Latest / Reformed Thinking / Great Is the Lord, and Greatly to Be Praised (Psalm 145) | Charles Spurgeon

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Great Is the Lord, and Greatly to Be Praised (Psalm 145) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  You know, usually when we talk about a medical diagnosis, there
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  is this expectation of absolute precision.
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  Oh, for sure. Like, it is like engineering,
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  right? You fall off a ladder, you break
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  your arm and the X-ray just shows that jagged white lion on
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  the black film. And the doctor just points a pen
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  at it and says, well, there it is.
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  That is the problem. Yeah, it is binary.
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  I mean, it is broken or it's not broken.
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  You see the fracture, you set the bone, you put it in a cast
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  and you are done. Right.
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  It is clean, it is visible, and honestly, it is comforting.
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  We love things that can be categorized and placed neatly
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  into a box. But then you step out of the
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  clinic and into the world of human emotion or spiritual
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  distress or just trying to understand the massive realities
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  of the universe, and suddenly that X-ray machine is, well, it
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  is totally useless. Oh, absolutely.
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  We find ourselves looking at a diagnostic landscape that is
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  honestly, it is murky because you cannot take an X-ray of the
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  human soul. You cannot put existential dread
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  into an MRI machine. You really cannot.
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  The human condition simply does not fit onto an imaging screen
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  when you were dealing with grief, or a crisis of belief, or
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  even just an overwhelming sense of awe at the universe.
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  The lines are never just black and white.
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  It is the absolute definition of diagnostic Muddy Waters.
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  Well, welcome to Reform Thinking.
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  Today we are taking a deep dive into a text that functions as a
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  stabilizing framework when you find yourself swimming in those
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  Muddy Waters. We are looking at a 3000 year
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  old manuscript. And very specific one at that,
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  right? Specifically, we are unpacking
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  Charles Spurgeon's exposition on Psalm 1:45 and we are pulling
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  this from his massive multi volume work, The Treasury of
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  David. Our mission today is to extract
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  the core truths and the astonishing historical insights
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  surrounding what is essentially David's ultimate song of praise.
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  Yeah, we want to give you a shortcut to being well informed
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  on this text. I mean, let's be real.
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  In a world filled with constant noise and stress and shifting
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  opinions, examining this ancient manuscript provides an
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  incredible lens for understanding divine
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  sovereignty, absolute might, and very tender care.
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  It really does, and what stands out immediately in Spurgeon's
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  analysis is the unique designation given to this
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  specific text. If you look at the entire
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  Psalter, I mean all 150 Psalms, this is the single one titled
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  David's Praise. Just that one.
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  Yeah, just the one. In the original Hebrew, the word
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  is tahila. It is his crown jewel.
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  Sturgeon points out that this is not the song of a young, naive
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  shepherd boy sitting on a hillside playing a harp.
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  This is the song of a man of vast experience, a man of
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  sincerity and very calm deliberation.
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  Right, because David's resume is just wild.
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  He had seen the absolute pinnacle of absolute monarchy.
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  I mean, he had the wealth, the military victories, the
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  adoration of the crowds, but he had also seen the absolute
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  lowest pits of betrayal running for his life, hiding in caves
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  and dealing with his own spectacular moral failure.
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  Yeah, his life was not a straight lineup.
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  Not at all. He lived a life of intense,
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  staggering extremes. And when a man with that
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  specific life history, someone who has been crushed by his own
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  sin and rescued by divine grace, sits down to write his
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  definitive final song of praise, we should probably pay close
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  attention to the structure he uses.
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  He does not just throw words at a page.
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  He chooses A fascinating, almost artificial framework.
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  Let's unpack this framework, because to grasp the magnitude
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  of this dahila, we first have to look at the mechanics of it.
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  We are looking at an alphabetical Psalm.
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  Yeah, it is an acrostic. In the original Hebrew, each
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  verse begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
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  It is a highly structured, deliberate literary device.
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  Which is kind of wild to think about.
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  It is, and Spurgeon notes, that the Holy Spirit condescends to
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  use even these artificial methods of the poet to secure
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  attention and impress the heart. In an oral culture, you know
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  this is a brilliant memory aid. If you know the alphabet, you
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  know what letter comes next, which helps you remember the
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  next line of the song. It is super practical, but here
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  is where the mechanics get incredibly interesting.
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  It is an alphabetical Psalm, but there is a striking anomaly
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  right in the middle of it. This is one of my favorite
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  details. The Hebrew letter None.
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  It is omitted. It is entirely missing.
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  The text goes straight from the letter mem to the letter Samic.
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  And that omission is not just a typo.
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  I mean it has sparked centuries of thought.
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  Cassie Doris, a Roman statesman and writer from the 6th century,
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  made a beautiful observation about this missing letter.
