So this is an attempt to draw from
a source here that will give us something
of the mentality the Hebraic tent of Shem
the intrinsic elements that compose the distinctive faith
of Israel lost to present day Jewry but
will be restored and will be a millennial
glory when it shall be fulfilled at the
end of the age.
So I'm really so impressed with the way
this scholar in his study of the Psalms
has culled out some of the distinctive elements
that constitute the Hebraic mindset or the Hebraic
spirit.
And so the word Hebraic is much more
than just a designation of something generic or
racial.
It's a spiritual reality.
It's ultimate spiritual reality.
And it was once Israel's distinction and needs
again to be ours and has been lost
to us.
So Lord grant grace as we review this
and bring to our attention what you will
from this.
He talks about finding in the Old Testament
Psalms something of this distinctive that celebrates the
God of Israel and that Yahweh Shabbatot the
Lord of hosts is present in the sanctuary
in Jerusalem.
Zion is the place of God's presence.
Zion is a mystery word.
I don't even know that it's Hebrew.
It's interesting that it's located in the Jebusite
stronghold.
It was the last stronghold of the enemies
of Israel.
All that was Canaanite, all that was pagan
was caught up in this final stronghold that
mocked and dared anyone to take it.
I forgot the name of the general who
volunteered to go up and to take it
and became the seat of David's reign the
city of David, the hill of Zion.
But the fact that it was a Canaanite
stronghold indicates the powers of darkness celebrating that
place above any other and thinking themselves indomitable
and give me another word undefeatable so that
it was taken by a man whose name
I've forgotten one of the generals whose name
has to do with the father satisfying the
father that is altogether significant Anybody know the
name of that general?
Abner Is it Abner?
Ab is father, probably glorifying the father as
the incentive to go against great odds and
yet to succeed so it's interesting that C.
Austin Sparks who is a source of great
blessing to us has written a booklet on
Zion something in the mystery of Zion that
completely excludes any reference to the things that
we're going to set forth today and tries
to understand that mystery word in the context
of a kind of spiritualized faith removed from
its Hebraic roots well, he's an Englishman after
all and that may well explain it but
what he writes is significant but I think
that the ultimate understanding of the mystery of
Zion has got to go back to its
very origin and what it meant to Israel
as the very center of its faith so
there was an annual pilgrimage to Zion three
great feasts that required God's people to go
up anyone who's gone to Jerusalem knows it's
a going up and it's a tortuous going
up it's not an easy ascent it's quite
a demand both physically and spiritually and yet
it was the heart of their relationship with
the Lord whose presence they expected to find
at Zion and would make their whole pilgrimage
worthwhile he writes it is not the imminent
holiness or the magic saturation with the numinous
that these prayerful people seek it's not some
magical pseudo-spiritual something that flesh can conjure
they enter into a meeting with the majestic
person of Yahweh the mystery of the city
of God is this wonderful occasion Yahweh is
in the midst of her Psalm 46 verse
5 therefore Zion is a fountain of life
Psalm 36 verse 9 he's deriving all of
his understanding from what is deposited in the
Psalms in the celebration of Zion as the
place where Israel meets with her God of
course if you meet with your God that's
the fountain of life it's the refreshing that
you go back to the place where you
were and carry that blessing and encouragement and
renewing with you the sanctuary lies in an
eternal radiance here shalom, peace reigns according to
the fullness of the word under the shadow
of the wings of Yahweh Yahweh Y-A
-W-E-A-E-H is an optional
pronunciation of something that no one knows for
sure how the famous tetragamaton the four consonants
Yod-Heh-Vov-Heh should be pronounced could
be Jehovah, Yahweh and other optional renderings but
I like that Yahweh seems very much to
touch the sense of that name Yahweh is
present when the ark is brought through the
gates of the sanctuary remembrance is made of
the first historical events it was David who
liberated the ark from its emergency quarters and
brought it to Jerusalem reminiscences of the late
great central sanctuary of pre-davidic times of
Shiloh are heard in the cultic name Yahweh
Shabbatot the Lord sometimes they will not say
Yahweh or pronounce the name they'll say Adonai,
the Lord Shabbatot, the captain of the host
is present when the ark is brought up
thus the entry of the ark recalls the
basic event that brings home to the present
the cultic legend of Jerusalem that is attached
to the shrine of the ark which Yahweh
chose as his habitation and as his resting
place this basic event is the foundation and
the center of the present worship so there's
a whole history and a tradition of the
bringing up of the ark of the Lord
which is the presence of God by David
into Jerusalem remember how he danced and how
he scandalized his wife that his behavior was
undignified as a king so in coming up
to Zion for these pilgrimages there's a rehearsal
of all that preceded there's a reacquaintance with
the history of Israel itself going even through
its pilgrim wanderings in the wilderness and out
of bondage the Lord opening the way through
the Red Sea and the law at Zion
and then establishing his habitation in Zion they
have to enter there was something called the
gates of righteousness in Hebrew Shari Sadak the
word Sadak is righteous and the ark itself
is taken out and paraded and brought through
again on these great and solemn occasions who
may ascend the hill of the Lord who
may stand in his holy place these are
the Psalms that are read as the ark
of God is lifted up and moved in
the sight of all of the pilgrim worshipers
who have come up to Zion to be
restored in their relationship with the Lord whose
presence is actually to be found there where
he dwells that is his habitation for us
that's poetry for them it was literal fact
where there's no understanding of the sacrifice required
except the incentive that in the going up
they would be touched again and united again
with the sense of their God who dwells
in this particular place we know he's omnipresent
and yet at the same time there is
a particular sense of himself reserved for those
who will make the pilgrimage and in making
the pilgrimage they are renewed in their historic
understanding of what the ark itself represents and
where God has been pleased to deposit it
and this is central to the whole identity
of Israel as Israel and that this God
is a God of justice and righteousness and
worship in the Old Testament is not a
magical renewal no dramatically engineered performance but an
encounter with the Lord of all of life
isn't that precious he's making sure that we
don't misconstrue this as if this is some
theatrical thing that Jews are themselves performing to
give them a high which would be more
descriptive of our charismatic experience no this is
an authentic, solemn God-ordained encounter with him
who is the God of all of life
he who enters the place of the presence
of Yahweh confronts the Lord of all life
and we need that renewal of who the
Lord is and in that sacred and solemn
place or by process of erosion and attrition
just by the forces in the world that
impinge against the faith and threaten it God
would necessarily become trivialized if there's not a
place of meeting a place of union a
