Latest / Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self / Psalm 147 - The God Who Heals and Provides and Values and Talks To Us

Transcript

Psalm 147 - The God Who Heals and Provides and Values and Talks To Us · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

• 0:00
  Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
• 0:03
  podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
• 0:07
  I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
• 0:10
  you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
• 0:14
  others. Let's dive right in.
• 0:15
  Hey all, welcome back to Tabernacle Talk.
• 0:18
  Today we are in Psalm 147 and next week we will conclude book
• 0:23
  5 of Psalms. I am so excited for us to reach
• 0:29
  the end of another portion of Scripture and I'm excited for
• 0:33
  what will come after that. I'll say this right now because
• 0:37
  we're a couple episodes in advance.
• 0:39
  If you have a book of the Bible, if you have some topics or
• 0:43
  questions or something about that you would like me to go
• 0:48
  over in the podcast, please let me know at any time, throw it in
• 0:52
  the comments. Shoot me a DMA, text a call,
• 0:55
  carry your pigeon, whatever you want.
• 0:57
  Would love to hear what would be a blessing or encouragement or
• 1:01
  help to you in your walk with the Lord and in your
• 1:04
  understanding of Scripture. Want to be here for you.
• 1:09
  Let's begin in Psalm 147 and verse #1 Hallelujah, how good it
• 1:16
  is to sing to our God, for praise is pleasant and lovely.
• 1:22
  Yahweh rebuilds Jerusalem. He gathers Israel's exiled
• 1:26
  people. He heals the broken hearted and
• 1:29
  bandages their wounds. He counts the numbers of the
• 1:32
  stars. He gives names to all of them.
• 1:36
  Our Lord is great, vast in power.
• 1:39
  His understanding is infinite. Yahweh helps the oppressed but
• 1:44
  brings the wicked to the ground. Sing to Yahweh with
• 1:48
  Thanksgiving. Play the liar to our God who
• 1:51
  covers the sky with clouds, prepares rain for the earth, and
• 1:55
  causes grass to grow on the hills.
• 1:58
  He provides the animals with their food and the young Ravens
• 2:01
  what they cry for. He is not impressed by the
• 2:04
  strength of a horse. He does not value the power of a
• 2:08
  warrior. Yahweh values those who fear
• 2:11
  Him, those who put their hope in His faithful love exalt Yahweh.
• 2:16
  Jerusalem, praise your God Zion, for He strengthens the bars of
• 2:21
  your city gates and blesses your children within you.
• 2:24
  He endows your territory with prosperity.
• 2:27
  He satisfies you with the finest wheat.
• 2:30
  He sends his command throughout the earth.
• 2:32
  His word runs swiftly. He spreads snow like wool.
• 2:36
  He scatters frost like ashes. He throws his hailstones like
• 2:40
  crumbs. Who can withstand his cold?
• 2:44
  He sends His word and melts them.
• 2:46
  He unleashes his winds and the water flows.
• 2:50
  He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and judgments to
• 2:54
  Israel. He has not done this for every
• 2:56
  nation. They do not know his judgments.
• 2:59
  Hallelujah. Here there is a personal
• 3:03
  reflection on and gratitude for what God had done for the nation
• 3:08
  of Israel here after the exile. So this would be post 586,
• 3:14
  probably about 516 or a little bit later.
• 3:17
  After that, when the children of Israel, they are back in the
• 3:21
  land, Jerusalem exists again. This would be after the time of
• 3:24
  Nehemiah where they rebuild the gates of Jerusalem.
• 3:28
  And so here they have a land, they have a capital city.
• 3:32
  Here they are working tilling the land.
• 3:34
  They are farmers and they are grateful for what God has done
• 3:39
  for them. And verse #1 starts off, as many
• 3:43
  of these psalms have, with declaring praise for God.
• 3:46
  He says how good it is to sing to our God, for praise is
• 3:50
  pleasant and lovely. I've mentioned it before, one of
• 3:55
  my favorite things in the world is to hear God's people sing.
• 3:59
  I love hearing little kids. I love hearing my kids sing
• 4:02
  songs about God. I love being able to hear the
• 4:06
  congregation here at Tabernacle sing to the Lord and be excited
• 4:10
  when the praise of God is happening.
• 4:13
  I really, really love whenever I'm in kind of a large place.
• 4:17
  This coming June I'll be going down to Orlando, FL for the
• 4:22
  annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention.
• 4:24
  And they're, you know, I'll have 10,000 people that are there and
• 4:30
  we will sing together the praises of our God.
• 4:33
  And there is nothing like that sound in the world.
• 4:37
  And So what a joy that it is. It is pleasant and lovely to
• 4:41
  sing praise to God. It is something that is both
• 4:44
  beautiful. It is good.