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  He suggested that the Psalms with perfect alphabetical order,
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  where every single letter is present and accounted for, fit
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  the Church triumphant in heaven. Perfect, complete, without flaw,
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  right? But those Psalms missing a
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  letter like this one represent the Church Militant here on
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  Earth. The Church Militant versus the
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  Church triumphant. Let's break that down for a
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  second. For everyone.
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  The Church militant is the body of believers right now, walking
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  around on a Tuesday, fighting sin, dealing with sickness,
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  struggling with doubt. We are in the trenches.
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  Exactly. We are still imperfect.
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  We still need to be curified from defect.
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  We are missing a letter, so to speak.
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  The Church Triumphant refers to those who have passed on, who
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  are in the presence of the King, where the battle is over and
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  perfection is realized. I really love that concept.
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  It reminds me of a deliberate flaw in a Persian rug.
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  Oh yeah, I have heard of that. You know how rug makers will
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  intentionally include a small mistake in their intricate
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  geometric designs? They do it based on the belief
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  that only the divine is perfect, and for a human to create
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  something flawless would be arrogant.
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  It makes you wonder if the Holy Spirit uses these structured
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  artificial methods, complete with their missing letters,
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  specifically to aid human memory while also pointing out our
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  present incompleteness. We are a masterpiece, but we are
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  a masterpiece with a missing nun.
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  That is a great analogy. And inside that imperfect
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  earthly structure, David makes a flawless personal vow.
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  He does not let the imperfection of his state stop his adoration.
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  In the very first 2 verses he declares, I will extol thee, my
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  God, O King, every day will I bless thee, and I will praise
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  thy name forever and ever. Notice the repetition of time.
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  Every day, forever and ever. Worship here bridges the present
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  mundane reality and eternity. He is making a binding daily
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  resolution. The Puritan writer Thomas
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  Goodwin caught something staggering about the nature of
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  the specific vow. When we read I Will Praise Thy
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  Name, we often wear our own baggage into what praise
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  actually means. We really do.
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  Goodwin points out that this song is purely praise.
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  If you read through it, there are no personal petitions, no
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  requests at all. Nothing.
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  David does not ask for safety from his enemies.
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  He does not ask for forgiveness for his past.
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  He does not ask for his daily bread.
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  It is pure adoration directed at the king.
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  Goodwin observes that David is elevated to a frame of spirit
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  entirely separate from what was particular to himself.
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  Think about the mechanics of our own prayer lives for a second.
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  I mean, you listen to this. How often do our prayers consist
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  entirely of a shopping list? Probably most of the time.
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  We treat the divine like a cosmic vending machine.
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  We put in a little bit of reverence, push the button for
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  the specific outcome we want, and wait for it to drop into the
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  tray. But here, David is doing
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  something entirely different. He empties his hands of his own
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  needs and he says he will do this forever and ever.
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  Now I will admit my modern brain hears forever and ever and
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  thinks wow that sounds exhausting.
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  It does. Will eternal worship not become
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  monotonous? Like, are we just going to be
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  bored? It is a totally common modern
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  anxiety. We get bored so easily.
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  We think of eternity as sitting on a cloud playing a harp, and
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  we imagine the sheer boredom of doing that for a trillion years.
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  But Spurgeon addresses that head on.
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  He argues that eternal worship shall not be without its
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  variations. It will never become monotonous.
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  Heavenly music is not harping upon one string.
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  Every day brings a new variation of adoration.
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  Right, because the object of the praise is infinite.
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  If you are examining something finite, eventually you learned
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  everything about it. You see all the angles, you
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  understand how it works, and you move on.
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  But if the object of your praise is infinite, you will never run
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  out of new angles to appreciate. Yeah, that makes sense.
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  You could spend 10,000 years looking at one facet of divine
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  sovereignty, turn it slightly, and spend another 10,000 years
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  looking at something entirely new.
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  Which logically opens up the massive question of what
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  precisely David is praising. This brings us to the sheer
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  scale of the subject matter in verse 3.
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  It says great is the Lord and greatly to be praised, and His
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  greatness is unsearchable. Unsearchable.
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  That is a really heavy word. It is.
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  The Latin Vulgate renders it as having no end, and the Greek
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  scholars described it as something that cannot be traced
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  out, is infinite. You cannot put a measuring line
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  around it. You cannot chart it on a map.
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  The text mentions a poem by Joseph Addison that captures
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  this mechanical inability of humans to measure.
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  God. Asian wrote through all eternity
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  to thee a joyful song I'll raise.
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  But oh, eternity is too short to utter all thy praise.
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  It is a mathematical impossibility.
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  Yeah, the math just does not workout for us.
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  It is like a sailor trying to sail across an infinite ocean.