place where he waits to be found again
as the Lord of life and who is
the Lord of justice and righteousness holiness God
will necessarily become diminished in our own understanding
and comprehension and celebration so that he himself
becomes trivialized if he becomes trivialized in those
who purport to believe and are sincere in
their belief what shall we hope for in
the world so to maintain an acute sense
of God as God is central to the
whole of Israel's celebration of God this isn't
just ceremony, this isn't just religious play this
is a significant renewal for the world's sake
and for the nation's sake that those who
are brought again into contact with the life
of God at Zion will make him known
as he in fact is and not as
men think him to be would to God
that we have something like this correspondingly in
our Christian life and maybe for the want
of it God in fact is trivialized in
our Christianity we need to wince every Easter
with the Easter eggs and the bunnies and
the Christmas trees and all the kinds of
things that are threatening to swallow up this
sense of God given at Zion to this
people as the very heart and the distinctive
of their life into which we who are
far off without God and without hope in
the world have been brought we who are
in the pagan world and reveling in orgies
and pagan celebrations and sacrifices through beasts have
been brought nigh by the blood of Messiah
think on that into the commonwealth of Israel
it's not just a political structure into this
framework of understanding and of reality itself in
fact I would not exaggerate to say this
is reality this is the touchstone this is
the nexus of very reality itself for reality
is God and any deviation from him is
unreality so here's a place of renewing and
here's a place into which those who are
far off and without God have been invited
and brought by the blood of their Messiah
the pathetic and unhappy thing is that those
who are far off and have been brought
nigh have themselves lost the sense of that
privilege that distinction and that grace it's a
mystery Paul said now being revealed that the
Gentiles shall have be one with Israel in
the household of God and be made one
new man it's a remarkable framework but if
we don't appreciate that and that appreciation needs
to be kindled anew or it will diminish
and diminish to the point that we forget
that we were brought into an already existing
body not all Israel rejected Messiah there were
faithful ones who expected him and received him
as being the very fulfillment of their faith
and continued and kept that messianic and biblical
faith alive into which you were brought into
an existing body so the church has lost
that sense maybe it's another habit and has
become an autonomous and independent entity without any
recognition of that connectedness and for which reason
it itself has suffered and suffered great loss
I believe that more than any other factor
this will explain why the church in Japan
is a trifle less than 1% after
generations of missionary effort constitute the church in
Japan you'll not find a congregation as a
rule of over 30 people and it's dormant,
stultifying fixed, it has a certain limitation because
all it is is the replication of what
was brought to it by western missionaries who
themselves did not have this consciousness I have
a book called The White Man's Gospel written
by an Indian Christian he's one of the
leaders of the work to the Indians with
the Christian Missionary Alliance, he spoke here at
one time and his book repeats what he
shared with us, he said the reason that
after a life of involvement with my own
Indian people, seeing how difficult it is to
win them to the gospel and those that
are our one often fall away so quickly,
very few retain the faith I'm persuaded after
all these years to say that the heart
of what is wrong is that we have
not communicated in the gospel the issue of
Israel and the centrality of the Jew and
the faith into which the Gentiles have been
brought, they have received a truncated Gentilized version
of the gospel that somehow does not enable
them to be sustained I don't want to
get romantic and fanciful, but we know the
propensity of Indians for alcohol, which may be
the upward side of the coin that says
they have a capacity for spirituality of an
uncommon kind, and if that is not met
in a significant way they're going to find
deviant ways to fulfill it so we're being
called back to something that has been neglected
and I think that's on time in the
domain of the sanctuary the pilgrim is surrounded
by the indescribable glory of Zion that is
celebrated in hymns and poems like the high
heavens in Psalm 78 is the sanctuary built,
the perfection of beauty the joy of all
the earth what seems to us to be
poetic and fanciful language is just nuts and
bolts statements of those who are experiencing something
at Zion that is the joy of all
the earth they experienced it as a joy
for us it has become a kind of
fanciful language and poetry, for them it was
a graphic description of the reality to be
found in the place that God had reserved
for himself as the place of his dwelling
it is the joy of all the earth
Yahweh is in the midst of her and
that is the secret and the wonder of
the unearthly splendor and inviolability of Zion it's
the epicenter of Israel's whole distinction and life
and meaning and being so praise and glorification
are in the last analysis always applied to
Yahweh or Jehovah himself on Zion the festival
congregation pays homage to the presence of God,
on him the highest God, the king, the
creator and the judge of the world is
this honor bestowed we've talked here already that
we've lost the sense of God as creator
which was alive in their consciousness because there
was a rehearsal of the entire faith of
Israel and that to the degree that we
have lost the sense of God as creator
we have lost the sense of God as
king he is king by virtue of being
creator he is the lord of what he
has created he has the right to govern
and rule because it's his creation but if
you lose the foundation you lose the rulership
and then God himself is diminished so all
of these things are revived renewed in the
comprehension and the experience of those who make
the pilgrimage and come up to Zion that's
in the wisdom of God to require it
three times of the year so in powerful
descriptions the phenomenon of a consuming fire announces
his appearance, lightning and thunder accompanying the radiant
advance of God, his face flashes the worshiping
congregation prays, shine forth from, expressed in Psalm
Psalm 80, 94 they plead, let thy face
shine and also the individual prayer calls out,
arise awake awaits an overpowering self-manifestation of
the God of Israel they're expecting something they
call for something, they get something they get
an overpowering sense of the God of Israel
lest they fall into kind of a religious
mentality and continue to perform perfunctory services because
they were required, but they lost the sense
of the God who is honored by those
observances that needs to be renewed by every
going up you can see the spiritual application
of this, for them a physical ascent for
us a spiritual ascent and of course the
pathetic thing is that modern day Jews have
lost this entire sense of their own history
and the church has not been in the
place to remind them maybe again we're repeating
ourselves this is what will move them to
jealousy that we who were not Jews by
birth have a greater sense of the uniqueness
of their God and his holiness and his
character and his presence and his sense of
himself that we know by the spirit seeing
that our sins have been forgiven and the
blood has washed us that we have an
atonement at one with God the Father and