• 4:46
  Then in verses 2 through 6, it says Yahweh rebuilds Jerusalem.
• 4:51
  He gathers Israel's exiled people.
• 4:55
  Here there is the understanding once again that though humans
• 4:58
  take actions here as Ezra and Nehemiah had to rebuild the
• 5:03
  temple and as they would rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, that
• 5:08
  yes, people were doing it, but they were doing it in the power
• 5:11
  of God and because of God's enabling, that He had given
• 5:15
  Nehemiah favor with the king. And so the king sent him out and
• 5:19
  sent him materials and things that he was able to utilize for
• 5:23
  the rebuilding of the walls and to care for the people of
• 5:27
  Israel. And so in your life and mine,
• 5:29
  everything that we do is done because the Lord empowers us to
• 5:34
  be able to do it. He, if you will, continues to
• 5:37
  give his breath in our lungs and in Him we live and move and have
• 5:41
  our being. As Paul told the people there on
• 5:45
  Mars Hill on the Areopagus in Athens.
• 5:48
  Verse #3 he heals the broken hearted and bandages their
• 5:53
  wounds. I've been there many times in my
• 5:57
  life where I've just been broken hearted and I'm thankful that
• 6:00
  God hear His promises that He will heal you.
• 6:04
  I don't know what you're broken hearted about today.
• 6:07
  I know I have friends that are going through a variety of
• 6:10
  hurts, loss of loved ones, loss of relationship, those that are
• 6:15
  struggling deeply with health needs.
• 6:18
  And I want you to know that as you are broken hearted, there is
• 6:21
  a promise from God's Word that you can hold on to that He will
• 6:24
  heal your broken heart. He will bandage that wound.
• 6:28
  And then why should we believe this?
• 6:30
  Well, because of verse #4 He counts the number of the stars.
• 6:34
  He gives names to all of them here, especially during this
• 6:40
  time when you didn't have, you know, the Hubble Space
• 6:43
  Telescope. He didn't have even necessarily
• 6:46
  the kinds of telescopes that we have now to be able to see all
• 6:50
  of the celestial bodies in as great of detail as we can now.
• 6:55
  You would just look out into the sky and it was a limitless
• 6:59
  number. And you know, we give names to
• 7:02
  some of the different stars and the constellations and Big
• 7:06
  Dipper, Little Dipper, Orion's Belt, you know, all of those
• 7:10
  kinds of things. But our God knows factually
• 7:15
  every single star, every meteor, every planet, every, you know,
• 7:20
  black hole in the universe. He knows exactly how many there
• 7:26
  are, and it says He gives names to all of them.
• 7:34
  If God cares enough to name each of the stars, he cares about you
• 7:41
  like you are made in His image. The stars aren't made in His
• 7:44
  image, but you are, and God cares about you more than the
• 7:49
  stars. And if He knows the stars and
• 7:50
  counts them and names them, He knows you and He cares about
• 7:54
  you. Verse #5 Our Lord is great, vast
• 7:57
  in power. His understanding is infinite.
• 8:01
  God knows more than you or I will ever know, because there is
• 8:06
  no limitation to His mind. And so throughout all of the
• 8:10
  successive ages, as we are with our God, we will always be able
• 8:15
  to learn more and more and get to know more and more.
• 8:18
  And we will never reach the end of being able to be curious
• 8:25
  about our God and His mind and His work and His ways and His
• 8:29
  nature. There was always more to learn.
• 8:33
  His understanding is infinite. We can be endlessly curious for
• 8:38
  all of eternity and we will never reach the end of our God.
• 8:45
  Verse number six, Yahweh helps the oppressed but brings the
• 8:48
  wicked to the ground. Those that oppress others, they
• 8:53
  will not be able to do so forever.
• 8:55
  There's coming a day when every world dictator.
• 8:58
  There's coming a day when every rich and powerful person who has
• 9:01
  gotten away with evil so far is brought down to the ground when
• 9:05
  they must suffer for what they have done.
• 9:08
  But God helps the oppressed and those that have been
• 9:11
  downtrodden. Verse #7 Sing to Yahweh with
• 9:14
  Thanksgiving. Play the liar to our God.
• 9:17
  That's LYRE. It's a musical instrument.
• 9:19
  It's not someone that tells lies if you will.
• 9:22
  It's like play the harp or play the guitar or play the ukulele.
• 9:27
  Sing to Yahweh with Thanksgiving.
• 9:28
  Play this instrument to our God who covers the sky with clouds,
• 9:33
  prepares rain for the earth, and causes grass to grow on the
• 9:36
  hills. He provides the animals with
• 9:39
  their food and the young Ravens, what they cry for, we can sing
• 9:43
  to God because he not only cares for humans and gives us rain and
• 9:50
  you know, the clouds that that then carry the rain and one
• 9:56
  second and causes grass to grow in the hills.