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  You can build the best ship, you can set your compass perfectly,
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  you can raise your sails and travel for a lifetime, but you
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  always end up back at the starting point conceptually
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  because you cannot cross the infinite, you just experience
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  more of the ocean. And the physics of Infinity
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  demand that the task of praising Him cannot be completed by one
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  person or even one generation, because God is unsearchable.
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  The responsibility has to be communal and historical.
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  This leads to verse four. One generation shall praise thy
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  works to another, and shall declare thy mighty acts.
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  So it gets handed down. Yeah, there is a continuous,
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  unbroken tradition of praise. History is not just a sequence
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  of random events, a chaotic tumbling of empires and natural
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  disasters. From this perspective, History
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  is a collection of chapters where each generation
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  contributes its own record of divine acts, creating a massive
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  ongoing volume of matchless character.
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  So let's bring this down to the ground level for you, the
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  listener trying to figure out your place in the world.
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  What does this idea of generational praise actually
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  mean? Henry Allen made a striking
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  observation about this. He pointed out the solemn
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  phenomenon of human succession. He said the material Earth
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  abides while changing generations leave footprints in
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  the dust, quickly effaced. Think about that imagery.
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  It is kind of sad, honestly. It is We come into the world, we
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  step in the dust, erasing the footprints of our ancestors who
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  walked the same ground, and then almost immediately, our
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  footprints are washed away by the next generation.
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  We leave with amazing rapidity. It is a very humbling thought.
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  We build our careers, we buy our houses, we think we're making
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  these permanent marks on the world, but in the grand scheme
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  of things, it is just dust. Within a few generations, our
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  names are mostly forgotten. Yet Alana argues that
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  participating in this tradition, passing down this oral record of
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  goodness and might, gives permanent value to our brief
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  lives. It ties our fleeting, dusty
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  existence to the eternal. We become a necessary link in a
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  chain. We get to be the bridge.
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  We hear the stories from the generation before us.
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  We add our own lived experience, our own chapter of what we have
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  seen God do, and we hand that combined volume to the next
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  generation. We are part of the transmission
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  of the unsearchable. But as David talks about passing
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  down these stories, he takes an unexpected turn.
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  He focuses on events that typically make people tremble.
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  There is a major tonal shift in the text here.
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  Verses 5 through 7 move from the beautiful and the great to the
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  terrifying. Men shall speak of the might of
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  thy terrible acts. We have a massive, ingrained
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  human obsession with bad news. I mean, it is wired into US.
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  Oh, totally. The text points out how people
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  in the Savior's Day talked endlessly about the falling
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  tower of Salome, or how dread loosens the tongue of the
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  multitude regarding the plagues of Egypt or the drowning of
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  Pharaoh's army at the Red Sea. We've seen a car crash on the
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  highway and traffic slows down for miles because everyone has
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  to look. Yeah, the rubbernecking effect.
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  We doom scroll on our phones, actively seeking out the
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  disasters under mercies. Men may be dumb, but concerning
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  misery as they raise a great outcry.
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  Horrible news spreads quickly because the force of dread makes
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  the hair stand upright and the ears tingle.
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  It is a survival mechanism. But David takes these fearsome
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  facts, these terrifying historical events, and looks at
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  them in a completely different light.
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  Instead of gossiping about disasters and fear, he declares
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  them as mighty deeds of a sovereign king.
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  He acts as a herald, publishing the titles of his royal master.
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  And then David does something singular.
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  He does something that completely goes against the
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  grain of modern sensibilities. In verse 7 he says, They shall
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  abundantly utter the memory of thy great goodness, and shall
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  sing of their righteousness. When he says righteousness here
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  he is talking about strict justice.
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  And singing of mercy is completely natural.
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  Everyone loves a pardon. If a governor pardons a
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  criminal, crowds cheer. But a song of justice that is
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  rare To rejoice in the strict, unyielding rectitude of a judge
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  is a difficult concept for the modern mind to grasp.
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  Modern thinkers often want to expunge the idea of strict
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  justice from their notion of the divine.
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  They prefer a deity who just winks at flaws.
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  Like a cosmic grandfather. Exactly.
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  A grandfather who hands out candy, Pats you on the head and
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  completely ignores the broken windows and the terrible things
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  you have done. But a judge who ignores a crime
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  is not a good judge. He is a corrupt 1 The text draws
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  on the Scottish theologian John Mclaurin to unpack the
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  theological bedrock. Here, Mclaurin argues that for
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  the believer, divine justice is actually the secret foundation
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  of hope. OK, wait, how does that work?
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  How does the terrifying concept of strict justice become a
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  foundation of hope? Because of the substitution on
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  the cross, Mclaurin notes, it is an easy thing to conceive of the
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  Creator's glory in the good of an innocent creature.