we can communicate through that reality that which
has been lost to them for the very
reason of the forsaking of the salvation of
God and that they would be jealous to
consider what they have rejected, Paul says they
are the enemies of the gospel they are
so blinded in their rejection because of how
has it been brought to them I'm just
reading the manuscript of a book by David
Barron that chronicles something of the horrors that
Jews have had to face through the centuries
in Christian lands and every Easter season and
every plague and every thing for which Jews
could be blamed wholesale, I mean wholesale slaughter,
entire communities dying at their own end through
suicide rather than face the alternative of be
baptized or die, they'd rather die than to
be baptized into this gentilic thing that has
been forced upon them at the point of
the sword how could that be have anything
to do with the God of Israel so
we see in Paul as the apostle who
communicates the sense of God who entreats the
gentiles I appeal to you, I entreat you
never at the point of threat or force
there's a gentleness that is characteristic of God
that Jews have not seen historically by those
who are trying to compel them to the
faith at the threat of the loss of
their life is that the alternative?
we'll take the loss of life, thank you
and we'll call that loss of life Kiddush
Hashem sanctifying the name that God of our
fathers is more sanctified and revered by our
suicide wiping out our own children and wives
than by submitting to the mob and he
just documents that in every nation of England
that they wholesale of course it's a trophy
to kill Jews and to obtain their possessions
so the motivation for enraged mobs who are
nominal Christians who have not the spirit of
God is so inflammatory that it recurs again
and again and again and the whole history
of Israel is steeped in blood and associated
with a name that has been so poisoned
and corrupted that they're not considered my mother
could not speak it, I could not speak
it 38 years ago I required a grace
from God to call upon the name of
the Lord the only way I had ever
spoken Jesus was as a curse word and
now I'm called to honor and revere that
name for there's no other name given on
the heaven and earth whereby a man may
be saved if God did not give me
the grace that morning on May 26, 1964
I'd not be here now but a grace
actually was given to get that name out,
so poisoned and corrupted was I by all
of this history which I did not know
in measure as I know it now but
the sense of it is in the air
that Jews breathe and as I say, taking
it from their mother's milk so that the
name Satan has done a colossal job in
so corrupting that name because he knows, if
we don't know well enough that there's no
other name given whereby a man may be
saved and so in order to keep Jews
from that calling, that name has suffered remarkable
atrocity at the hands of supposed Christians, now
for an unbelieving Jew, any Gentile who's not
a Muslim is a Christian and these knights
and crusaders who locked them up in their
synagogues where they were burned to death, had
crosses on their chests, and when they destroyed
them in Jerusalem the legend is that they
went around the walls of the burning synagogue
singing something about adoring Jesus so that's fixed
in the history and consciousness and memory of
this people and provides for us who are
concerned a remarkable obstacle that only the grace
of God the power of the spirit can
overcome so the hymns that honor the God
of Israel as highest God king, creator, and
judge of the world and the titles bespeak
the majestic greatness of his power, Yahweh alone
is El Yom El Kol Haaretz the most
high over all the earth the God of
Israel is not a provincial deity he's not
a tribal God he's the God of all
the earth and the sense of the breadth
and majesty of that God is renewed and
found again in every pilgrimage to Zion his
throne is established from eternity that means if
Jews are suffering mishap and opposition it's not
because God is ignorant of it it's a
statement of something that has to come probably
the consequence of our sin because he's enthroned
in the heavens forever there's that sense of
God's majesty which is of course lost to
Jews today and therefore they can blame the
Germans, they can blame Arafat they can blame
the PLO they blame the visible human thing
before them not recognizing that there's a God
enthroned in the heavens for whom these are
only his instrument and his rod the worshipping
congregation pays homage to him with the shout
Adonai Melech, Yahweh is king and acknowledges the
universal power of the God King whose splendor
fills the whole world but the one who
is God most high and king is at
the same time the creator he has overcome
the powers of chaos and has given stability
to the earth in wondrous order and conformity
to law he has permeated all of creation
also the heavenly sphere and the constellation are
the work of his hands the acts of
creation is the basis of God's world's dominion
where does this German scholar get all of
this out from the testimony of the Hebrew
scriptures themselves out from the Psalms culled out
from the whole remarkable depository that the Psalms
are celebrating this God as creator, as king,
as the ruler of all the earth, the
enthroned one where shall we get that sense
who have neither never had it or have
lost it in the same place where he
got it in the Psalms, in that remarkable
literature that celebrates God as God and finally
the king and creator is also the judge,
is enthroned in heavenly height above the peoples
and judges the nations in all these perfections
of power so clearly expressed here the worshipping
community pays homage and glorifies the God of
Israel enthroned on Zion I wrote here a
little note, what gentile Christian of even the
most celebrated kind has the faintest intimation of
this Semitic glory intrinsic to all Israel and
to those who are in identification with her
who has the sense of God enthroned on
Zion who is the judge of all the
earth and the nations and who is king
by virtue of being creator and is enthroned
on Zion how many Christians and leading Christians
have this sense and communicate it, not necessarily
as a direct message but whatever the message
something of the tremor of this ought to
be insinuated, ought to be expressed with every
expression it's something like preaching Christ does preaching
Christ mean that it necessarily has to be
the explicit subject of every preaching or is
it that whatever the subject even the subject
of Israel and the restoration of Israel is
at the same time a preaching of Christ
a bringing of the substance, the ethos the
spirit, the nature, the sense of himself into
every proclamation and I'm saying if that's true
this can be true also and the fact
that it's not true has robbed us who
sit in those congregations and yawn something of
the majesty and the sense of God as
God that was central to Israel's whole identity
has been lost it needs to be returned
to Zion or an entering of that tent
to find the sense of God and to
communicate it not to Jews but to the
world itself there is not enough regard for
the mystery of Yahweh which is attested everywhere
in the Psalms, is the statement of this
German scholar with which I certainly agree so,
that's where God places his king I have
set you upon the hill of Zion at
the right hand of Yahweh as the unimpeachable
anointed of the God of Israel and from
whom and out from where the law shall
go forth and the word of the Lord
out of Jerusalem to all nations that they
study war no more God stands in unshakable
faithfulness to this covenant and will establish it
this is the faith of Israel and it