• 9:59
  He not only makes it so that we can have food as those made in
• 10:02
  his image, but he even cares about the animals.
• 10:05
  And they're at the end of verse #9 He cares about the young
• 10:08
  Ravens. And it just struck me as I was
• 10:13
  reading through that verse 9, he provides the animals with their
• 10:16
  food. And we're like, yeah, you know,
• 10:17
  he gives the carrots to the rabbits.
• 10:20
  I actually don't know if rabbits eat carrots in the wild.
• 10:22
  I might have to look that up later.
• 10:25
  But he, he gives food to the animals.
• 10:28
  And it makes sense in my mind to always think about the, you
• 10:34
  know, my son would be so ashamed of me that I forgot the word
• 10:38
  herbivore there for a second. I think about the herbivores.
• 10:41
  Oh yes, of course God gives the herbivores their food, but he
• 10:44
  also gives the omnivores and the carnivores their food.
• 10:48
  Which is then what we read at the end of verse 9, that he
• 10:51
  gives the young Ravens what they cry for.
• 10:53
  Those are scavengers. They eat dead things.
• 10:56
  And so God even orchestrates it so that death within our world
• 11:01
  still results in good. You can think again.
• 11:05
  They mean it in a totally separate way.
• 11:07
  Then Scripture would mean it. But you think about The Lion
• 11:10
  King and the circle of life that the lion's like the the younger
• 11:16
  lion. Simba asks his dad.
• 11:17
  He's like, well, you know, we're we're you say we're supposed to
• 11:20
  be good, but like, don't we eat some of these other animals?
• 11:23
  And he's like, well, yeah, you know, we eat the antelope.
• 11:26
  But when we die, you know, our, our, our bodies go into the
• 11:30
  ground and becomes the grass and the antelope eat the grass.
• 11:33
  And then we eat the antelope. And it's just, you know, this
• 11:35
  big old circle of life again. They mean it in a, in a
• 11:39
  different kind of, I'll say somewhat pantheistic kind of way
• 11:47
  more kind of a Buddhist understanding of, of the world.
• 11:50
  But here for God's world, he makes everything so that it has
• 11:56
  a purpose. All evil has an end, and even
• 11:59
  death itself can serve good ends.
• 12:01
  You see this obviously primarily in the death of Jesus, that
• 12:05
  death is not good, but God used the death of Jesus to accomplish
• 12:10
  salvation for us. And what a joy that that is.
• 12:13
  Verses 10 and 11. So God cares about humanity.
• 12:18
  He cares about the broken hearted.
• 12:20
  He cares even about young Ravens getting their food and certainly
• 12:25
  about us getting ours as well. And verse #10 and 11 who does
• 12:29
  God value? We've seen who he loves, who he
• 12:32
  cares for, who he provides for. Verse 10 says he is not
• 12:35
  impressed by the strength of a horse or if you will, kind of in
• 12:38
  modern day vernacular, he's not impressed by, you know, the
• 12:44
  strength or durability of a tank.
• 12:48
  God's not impressed with an F22. He says he does not value the
• 12:53
  power of a warrior. He doesn't care about, you know,
• 12:57
  your machine gun or your sniper rifle excellence.
• 13:00
  Verse 11, Yahweh values those who fear him, those who put
• 13:05
  their hope in his faithful love. God doesn't care if you are able
• 13:09
  to do incredible feats and defend your nation, and God
• 13:14
  doesn't care about that as much as He cares about your
• 13:17
  relationship with Him, and that's what he values.
• 13:20
  Verses 12 through 14 exalt the Lord Jerusalem.
• 13:24
  Praise your God. Zion free strengthens the bars
• 13:27
  of your city gates and blesses your children within you.
• 13:31
  He endows your territory with prosperity.
• 13:33
  He satisfies you with the finest wheat.
• 13:37
  We can praise God for each of his blessings.
• 13:39
  We can praise him for bars at the city gates that keep us from
• 13:44
  being attacked by, you know, roving Wanderers and evil doers
• 13:50
  and Raiders during the night. We can thank God for his
• 13:53
  blessing us with children. We can thank him for giving us
• 13:58
  prosperity in our territory. And this, as it's mentioned as a
• 14:02
  blessing of God is certainly something that we can pray for.
• 14:06
  Sometimes people in right opposition to what's known as
• 14:11
  like the prosperity gospel or God has saved you and he fully
• 14:14
  plans on you experiencing total like wealth and health and all
• 14:19
  of that in your life at all times in the here and now.
• 14:22
  And if you don't ever, or if you're not at any point
• 14:24
  experiencing health and wealth, well, there must be something
• 14:27
  wrong with you because you just got to have more faith.