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  Blessing someone who's in nothing wrong makes logical
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  sense, but the glory of the righteous judge manifested in
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  the good of the guilty criminal, that is the mystery of the
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  Cross. Because Christ stepped in as the
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  substitute. The debt we owed for our broken
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  windows, our moral failures, our sins, was massive.
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  But Christ pays it. And because the debt is paid in
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  full, justice itself requires and secures the salvation of the
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  redeemed. God would not violate his moral
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  government to say His own. He did not manifest mercy at the
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  expense of justice. He magnified His righteousness
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  by the death of His Son. The penalty was fully born.
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  That is incredible. It is therefore justice is no
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  longer a terror to the believer, It is the absolute guarantee of
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  their security. A just judge cannot demand
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  payment twice. That completely upends how we
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  usually view judgment. That makes the attribute of
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  justice the sinner's best friend.
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  We usually think of justice as the gavel coming down to condemn
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  us. We hear the word judgement and
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  we brace for impact. But if the penalty is already
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  paid, the gavel comes down to acquit us.
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  The law itself demands our freedom.
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  That is a massive paradigm shift.
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  It changes the song from a dirge of fear into a genuine
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  celebration. And recognizing that this strict
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  justice is fully satisfied allows us to look at the
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  immense, overflowing compassion God shows to the entire world
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  without feeling like He is just ignoring sin.
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  Which brings us to verse 8. The Lord is gracious and full of
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  compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy.
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  And verse 9 immediately follows up with the Lord is good to all.
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  I love the quote from Thomas Watson here to illustrate this.
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  He says sweet dewdrops are on the Thistle as well as on the
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  Rose. He visualizes how the sun shines
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  on the fields of the wicked just as brightly as on the righteous.
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  The diocese where Mercy visits is very large.
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  Yeah, it covers everything. Think about it.
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  Even Pharaoh, whose heart was hardened and who actively
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  opposed God, had his head crowned with worldly glory and
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  wealth for a time. This introduces A vital
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  theological distinction between general Providence and electing
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  love. We need to define these terms.
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  General Providence is the reality that God is good to all
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  his creation. He gives food, comfort, gravity,
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  oxygen and sunlight to his fiercest enemies.
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  The rain waters the crops of the atheists and the believer
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  equally. But there is a special,
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  intentional praise that comes only from the Saints.
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  Right, the text notes a difference in the response.
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  It says his works praise him, but his Saints bless him.
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  The natural world, the mountains, the oceans, the
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  animals praises Him by its mere existence.
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  A mountain praises God simply by being a massive, immovable rock
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  that reflects the Creator's might.
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  But the Saints bring something different.
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  They bring intelligence, will, and affection.
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  To bless Him means they actively wish Him well, they understand
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  the grace they've received and respond with conscious,
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  affectionate gratitude. And the nature of the compassion
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  they are responding to is incredible.
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  The text shares an analysis by Lancelot Andrews on the original
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  Hebrew word used for tender mercies, which is rachamim.
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  The linguistics here are fascinating.
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  Andrews points out that the root word for rajamim comes directly
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  from the Hebrew word for the womb.
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  It signifies not just a general distant pity for someone who is
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  struggling, but the intense biological natural compassion of
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  a mother for her unborn child. It adds the strongest possible
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  natural affection to the concept of Divine Mercy.
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  A. Mother's fierce, protective,
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  visceral love. There is nothing abstract about
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  it. It is intensely physical and
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  intimate. Furthermore, these mercies are
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  described as being over all. Andrews describes this visual
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  carefully. Is not just something tall, like
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  an obelisk or a flagpole standing in a field that you can
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  look at but offers no real shelter from the rain.
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  Instead, it is like a massive vault, like the Great Vault of
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  the Firmament, spanning the entire sky, or a great rock in a
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  blazing desert. It spreads itself completely
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  over everything, allowing all creatures to retire under its
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  shadow and take covert from the heat and The Tempest.
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  Wait, if God planned the world for happiness, and if his tender
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  mercies are like a mother's womb and a massive sheltering vault
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  over all creation, how do we explain disease?
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  Yeah, that is the big question. Why is there cancer?
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  Why do innocent people suffer? If the vault is covering us, why
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  are we still getting hit by the storm?
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  It is the unavoidable question whenever we talk about divine
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  goodness. The text addresses this by
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  looking at the original design versus the current fallen
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  reality. The incoming of sickness, pain,
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  and death was not according to the original design.
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  The human body, as it left the Maker's hand in Eden was not
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  framed for disease or decay. The incoming of pain is the
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  direct result of a disordered state brought about through
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  human guilt. The fall of man marred the
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  handiwork. So the suffering we experience
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  is an intrusion. It is an anomaly in the
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  operating system. It was not coded into the
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  original software. Yes, we are living in a
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  fractured world. Yet even in this sin stricken
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  world, under its highly disordered economy, there are
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  abundant traces of a hand skillful to soothe distress.