should be the church's expectation and expectancy also
so this chosen king of the lineage of
David occupies a key position in the worship
of Jerusalem as lord of the temple and
as the anointed one he assumes a mediating
function, he is the instrument of Yahweh's rule
and judgment of his hope and salvation he's
talking here about King David the literal physical
King David who is the prototype of the
Jesus to come who is also a son
of David and will be a ruler from
that same throne the king himself is a
model and a statement of God so the
Psalms have profuse expression of the glory of
the anointed one of Yahweh even when the
insignificance of a nation that is shrinking does
not keep this sense of him and the
knowledge that the world rule will issue from
the throne of David there's something here I'm
wanting to get at the congregation of Israel
surrounds David as king with a sense of
respect and esteem even though the profuse expressions
of glory of the anointed of Yahweh may
itself diminish the congregation of Israel celebrates King
David even in view of his sin and
his own fallenness and even in the growing
sense of Israel's kingdom diminishing there's still a
respect and esteem paid to the figure of
David enthroned at Zion that is intrinsic to
the character of Israel and when I read
that I thought what kind of respect ought
we as the church ought to have for
a diminishing Israel even though they lose their
luster and they lose their character and they
are diminished would it be appropriate in becoming
for us to maintain a certain respect and
reverence even for that whose light is fading
or has faded as Israel paid that kind
of respect to King David wouldn't we be
more the church if we would have that
kind of respect for them the festive congregation
comes together before Yahweh not only for praise
and jubilant homage for adoration and for meeting
the manifestation of the word of God of
Israel that proclaims Yahweh's great deeds of the
past and present in time of great afflictions
it also enters the holy place with prayers
and petitions in sackcloth and ashes it's not
just a celebration and a high feast day
it's also a time of authentic brokenness isn't
it remarkable to balance those things that the
Lord can be celebrated in the majesty but
because he's Lord because he is majestic we
come also with a certain contrition and a
brokenness and petition and pleas for restoration and
for forgiveness and so many of the prayers
and supplications of Israel are caught up in
the Psalms that speaks of the grievous afflictions
of Israel and that Yahweh has rejected his
people on this account not only the history
of salvation becomes problematic but even the foundations
of the earth have begun to totter if
Israel's salvation is in question and God is
rejecting his own people what are the foundations
then of the world itself they begin to
totter if the foundations fail what shall the
righteous do so Israel the guardian of the
foundations seeing that there's a sense in which
God has departed where their armies are defeated
where Rome has come to prevail over Israel
or its temple destroyed come with a sense
of being afflicted and come to cry out
to God and to plead with him not
only for the restoration of that glory to
themselves but that the whole of the foundations
of the world are at stake and that
this kind of an understanding is totally Hebraic
that what is particular to Israel is the
issue of reality for all the world and
therefore if Israel is not jealous for their
God and come with supplications and pleas for
their restoration to themselves what can be hoped
for or expected for the foundations of the
world which are tottering there's great stake there's
great weight involved in Israel's relationship with its
own God not only for itself but for
all nations so so many of the Psalms
are this kind of a cry and the
congregation has occasion to look back on the
occasions of God's faithfulness when restoration has come
and trust that it will come again how
are we to explain the great catastrophe why
has the wrath of Yahweh been kindled these
questions break out with elemental force are the
sons bearing the iniquity of their fathers how
is Yahweh's conduct to be understood Psalm 44
expresses the conviction most clearly God's people are
suffering for Yahweh's sake because of its ties
to Jehovah, Israel is assailed by insult and
enmity so not only the issue of its
own sin and failing but its very identification
with God makes them candidates for oppression and
devastation that come from their enemies, what does
it say in the Psalms, for your sake
we are killed all the day long as
sheep so it's not only for our sins
or the sins of our fathers that we
suffer affliction, we suffer affliction by virtue of
our very identity with you because all the
nations of the world hate this God the
world is at enmity with God and it
will find out those people who are representative
of Him to ventilate not only their scorn
but their physical abuse and their violence so
here comes the Jews up to Zion battered
by these hostile forces and crying out to
God either in acknowledgement of their sin or
the sins of their fathers or acknowledging that
for your sake all the day long we
are sheep to the slaughter and crying out
for vindication Lord so long as you allow
us to suffer this without any evidence of
your ability to intercede in the behalf of
your people, how then are you God, your
own testimony is at stake in your ability
to stand with us and defend us in
the afflictions that we bear, this is the
deeps of the cry of the Psalmist it's
not just as I've said before a relief
that flesh desires that we don't have to
bear affliction, more important than our personal suffering
or national suffering is the issue of God's
reputation which is at stake because it seems
to say to the world that God is
not God if He'll not stand in defense
of His covenant people if He's nowhere to
be found and we're suffering as sheep led
to the slaughter where is the testimony of
the God of Israel to the nations this
is the cry of the Psalms and this
cry as well as the celebration of God
is intrinsic to the faith of Israel it's
a remarkable tension of acclaim and acknowledgement and
worship and at the same time elements of
travail, supplication and deepest cries for the vindication
of God we're trying to identify what is
the genius of Israel, what is the quintessence,
what is the character that God established with
a people so as to demonstrate it to
the nations and to the world and to
bring others into that tent and into that
reality what are the constituent elements that make
Israel, Israel the ability to celebrate and worship
the God who is enthroned in Zion and
at the same time to have the deepest
kind of travail and sense of tragedy for
our failure and sin that have shamed Him
and blasphemed His name but also at the
same time that measure of affliction that we
have to bear by the very identification with
that God and yet why isn't He quick
to answer, why the delay these questions and
this cry comes up in the pilgrimage to
Zion, they supplicate and they groan, for they've
come to the place where they are to
meet with Him didn't Solomon say that when
he dedicated the temple, Lord when we are
cast out of the nations and when we
are suffering affliction let us turn to you
and to the place that you have designated
where you are to be met and you
are to be sought, hear us in that
day and hear our cry and give answer
this is the faith of Israel so God's
honor is at stake and the nations have
mocked Yahweh what we find so often in
the Psalms is the torment and the mock
of the Psalmist suffering these afflictions with the
great tormenting goading question, where is your God?
