Shepherding souls is not merely management or administration.
• 29:36
  It's a spiritual task that requires spiritual weapons.
• 29:41
  Leaders have to spend time interceding by name for their
• 29:43
  people, pleading for holiness and praying over the very word
• 29:47
  they preach and over the souls entrusted to their care.
• 29:50
  This means consistently resisting the extremes, both the
• 29:53
  cold formality of ritual that lacks heart and the manipulative
• 29:56
  emotionalism that seeks to generate feeling rather than
• 29:59
  dependence on truth. Prayer is humble communion with
• 30:03
  the Holy God, anchored in His truth and offered in faith.
• 30:06
  And the final application of this entire passage really
• 30:08
  challenges the shallow, self-centered understanding of
• 30:11
  prayer that's often associated with prosperity thinking.
• 30:13
  The ultimate, the greatest answer to prayer is not improved
• 30:17
  circumstances. It's not financial gain or
• 30:19
  perfect health. The greatest answer is restored
• 30:22
  communion with God, rooted in forgiveness and secure access.
• 30:26
  When prayer is truly shaped by the logic of Psalm 65, that we
• 30:29
  come to the hearer of prayer only because he is also the God
• 30:32
  who atones, it moves from being transactional, you know, seeking
• 30:37
  to serve our finite agendas, to being.
• 30:39
  Doxological seeking to serve God's infinite glory.
• 30:42
  Exactly. We ask God to be glorified as he
• 30:45
  pardons, as he gathers, and as he sanctifies the people who
• 30:48
  have been chosen and brought near to him.
• 30:50
  And finally, that dual reality, the God who hears and the God
• 30:54
  who cleanses it acts as both a gracious invitation and a
• 30:57
  sobering warning for the one who has not yet come to faith.
• 31:00
  The invitation is crystal clear and unconditionally merciful.
• 31:03
  Come now. Don't wait until you feel like
• 31:06
  you've cleaned yourself up, because that is impossible for
• 31:08
  Basher. Come now to the God who
• 31:10
  cleanses, trusting His provision.
• 31:12
  The promise that all flesh will come includes you.
• 31:14
  Your guilt, your frailty, your deepest fears are all within the
• 31:17
  scope of the Hearer of prayers. Mercy.
• 31:20
  And the warning. The warning is equally clear and
• 31:22
  inescapable. You will come one way or
• 31:24
  another. You can come now in voluntary
• 31:26
  repentance and faith, or you will come later, forcibly, when
• 31:29
  every knee bows and every tongue confesses.
• 31:32
  Do not mistake God's incredible patience and attentiveness for
• 31:35
  indifference or weakness. The door of mercy is wide open
• 31:39
  today, but it is entered only through the Savior God has
• 31:42
  provided. So when we pull it all together,
• 31:45
  what does this all mean? The essence of Psalm 65.2 is
• 31:48
  this majestic declaration of saving access.
• 31:51
  God is perfectly attentive to us.
• 31:53
  Access to Him is secured only by the atonement He provided in
• 31:56
  Christ. And the certain outcome of this
• 31:58
  gracious provision is a guaranteed worldwide gathering
• 32:02
  of worshippers that includes people from every nation and
• 32:04
  background, all united and drawing near to the one true God
• 32:08
  who cleanses. Them.
• 32:08
  That's a great summary. The verse leaves us with this
• 32:11
  profound comfort, knowing that God isn't fickle or distant in
• 32:15
  His attention. And it leaves us with an
• 32:17
  inescapable Commission. If all flesh is truly coming, we
• 32:22
  must pray and preach with the utter conviction of those who
• 32:24
  believe that promise. You know, it's worth reflecting
• 32:27
  that the Psalm doesn't stop with atonement.
• 32:30
  It continues describing God's control over all of creation,
• 32:33
  setting mountains in place, stilling the seas.
• 32:36
  And it concludes by declaring that the Lord crowns the year
• 32:38
  with bounty, visiting the earth to water it and ensure the
• 32:41
  harvest. Since the God who hears prayer
• 32:44
  is also the Lord of all creation who supplies Our Daily Bread,
• 32:47
  how might acknowledging his dual role as forgiver and provider
• 32:51
  change the content of your daily prayers this week?
• 32:53
  Especially those prayers that are focused on mundane earthly
• 32:56
  needs and the visible provision you currently enjoy?
• 33:00
  That's a deep thought to carry with you.
• 33:01
  Thank you for joining us for this deep dive into Reformed
• 33:04
  thinking.