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  The text notes that God has laid up in the natural world cures
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  for our ailments. He left remedies within the
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  earth, medicinal plants, the properties of chemistry, the
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  ability of the immune system to heal for humans to discover.
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  Over time, the inevitable pain of a fallen world is softened
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  with immense mitigations. He never takes delight in the
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  ills of His creatures. That massive, sheltering
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  compassion is not the work of a distant, inactive force.
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  It is the active, daily administration of an unrivaled
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  monarch. And that shifts our focus to the
• 19:15
  anatomy of the everlasting Kingdom.
• 19:16
  In verses 11 through 13. They shall speak of the glory of
• 19:20
  Thy Kingdom, and talk of Thy might.
• 19:22
  Notice how the text sets up a deliberate contrast between
• 19:25
  earthly kingdoms and the divine Kingdom.
• 19:27
  Robert Bellermine, a historical theologian, outlined 4 distinct
• 19:31
  differences between the kings of this world and the King of
• 19:33
  Heaven. It is a master class in putting
• 19:35
  human authority into perspective.
• 19:37
  Let's walk through those points because we often map our
• 19:39
  frustrations with human politicians onto God.
• 19:41
  First, earthly kings have incredibly few subjects and
• 19:45
  limited wealth. Even the greatest empire in
• 19:47
  history, the Romans, the British Empire, Genghis Khan, only
• 19:51
  controlled a fraction of the globe, and only for a short
• 19:54
  time. Their wealth is finite, but God
• 19:57
  rules angels, demons, and all material wealth on land, in the
• 20:01
  sea, and in the air. The entire cosmos is his
• 20:04
  jurisdiction. Second, earthly kings depend
• 20:07
  entirely on their subjects. Without taxes, tributes, and the
• 20:11
  physical labor of the people, the King is nothing.
• 20:14
  A king cannot farm his own food, forge his own swords, and fight
• 20:18
  his own war simultaneously. He is supported by those he
• 20:21
  rules. God, however, is completely
• 20:23
  independent. He possesses absolute aseity.
• 20:26
  He needs nobody's help. He could bring from nothing much
• 20:29
  more than he currently beholds. A human king without subjects is
• 20:32
  just a guy standing in a field wearing a fancy hat.
• 20:35
  Pretty much. Yeah.
• 20:36
  He has no actual might, but God is completely self-sufficient.
• 20:39
  He doesn't need our tax dollars to keep the sun burning. 3rd
• 20:42
  Earthly kings suffer acute interior fears and cares.
• 20:46
  The crown is incredibly heavy. They face doubts, misgivings,
• 20:50
  assassination plots, and the constant threat of being
• 20:53
  overthrown. We see historical kings who
• 20:55
  couldn't sleep, who tasted their food for poison, who were
• 20:58
  paralyzed by paranoia. This anxiety sometimes causes
• 21:01
  them to abdicate altogether. Whereas God governs in perfect,
• 21:05
  unbroken tranquility, He suffers no pressure, No Fear of
• 21:09
  rebellion, no stress about the future.
• 21:11
  He is never ringing his hands, pacing the floors of heaven,
• 21:13
  wondering how a geopolitical crisis is going to pan out.
• 21:16
  And what is the 4th difference? 4th Earthly kings reign only for
• 21:20
  a time. Their dynasties rise, they peak,
• 21:22
  and they inevitably fall into ruin, but God reigns eternally.
• 21:25
  That fourth point connects to a brilliant historical anecdote in
• 21:29
  the text about an old mosque in Damascus.
• 21:31
  It is a striking visual of this exact truth about outlasting
• 21:35
  human empires. For 12 centuries, there has been
• 21:38
  an old mosque in Damascus. Originally, long before it was a
• 21:41
  mosque, it was built as a Christian Church.
• 21:44
  Despite the physical space being conquered, repurposed for
• 21:47
  entirely different religious practices, and facing severe
• 21:50
  intolerance and warfare over hundreds of years, an old Greek
• 21:54
  inscription remained visible, etched into the stone above its
• 21:57
  door. And what did it say?
• 21:58
  It read. Thy Kingdom, O Christ, is an
• 22:01
  everlasting Kingdom, and thy dominion endureth throughout all
• 22:04
  generations. 1200 years. Think about the sheer volume of
• 22:08
  human history that passed through those doors.
• 22:09
  Empires rose and fell. Crusades were fought.
• 22:12
  Entire populations and languages shifted.
• 22:15
  Modern Warfare replaced swords. And yet, etched into the stone,
• 22:19
  that declaration just quietly outlasted all the regime
• 22:22
  changes. It makes earthly might look so
• 22:24
  incredibly fragile. It really does.
• 22:26
  We talk on the news about the geopolitical superpowers of our
• 22:29
  day, the nuclear states, the massive economies.