there's no evidence of Him, how dare you
boast in Him when He's not coming to
your aid, suffering the affliction that we put
upon you so the sufferings of the people
of God are no passing political crisis they
are imponderable afflictions that arise in view of
the foundation of the history of salvation and
Yahweh's universal power over history it's a remarkable
drama that God allows Himself to fall into
eclipse He's not quick to answer, He's allowing
Himself to be defamed, because when He will
come through, He'll come through with unspeakable glory
and His honor will reverberate to the ends
of the age, but meanwhile the people who
are appointed and elected to make Him known
have got to suffer the tension of that
waiting that's not only true of them, it's
true of us let me read that statement
again, the sufferings of the people of God,
whether it's Israel or ourselves, are no passing
political crisis, it's not going to be alleviated
by a new prime minister or a Christian
president so called they are imponderable afflictions that
arise in view of the foundation of the
history of salvation and Yahweh's universal power over
history if there's anything distinctive about the mindset
of Israel, is that God is the God
of history, history is not some mindless accumulation
of events that take place independent of Him,
history is His story, it is God acting
in the affairs of men and of nations
and moving through these events to bring us
to a final consummation, we lose that sense
of God in the history of nations the
actuality of events we've lost the Hebraic sense
and we become then an addendum we're just
a Sunday phenomenon we're not expected to see
God in history and we don't invite His
participation and we don't express it for that
reason please, P-L-E-A-S cries
are raised that Yahweh step forth from seclusion
and shine forth when you read in the
Psalms, Lord show Thy face, where He sheds
His face from us, or let Thy light
shine forth, this is what the people are
crying for that He would demonstrate Himself in
time and in history and before nations, that
He would restore Israel, correcting the frightful call
of judgment by hearing the lament of those
who pray because the all encompassing question is
Yahweh Lord of history, will Jehovah display His
might in the midst of this world in
fact, aren't these the final scenes of history
God in fact intervening the Lord Himself coming
with His feet on the Mount of Olives,
that split and defeating those enemies of Israel
that have already reduced the nation by thirds
God's actual coming what that we expect when
we shall look upon Him whom we have
pierced, when He comes as deliverer, the whole
consummation of history is this visible interjection of
God in time and place, He's no longer
abstract He's the principal actor as Himself this
is the whole hope of Israel which has
been lost to them but is alive with
us, and I'm finding this theme expressed in
the orthodox commentary on the Psalms they have
this eschatological expectancy, they don't talk about seeing
Him whose wounds that we have inflicted but
they talk about the visible coming of the
Messiah God to be our deliverer in the
last day going all the way back to
the deepest traditions of Israel will God counteract
the devastation of His people with a sign
that will manifest His control of history among
the nations the prayer songs of Israel events,
the unfathomable mystery that the nations who do
not know Yahweh Jehovah and yet hate Him
rise up against the witness of God saving
and ruling will in order to destroy Him.
The prayer songs and thanksgivings of individuals occupy
the most space in the Psalms but these
songs are unintelligible if they are considered from
the viewpoint of the tradition of salvation and
of the reality, if they are not considered
in that context, of a congregation assembled in
Jerusalem.
If we just think that these Psalms and
these cries are individual laments and not the
collective and corporate cry of the nation, we
miss the whole context and the genius of
this cry this is a nation that comes
up, this is corporate, this is the congregation
of God's people, this is assembling before Him
with your wives and your children dependent upon
His mercy and upon His answer if we
lose this sense, we lose the genius of
these Psalms and what they represent is what
this commentator is saying here.
There is no private piety in the book
of Psalms.
The singers of the Psalms of prayer and
thanksgiving always arise from the worship of the
congregation of Israel.
The formulas and formulations have evolved from the
world of their corporate religion The conviction of
being heard, the very heart of the songs
of lament lives on in the unshakable reality
that the God of Israel so according to
the deliverance experienced by members of the people
of God this does not remain private knowledge
but is communicated and witnessed to the great
congregation prayer and thanksgiving of the individual are
encompassed by the reality of the congregation and
I would say the reality of the congregation
is reality if in any way it becomes
reduced to private piety as has been true
of our Christianity we lose the heart of
the reality of Israel to which we are
called equally as congregation equally as God's corporate
people equally as standing before him and crying
out.