• 14:29
  And you can, you know, all that kind of stuff.
• 14:33
  And people sometimes in a right opposition to that have been
• 14:36
  like, listen, God never promises that to any of us.
• 14:40
  Absolutely true. But also in Scripture, we're
• 14:44
  told this is some of what the blessing of God can look like,
• 14:48
  can look like in your life and mine.
• 14:51
  And so we can pray. God, would you bless the work of
• 14:54
  my hands? God, would you bless our church?
• 14:57
  God, would you bless my work or like, as I'm trying to, you
• 15:02
  know, get this client on board, Would you help me to be able to
• 15:07
  do this so that my company could flourish, that my family would
• 15:11
  flourish Here there is prosperity that is seen as a
• 15:16
  blessing of God. It's not the only blessing of
• 15:18
  God. And certainly God has given us
• 15:20
  every blessing that we need already in Jesus, but that does
• 15:25
  not stop us from praying. Lord, if it is your will, would
• 15:29
  you prosper us? Would you help us to grow and to
• 15:32
  be satisfied here with the finest wheat?
• 15:35
  Regular wheat would do, but the psalmist dimensions the finest
• 15:39
  wheat. And so we can pray even
• 15:43
  sometimes. Lord, Lord, would you give me
• 15:47
  your best? Maybe it might not be the best.
• 15:50
  He doesn't say, you know, He satisfies you with Wagyu beef.
• 15:55
  I, I doubt that they had that back in the day.
• 15:58
  But here it's just wheat. It's it's, you know, not the
• 16:02
  craziest. It's not diamonds, it's not
• 16:04
  gold. But here this was something that
• 16:07
  was needed and is something that is good.
• 16:10
  And so I think that's something that we can ponder a little bit
• 16:14
  and think about even in our own lives.
• 16:16
  Verse #15 He sends his command throughout the earth.
• 16:19
  His word runs swiftly when God gives an instruction.
• 16:23
  And as He governs the affairs of this world, it happens quickly.
• 16:27
  There's not a time delay in it. Verse #16 What are the kinds of
• 16:31
  things that God is saying to go happen?
• 16:33
  And it happens? Says he spreads snow like wool.
• 16:37
  He scatters frost like ashes. He throws his hailstones like
• 16:41
  crumbs. Who can withstand his cold
• 16:44
  That's we've been in a cold streak here in Essex at the time
• 16:48
  that I'm recording this today and tomorrow are going to be
• 16:51
  like our coldest temperatures of the air and then we're supposed
• 16:54
  to get warmer. At the time that this episode
• 16:57
  comes out. I think it's like 4 or five days
• 16:59
  ago that that coldest part was and God is one that he nothing
• 17:06
  in our world happens outside of his command and God says let it
• 17:11
  snow. Well, it snows and it snows and
• 17:14
  it snows. Verse #18 he sends his word and
• 17:18
  melts them. He unleashes his winds and the
• 17:21
  water flows that when there's if you will, when the warm, when
• 17:26
  the warm climate, when the warmer temperatures come in man,
• 17:29
  the ice in the snow, they go away and what God starts God can
• 17:35
  complete and he can send the snow and he can send the heat
• 17:39
  wave as well. And there is no there's nothing
• 17:44
  that God can't do. Verse 19, he declares his word
• 17:47
  to Jacob, His statutes and judgments to Israel.
• 17:50
  He has not done this for every nation.
• 17:52
  They do not know his judgments. Hallelujah.
• 17:56
  So then the psalmist ends this particular Psalm saying God
• 17:59
  cares about the broken hearted. God provides food for those that
• 18:03
  need it, He values those that fear him, and he gives his
• 18:09
  instructions that ought to be followed.
• 18:12
  And we have been the recipients of this word of God.
• 18:17
  And so like the snow or like the heat wave, may we obey the voice
• 18:22
  of God. And then he says other nations
• 18:27
  haven't received this. Of course, this is Israel
• 18:29
  writing this at this time. And Paul would echo those
• 18:32
  thoughts in Romans 2IN Romans 3. And in Romans it's either 9 or
• 18:39
  10. I, I can't recall, but now that
• 18:43
  we as the people of God, the church, as we have received the
• 18:48
  judgments of God, then may we obey.
• 18:51
  May I be swift to obey the Lord, like snow is swift to fall at
• 18:56
  his command, or like the heat wave melts the snow and melts
• 19:00
  the ice at the command of God. It is a wonder that we have
• 19:05
  received the word of God. May we value it and may we obey
• 19:08
  it each and every day of our life.
• 19:11
  Thanks for tuning in today and see you on Monday with Psalm
• 19:16
  148, which is tremendous, super excited for.