• 22:32
  But what are they compared to? The latent infinite force of the
• 22:35
  one great potentate. He is the source of all
• 22:38
  mechanical, vital, mental and spiritual force.
• 22:41
  All force comes from him. If you trace physics back to its
• 22:44
  origin, you find him apart from his active will.
• 22:48
  The laws of nature would be inoperative.
• 22:50
  Gravity would cease. The text asks us to calculate
• 22:53
  the reserve forces of the incident.
• 22:55
  How can a Kingdom with infinite reserve force ever fail?
• 22:59
  But human logic assumes that a monarch with such infinite
• 23:02
  tranquil mida, a king with billions of galaxies to run,
• 23:05
  would ignore the microscopic struggles of individual
• 23:08
  peasants. You do not expect the CEO of
• 23:10
  multinational corporation to care about a single broken paper
• 23:13
  clip in a regional branch office in another country.
• 23:16
  It is beneath his pay grade. Yet David argues the exact
• 23:19
  opposite. Verse 14 says the Lord upholdeth
• 23:22
  all that fall and raises up all those that be bowed down.
• 23:25
  The contrast here is highly intentional.
• 23:27
  The king of infinite majesty, the one who sustains the cosmos,
• 23:31
  is the exact same one who Stoops down to hold up a falling human
• 23:34
  being. The text points out our human
• 23:37
  tendency to push down the weak. In human societies, we shun the
• 23:41
  fallen. We marginalized those who fail.
• 23:43
  The text specifically mentions fallen women or those we
• 23:46
  consider the chief of sinners. Society pushes them to the
• 23:49
  edges. Yeah, the strong survive and the
• 23:51
  weak get pushed out. Right.
• 23:52
  The strong, the wealthy, and the domineering exploit the timid,
• 23:57
  but the Sovereign Lord reverses this human hierarchy completely.
• 24:00
  He puts down the lofty, arrogant rulers and Stoops down to be
• 24:04
  leaned upon by those who are broken and ready to fall.
• 24:06
  How do we reconcile this conceptually?
• 24:08
  How do we reconcile a God whose Kingdom spans billions of light
• 24:11
  years with a God who numbers the very hairs on our heads and
• 24:14
  cares when we are having a panic attack?
• 24:16
  Henry Melville provides a brilliant, logical, even
• 24:19
  mathematical answer to this dilemma.
• 24:21
  He states that God is that being to whom the only great thing is
• 24:24
  Himself. Meaning everything else is
• 24:26
  small. Yes.
• 24:28
  Therefore, an Archangel does not gain God's attention simply by
• 24:31
  being massive and fiery, and an insect does not lose his
• 24:35
  attention by being microscopic. Everything created is equally
• 24:38
  small compared to the Creator. I have to stop wrap my head
• 24:41
  around that. We humans constantly rank things
• 24:43
  by size and value. We think a mountain is huge and
• 24:46
  an Ant is tiny. We think Aceo is big and a
• 24:49
  janitor is small. But to the infinite, the
• 24:51
  difference in size between a mountain and an Ant is
• 24:54
  mathematically 0. Infinity minus a mountain is
• 24:57
  still Infinity. Infinity minus an Ant is still
• 24:59
  Infinity. Because he is infinite, the
• 25:01
  concept of being overwhelmed by details does not apply to him.
• 25:05
  He can attend to the tiniest he falling from a tree in a remote
• 25:08
  forest just as easily as he marshals the burning stars of
• 25:11
  the firmament. If his Providence was not
• 25:13
  universal, if he was so busy running the galaxies that he
• 25:16
  ignored a Sparrow falling to the ground would actually make him
• 25:19
  less God like. It would mean he had limits.
• 25:22
  The suspension of his attention for even a fraction of an
• 25:24
  instant would cause chill and darkness throughout the
• 25:26
  universe. This microscopic infinite
• 25:29
  attention extends beyond just moral or spiritual support for
• 25:32
  the broken hearted. It translates into the literal
• 25:34
  daily feeding of the entire globe.
• 25:37
  Verses 15 and 16 paint a massive, vivid picture.
• 25:41
  The eyes of all weigh upon thee, and thou give us them their meat
• 25:44
  and due season. Thou openest thine hand, and
• 25:47
  satisfy us the desire of every living thing.
• 25:50
  The imagery is stunning. It pictures the entire creation.
• 25:53
  Brutes, Ravens, lions in the jungle, fish in the Mariana
• 25:56
  Trench, insects in the soil, acting as one great flock.
• 25:59
  Standing around the shepherd. They all look to his hand,
• 26:02
  expecting to receive their daily food.
• 26:05
  And he does this punctually in due season, feeding this
• 26:08
  unimaginable flock day and night without fail.