Notice if you're not used to it when
we meet as a group in prayer how
difficult it is for some people to pray
we're intimidated it's unfamiliar to us if we
have any prayer it's our private prayer life
but we don't know how to come in
before the Lord as the congregation of God's
people and raise up a corporate supplication to
the Lord and yet that was the turning
point of World War II as we read
from that famous book on intercessor Reese Howells
that they were on the same campus in
Wales at a Bible college and could meet
frequently as the Lord stirred them and they
came together as a congregation and prayed the
corporate prayer and mind of the Lord and
that Reese Howells did not hesitate to rebuke
anyone in that circle who began to pray
his private individual prayer that should have been
prayed in the prayer closet long before and
he would stop them and remind them we
are seeking to find and to pray the
mind of the Lord that is given to
the congregation and that that kind of prayer
that kind of intercession is ultimate and opens
the heavens and brings answer of a kind
that private prayer will not so this is
Israel's tradition but it has been lost to
us because we have been brought into another
context more of the world than it is
of Zion the Lord
has founded Zion and in her the afflicted
of his people find refuge alongside of the
self-reliance of the poor there are many
expressions that the people of God, the righteous
are equally the poor, the defenseless the helpless
and that's why their cry is so resonant
it's not actually the issue of a literal
poverty it might be that, but poor in
the sense of the awareness of our own
weakness, our own intrinsic limitation and that of
God be not God we perish this is
the poor this is the one to whom
he looks and the righteous one who is
the poor is also the object of the
opposition of the powers of darkness of the
enemies of God's people who especially hate those
who look to God in their poverty and
in their trust these people are called the
righteous and their opposition is called the wicked
there's a remarkable simplification of all of life
in the Psalms it's not good guys and
bad guys it's the righteous and the wicked
the blameless and the cruel and if that's
not true of reality in the world today,
it will be at the time of the
Lord's coming the centrifugal forces operating that move
us toward one or the other, neutrality and
the lukewarm faith will not be a position
that will be tenable, will either be the
righteous, poor of God, afflicted by the wicked,
or will be among the wicked, will be
the persecuted or will be the persecuted towards
and there'll be nothing in between and that's
the framework of understanding that's communicated in the
Psalms itself for that was the truth of
the history of this people throughout its time
and will be the character of the reality
that prevails, I think, again at the end
of the age it's interesting that the Lord
calls those who extend mercy to the least
of these his brethren, the righteous come, enter
the kingdom prepared for you, righteous so sinister
forces arise even among friends and relatives and
they want to separate the servant of God
from Yahweh by means of accusations and persecutions
the verdict of condemnation is to be pronounced
over the righteous, curses pursue him magical implications
are to ruin him, in scorn the question
is heard, where is now your God?
God-forsakenness must lead to a separation from
God, which is the endeavor of these enemies
the purpose of the wicked is to separate
the righteous from their God by accusations by
condemnations, by threats by mocking taunts where is
your God?
finally, even the righteous are so battered by
the accusations and the hostility of the wicked
that they throw in the towel and join
them so a theme that is frequently to
be noted in the Psalms independent of sickness
is slander and persecution the false accusations that
assail the righteous ones so the innocent seek
refuge with Yahweh the sanctuary is the asylum,
the place of refuge for those accused and
persecuted, who as the poor take advantage of
the sacred right of the poor and invoke
the privilege of assistance and help of Yahweh,
going up to Zion is not a vacation
it's not a light activity it's a life
and death quest and necessity of great urgency
for those who are catching it because they're
remaining faithful to God, even in the absence
of the signs of his faithfulness and are
continually mocked and taunted and go up to
Zion to bring these pleas and these cries
to God, to honor his own name and
to vindicate his name by showing himself faithful
to those who keep covenant despite the hostility
and the discouragement everywhere about them if this
is not a picture of the church in
the last days, I don't know what it
is and how shall we understand it except
by drawing from their experience, for we are
united with them, the church in the last
days finds a common ground with the history
of Israel, who knew in its essence, in
its history the kind of experience and travail
that is increasingly coming upon us for the
same reason, we are the covenant people of
God, we stand for his name we are
accused and slandered the accuser is always around
us, and even through brothers and sisters something
of this torment and accusation comes and we
feel ourselves poor and inadequate and so we
go up to Zion not perhaps the literal
physical city, but come up before the Lord,
seek him collectively and corporately as his people,
maybe he's waiting for that cry, to give
an answer that will only come when we
like the Israel of old, assemble before him,
in the place of his presence, and acknowledge
the desperation of our need, that may well
be the very reason for our persecution that
God is persecuting us allowing ourselves to be
persecuted for the sin of our privatistic mode
of living, that we have never known or
have rejected the configuration that is appropriate to
the God of Israel as a commonwealth, as
a people of God and that we have
allowed our lives to become separated and come
together for the virtue of a Sunday service
or to obtain something in a facility like
this, but our lives are essentially privatistic and
independent, casually related to one another and God
will allow a persecution to come upon us
that will drive us to become the people
of God whose supplication that he waits to
hear as he did of the Israel of
old when we'll come together and maybe in
that day we'll find each other the congregation
of the ancient people and we'll find the
congregation of the present people out of the
mutuality of our common persecution for the same
reason because we are afflicted by the wicked
because they hate God and hate the people
of God who stand for God.
Where is our encouragement to be found?
The book of Psalms.
The cries and the pleas of those who
have preceded us who faced circumstances like that
and came up to Zion and poured out
their soul before God whose presence was to
be found in that holy place.
They made their petitions known.
They remind Yahweh of the wonderful works that
have been experienced and witnessed.
They address Yahweh on the basis of his
honor and in all their lamenting and pleading,
these petitions unceasingly manifest hope, confidence and the
conviction that they will be heard.
But how does the helpful intervention of Yahweh
come about?
It comes about through the word of his
answer.
He sent his word and he healed them.
Here we have to think of the priestly
oracle of deliverance which is cited in the
Psalms.
God's word can heal the sick.
The verse I just quoted, Psalm 107.
He sent his word and he healed them.
It is the statement of the sign of
God's healing favor.
With that word there is certainty.
You have answered me, it says in Psalm
22.
So the cry of Israel is heard by
God and answered through the word that comes
and is the living word.
Isn't that just what we were talking about
yesterday?
That Israel in the wilderness, desperate, hopeless, weak,
blind, lame, faltering, and someone with them turns
to them and says, your God will come.
He will vindicate you.
And the hearing of that word before there
is any evidence of the fulfillment of it
makes the lame to leap and the blind
to see and water to break out of
dry ground.
They are saved by a word that is
sent out of a cry that comes up
before the Lord.
Perhaps not so much from those that are
distressed as Israel but those that are in
the wilderness with Israel and seek him and
can call upon him.
And he gives the answer as a word
that is sent.
Finally, the final answer is the word himself
coming as the word in his person.
And when we shall see him in his
final glory upon that white horse as the
victorious conqueror there is one word inscribed upon
him, it's the word word.
So certainty triumphs.
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?
It is God who justifies.
Who is to condemn?
The enemies are overcome.
The event of God in the Old Testament
is no spiritual or ideal phenomenon but an
event that intervenes in the world.
The Jews demand for signs of which Paul
speaks is really a cry for certitude that
it becomes apparent in Christ crucified.
In the New Testament a new certitude becomes
apparent in Christ but this event must not
become the occasion for criticizing inferior thoughts or
the older cry of Israel, I'm paraphrasing here,
but to see it as the final culmination
of that cry.
The Lord's own coming the final coming of
the Lord as conqueror, as victor is itself
an answer to the ages old cry for
the certitude of a God who will come
when he hears the lament of the poor
and of the righteous who are being slain
all the day long as sheep for the
slaughter.
So once Yahweh has intervened and made an
end of the distress of the sufferers then
thanksgiving comes into being.
The last aspect of the Psalms is the
Todah Alel praise the Lord thank the Lord
there's the lament there's the plea of supplication
there's the cry but in the end the
statement of gratitude and thanks is equally one
of the great aspects of the whole Judaic
or Hebraic frame of mind for the wonderful
deliverance that has come to the entire community
as a witness to Yahweh's saving act and
the emphasis is on the experience and on
the proclamation of the name of Jehovah his
name will be made known in that day.
He'll be one king over all and the
thank offerings are signs of homage that the
poor pay in having experienced the saving power
of Jehovah and celebrated also in communal meals
and festivals.
The cup of salvation is lifted up and
writes R-I-T-S of Thanksgiving accompany
the singing and the playing which is at
the same time a confession the experiences of
an individual are to provide helpful guidance for
others.
People have to learn to trust Yahweh Jehovah
completely and to expect help from him alone
we should point to the expression of confidence
and trust and the communion with Yahweh is
extolled with exuberant phrases with the God of
Israel the man of prayer knows that he
is well sheltered and toward him his soul
waits in silence no harm will assail him
who trusts.
In the Old Testament the fear of Jehovah
the elemental awareness concerning the reality of God
that upholds and controls all of life plays
a dominating role in the consciousness of Israel
the fear of the Lord, the knowledge of
God, the intervener in history, the one who
comes as deliverer by the sending of his
word, hears the travail and pleas and cries
of the congregation of his people has as
its foundation the fear of the Lord, the
acknowledgement of the deep reverence and understanding of
himself the elemental awareness he says concerning the
reality of God that upholds and controls all
of life plays a dominating role in the
consciousness of Israel and in that dominating role
in that sense of God and the fear
of God, whatever comes upon the worshipper in
the condition of his life he who is
praying penetrates the riddle of the situation he
becomes aware of the transitory non-essential nature
of his life that somehow even what he
has to bear brings a more acute definition
of reality itself because at its base is
the fear of God, the knowledge that he
is enthroned in heaven and that somehow because
you know that and even in your affliction
there's a shedding off and a casting off
of non-essential things of trivial things, of
things you thought important fade and are dismissed
because you have a central orbit of the
fear of God who is king and who
is resident at Zion who hears the cries
of his people and who answers and if
he doesn't answer immediately there are purposes that
are being served that we can acknowledge and
enable us to wait because we have as
our foundation a profound fear and reverence for
God as God that's the heart of the
matter of Israel it's the heart of the
matter of the church and to the degree
that we have lost it in that moment
we do not reflect and resemble the people
of God so will the God of Israel
let his servant perish?