• 26:11
  There is a story in the text from a Mr. Robertson about a
• 26:14
  Scottish boy that brings this global feeding system down to a
• 26:17
  very personal level. They were an extremely poor
• 26:20
  family, relying entirely on unexpected provisions just to
• 26:23
  survive the week. When some food miraculously
• 26:26
  arrived one day, the boy looked at his mother and said, Mother,
• 26:29
  I think God, I hear, is when we're scraping the bottom of the
• 26:31
  barrel. That is a powerful image.
• 26:33
  For a hungry family in Scotland, the sound of the wooden spoon
• 26:36
  scraping the bottom of an empty meal barrel was the sound of
• 26:39
  impending starvation. And God responds to that
• 26:41
  specific scraping sound even while feeding the whales in the
• 26:45
  ocean. The text analyzes the phrasing
• 26:48
  David uses, Thou openest Thine hand.
• 26:52
  It depicts A housekeeper effortlessly flinging grain to a
• 26:55
  brood of chickens in a yard. It requires no strain.
• 26:58
  It is not a heavy lift. He flings abroad with a full and
• 27:01
  open hand, a massive supply, not meticulously measuring out to a
• 27:06
  single grain just what might be barely enough to survive, but
• 27:09
  satisfying the desire. The theologian Andrew Fuller
• 27:12
  draws A crucial theological line right here, though, regarding
• 27:15
  what we are actually asking for when we look to that open hand.
• 27:18
  It is a vital distinction for anyone trying to understand
• 27:20
  their relationship with the divine.
• 27:22
  Fuller notes that God opens his hand in Providence to his worst
• 27:25
  enemies. He gave King Nebuchadnezzar an
• 27:27
  entire empire, massive wealth, and incredible food.
• 27:30
  But he opens his heart in the gospel of his son receiving
• 27:33
  physical provision, food on the table, sunlight, A functioning
• 27:36
  physical body, a good paycheck. It's just a hand portion.
• 27:39
  It is the difference between an employer handing you a paycheck
• 27:42
  and a father giving you a hug. The hand provides the grain, and
• 27:46
  we should absolutely be thankful for it.
• 27:48
  But Fuller urges believers to seek the Joseph's portion, the
• 27:51
  goodwill of the heart. We should not be satisfied with
• 27:54
  just a hand portion. We want the relationship.
• 27:58
  Knowing God has the capacity to fulfill physical desires
• 28:01
  naturally raises the question of how He responds to the spiritual
• 28:05
  internal cries of the individual.
• 28:07
  This brings us to the conditions of prayer in verse 18.
• 28:10
  The Lord is nigh, and to all them that call upon him, to all
• 28:13
  that call upon him in truth. In truth, what does it actually
• 28:16
  mean to call upon Him in truth? Because I think a lot of people
• 28:18
  pray, but maybe they aren't doing it in truth.
• 28:21
  It requires a true heart, completely free of hypocrisy and
• 28:24
  self deception. The text states that pride is a
• 28:27
  falsehood. Coming to God while bragging
• 28:30
  about your own goodness is a lie.
• 28:32
  Prayer without earnestness, just reciting words you memorize
• 28:35
  while your mind is thinking about what you're having for
• 28:37
  lunch is a lie. And what about who we are
• 28:39
  praying to? That is the other half of it.
• 28:42
  If someone calls upon an idol of their own imagining, if the
• 28:45
  invented deity in their mind that just happens to agree with
• 28:48
  all their political views, affirms all their lifestyle
• 28:50
  choices, and never demands repentance, they are not calling
• 28:53
  upon the true God, they're praying to a mirror.
• 28:56
  Furthermore, if they demand carnal ends for their own
• 28:59
  selfish lusts, they are not calling in truth.
• 29:02
  Let me ask about the promise in verse 19.
• 29:04
  Then he will fulfill the desire of them that fear him.
• 29:07
  How does that actually work in practice?
• 29:10
  Because David desired the life of Bathsheba's child to be
• 29:12
  spared, and he fasted and wept, but the child died.
• 29:16
  The apostle Paul passionately desire the salvation of all his
• 29:18
  fleshly kinsmen, the Israelites, and that was not granted in his
• 29:22
  lifetime. So if they feared him, why
• 29:24
  weren't their desires fulfilled? The text provides A vital
• 29:27
  synthesis of this problem. It clarifies that God fulfills
• 29:30
  the sum or substance of a holy desire, not always the specific
• 29:34
  mechanics of the request. A holy heart fundamentally
• 29:37
  desires what a holy God can give.
• 29:39
  All the very desires of a Christian beneath the surface of
• 29:42
  specific requests are summed up in this, that they may eternally
• 29:46
  enjoy God, that His will be done, and that they may be
• 29:49
  conformed to His image. So if a specific localized
• 29:52
  request actually contradicts that greater good, he denies the
• 29:56
  specific request in order to grant the greater substance of
• 29:59
  the underlying desire. Precisely if granting a request
• 30:02
  would make you less holy, or cause you harm, or derail a
• 30:04
  greater redemptive plan, a loving God will not grant it.