the question appears in all its bitterness especially
when the righteous contemplates the distribution of the
fortunes of life, the wicked who have disassociated
themselves from Jehovah experience good fortune and ease
but the righteous suffer persecution and affliction every
day the ultimate crisis can be found in
Psalm 73 where the psalmist is right on
the verge of mental breakdown and ready to
lose it all because the one thing that
he cannot fathom and reconcile with a righteous
God is that the wicked seem to prosper
but the righteous suffer daily affliction and it
vexes him to the point where he's ready
to forfeit the faith but God draws him
into the sanctuary into the place of the
dwelling of God, into the tent into the
Zion of God and there he sees their
end and when he sees their end he
recognizes that though they seem to be prospering,
they've got one foot already in the grave
and face eternal catastrophe and so God is
righteous after all and that was the thing
that vexed him, where is the righteousness of
God who allows the righteous to suffer and
the wicked to prosper but when he saw
from within the sanctuary what their end is,
the whole turmoil of his soul was eased
and he understood and he said, I was
as a beast to you read Psalm 73,
it is the heart of so much in
my understanding, though I was a psalmist, though
I'm a son of Israel though I'm a
child of Zion I was so vexed by
what seems to contradict the reality of God
everywhere about me that I was spitting my
soul out I was at the brink of
a complete mental breakdown my sanity was at
stake until I came into the sanctuary of
God, then I saw and when I saw
the end then I realized I was as
a beast before you, however much I thought
I understood, I was so dull in my
understanding that I allowed myself to doubt and
even to question your righteousness but now that
I see from the place of the sanctuary
and your seeing my soul is eased and
now that I see their end, I see
my end and my end is glorious and
therefore I can bear all of the present
contradictions of this life we had a brother
who was with us and there are many
who have been with us that are like
him who did not see as they ought
to see and he wrote a final statement,
we encouraged him to write and that it
would be published in our newsletter, which it
was and in it, he thinly in a
thinly concealed way hints that Ben Israel is
either in deception or is a candidate for
deception we printed that article and as it
happened, he came back for a visit at
the very day that I was speaking from
Psalm 73 and I turned and I said
to this brother, what you wrote makes perfect
sense from the point of view of the
natural man but had you entered the sanctuary
of God, the same things that offended you
and gave rise to the suspicion of our
deception would have been seen entirely in another
light, namely the light of God, the thing
that you condemned you would have celebrated, but
you saw us from outside the place of
the sanctuary, you were not in the place
of the Zion of God and the tent
of Shem if I could say it now
in the phrase that God is employing in
these days, or you would have seen completely
differently so I think we made an article
of that statement I either quoted or made
the statement, there's always one thing that we
don't know about a brother, that had we
known it, that one thing would have altered
all our understanding the reason we don't have
it is because God has withheld it to
see whether we'll be presumptuous and proud in
our condemnation and not have the temper, what's
that word, that reticence, that is not quick
to judge, because there's always one thing that
we cannot know, but had we known it,
would have altered our entire view God reserves
that one thing for himself and where will
he give it?
He'll give it in the place of his
presence in the sanctuary of God in the
Zion of God where he dwells, for those
who will seek him and come up to
that Zion, knowing their poverty, that however instructed
and wise and knowledgeable they are about God,
the purpose of God, the government blah blah
blah, there's only one place of true seeing,
it's where he himself is, and that scene
changes everything so, I'm trying to call out
something of the Hebraic mindset the things that
are distinctive to the Israel of God that
were theirs at the beginning now lost and
needing again to be restored the things that
are intrinsic to reality itself are spiritual of
this kind that need a frequent reminder and
a frequent opportunity as often as we go
up to Zion as pilgrims, recognizing our poverty,
seeking to be blameless and righteous before the
Lord and therefore invoking those kinds of things
that plagued the righteous will plague us and
crying out to God not for our relief
but for his vindication his name and his
honor having at the base the fear of
God the profound reverence and fear that we
don't know as we ought to know and
that God is in complete command, he's enthroned
and though he doesn't give immediate answer or
answers in ways that baffle us, yet we
have a complete confidence in his impeccable righteousness
and wisdom and it's that people that set
forth God, that vindicate his name, he will
honor that faith of the congregation who come
up to Zion so let me just pray,
experimental first shot, trying to fathom, what is
the genius I'm not talking about cleverness what
is the intrinsic character of the people of
Zion, what is this Hebraic thing that God
exhibited, sought to exhibit through a people whom
he chose for that very purpose, who were
slaves who were a bunch of dum-dums
who were nothings and wanted only to return
to their leeks and to their garlics called
out of slavery from Egypt, not as the
greatest but the least, I didn't choose you
because you were greatest but the least, but
what did I choose you for to exhibit
me the ultimate Semite the intrinsic Hebrew, if
I can put it that way the very
nature of God, what we have been exploring
is not culture it's a way of life
manifested by a nation before their fallenness, because
God imbued them with this understanding, imbued them
with himself, gave them sweet singers of Israel
and psalms and prophets and Moses and the
law to frame a way of life, a
Veltan Shalom a mode of seeing and being
that constitutes reality any deviation from that is
insanity and death it's the condition that the
world is in, Greek versus Hebrew Hebrew not
as something ethnic but as something distinctive from
heaven that God intends for men on earth
so let's have a little prayer a little
break come back for whatever time we have
for some response and questions Lord with
man it's impossible but with God we're trying
to put our finger on something Lord, feel
a pulse get a sense of a dimension
Lord, lost to us and that has left
the church with destitute of an essential character
a mode of being and thinking seeing and
acting that would have made the church the
church and the kind of witness that would
have moved your ancient people to jealousy as
well as affecting the Greek Lord we want
to find our way back and I thank
you for this German scholar, himself a Gentile
because he has spent a lifetime in the
Old Testament and in the book of Psalms
has garnered and brought out some of the
distinctive elements that we ask you to bring
to our understanding so Lord not only the
content of this morning which is fragmentary and
awkward and initiatory just a first statement, but
the spirit the Hebraic spirit Lord, the spirit
of Zion that thing that defies definition is
what we're asking Lord, put something in us,
communicate something in us Lord that will spoil
us, that will make the sack to run
and our juices flow in our mouth when
we hear Zion Hebraic Tent of Shem all
of these mystery words have a necessity to
be a mystery, but this is not something
to dissect and analyze and to cut up
into pieces and as if this is a
laboratory, this is a mystery this is the
very sense of yourself, this is the genius
of very God that you want my God
to permeate and characterize the people whom you
call for your name for yourself, help us
Lord, precious God on high to even have
a desire to be open for this kind
of communication no matter what it threatens and
we'll be quick to be informed that it
will threaten us or seek to Judaize us
or bring us under the law, and maybe
there is some small risk but Lord, it's
worth it and so we're asking mercy Lord,
if this is on time, if this is
on your heart, and this is what you're
sounding through your prophetic spokesman, and it must
necessarily come through them for they are at
the sharp line, the now present thing as
it is in Christ, so open our ears,
open our hearts to receive it, to temper
us that we ourselves Lord will recognize we
have been as beasts before you, we didn't
see we don't know as we ought to
know and we have not communicated as we
ought to know establish us Lord in this
precious, ancient and present and eternal truth we
thank you and give you the praise in
Jesus name