• 30:08
  He will not grant desires that are sinful or ruinous to the
• 30:10
  believer. When God raises A genuine
• 30:13
  spiritual desire in a person, He fully intends to satisfy it.
• 30:17
  As the text argues. In no case is the spiritual
• 30:19
  desire of the living thing excited simply to produce
• 30:21
  distress or tease them, but in order that it may seek and find
• 30:24
  true satisfaction in Him. And then we reach verse 20,
• 30:27
  which contains a sharp, solemn contrast to all this talk of
• 30:31
  preservation and desire. The Lord preserveth all of them
• 30:34
  that love him, but all the wicked will he destroy.
• 30:38
  It is a recurrent, unavoidable theme in Scripture.
• 30:41
  The guardianship of the good necessitates the destruction of
• 30:44
  the wicked. Wickedness is an act of offense
• 30:46
  to a perfectly holy God. It is a contagion.
• 30:49
  It cannot be permanently tolerated in His presence.
• 30:52
  Drawing on Jonathan Edwards, the text points out something
• 30:55
  terrifying about the mechanics of this destruction.
• 30:58
  Edwards notes that God has unsearchable ways of removing
• 31:01
  the wicked through ordinary Providence.
• 31:03
  He requires no massive miracle to enact his judgments.
• 31:06
  He does not need to part the sea or rain down fire and brimstone
• 31:10
  from the sky every time he wants to judge a nation or an
• 31:13
  individual. He can simply use the ordinary
• 31:15
  course of events, disease, economic collapse, human
• 31:19
  conflict, or just the natural consequences of foolish actions.
• 31:22
  Edwards compares it to a sanitary law right.
• 31:25
  Yes, think about how a city manages disease.
• 31:28
  Good sanitary laws remove all creators of pestilence, rot, and
• 31:32
  plague in order to protect the citizens of the city.
• 31:36
  The moral government of God functions similarly.
• 31:38
  It weeds out wickedness, rebellion, and moral pestilence
• 31:42
  to maintain a perfectly holy domain.
• 31:44
  The destruction of the wicked is the necessary sanitization of
• 31:47
  the universe. A perfectly holy domain which
• 31:50
  circles us all the way back to the very beginning of this deep
• 31:53
  dive. The Church Triumphant versus the
• 31:55
  Church Militant. The perfect realm versus the
• 31:57
  imperfect realm still needing purification and still missing a
• 32:01
  letter. And it brings us back to the
• 32:03
  structure of the Psalter itself and the life of David.
• 32:05
  As we wrap up this deep dive, I want to leave you, the listener
• 32:08
  with one final thought to chew on regarding where all this is
• 32:11
  heading. We noted at the very start that
• 32:13
  Psalm 145 is the only Psalm in the entire book labeled David's
• 32:17
  Praise his Tahila, and historically, structurally, this
• 32:21
  is the final Psalm attributed to David in the Bible.
• 32:24
  It functions as a bridge leading directly into the closing
• 32:27
  Hallelujah Chorus of the final five psalms of the book.
• 32:29
  Those final five songs are entirely different from the rest
• 32:32
  of the book. They are pure, unadulterated
• 32:35
  praise. There is no more weeping, no
• 32:37
  more hiding in caves from enemies, no more confession of
• 32:40
  sin. Just pure adoration.
• 32:43
  So here is the question. If this is the final Psalm of
• 32:46
  David, does it suggest that true, pure praise is the final
• 32:50
  distillation of the human experience?
• 32:53
  Think about the diagnostic X-ray we talked about at the
• 32:55
  beginning, the murky, Muddy Waters of life we have to wade
• 32:58
  through. The 144 Psalms before this one
• 33:01
  are filled with desperate petitions, bitter tears,
• 33:04
  complaints about injustice, broken bones, betrayal by
• 33:07
  friends and paralyzing fear. A lot of heavy stuff.
• 33:10
  Yeah, a lot. But when all of those earthly
• 33:12
  things are finally resolved, when the diagnostic, the Muddy
• 33:15
  Waters clear up, the enemies are gone, and the tears are dried,
• 33:18
  is this pure, selfless adoration of the King the only thing we
• 33:22
  will carry with us into eternity?
• 33:24
  When the waiting days, the watching days, and the wedding
• 33:26
  days of the Church Militant are past, praise is the only thing
• 33:30
  that goes singing into heaven. It makes you look at your own
• 33:33
  daily prayers and your own view of the unsearchable king a
• 33:37
  little differently. Thank you for joining us on
• 33:39
  Reformed Thinking.