Psalms Explained

​Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel and afterward receive me to glory. That's a beautiful way that the Psalms work is that they're honest vents, honest expressions, but they always come back to the expectation of hope that we have in God.

And so​

Hello and welcome to the You Can Learn the Bible podcast, where we summarize complete Bible books in single episodes. My name is Bodie Quirk from YouCanLearntheBible.com, here with Joey Rozek, Lead Pastor of Living Brings Fellowship in New Jersey. Joey, it is so good to be with you again for episode of our podcast. What do we have in store for our our listeners today?

Today, everyone, we have such a treat, an invitation. We are going into the treasury chest of the book of Psalms. This is in the middle of your Bible. It's almost like it was designed to hit the heart of every believer. It's in the heart of the Bible, this is the Jewish hymn book. This is the treasury chest.

I know

what's known as the Psalter or the Psaltery and, and Bodie, I spend every morning, um, starting my devotion time in the Psalms. I don't know about you, but I, I love spending so much of my morning time of prayer and worship and, and just using the Psalms as guides to draw me into the presence of the Lord. So I'm excited to get into this book

Yeah, there's never a time when the Psalms are not relevant to life.

That's what's so exciting about this episode, right? So what we're going to do, though, with this episode, this one might be a tad different. We are still going to apply the same framework we do for every episode. We want to talk about some of the essentials of the book, where it falls on the storyline.

Always we want to look at the themes and ideas, the structure of the book, but what's going to be so fun, Joey is really talking about number five and six. What do we learn about God and what. does this offer our Christian life? Because the Book of Psalms gets quoted by, by our popular culture, as well as those who are followers of Christ.

So this book has had a tremendous impact on the world, but how should we understand it? That's what we want to try and do for you today. We want to try and equip and inspire you to understand what is there in the Book of Psalms so that when you go to read it, You are equipped and you're ready.

So to do that, we do a couple of things. We have a video version and an audio version of the podcast. The video is on YouTube. The audio is on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We summarize the episode with a single page PDF that we'll give you a link for at the end of the episode.

But. Joey, I think when it comes to the book of Psalms, as we get into our framework, people don't even think of this as, as a book, as more of like a, like a collection when we don't read sheet music, but the Psalms are different. So if we want to orient people, well, where should we start with the book of Psalms?

Yes. Well, when you open up your book of Psalms, it's not only in the heart of your Bible, but the thing about this book of Psalms is it was written by the man that was actually called a man after God's own heart. And so he's going to show us not only the heart of God, but we get to see the depths of the heart of David, who's one of the primary authors of this book, but he's not the only author of this book, this is the book of the Bible that has the most authors of any book in the Bible.

So let's start with the duration of how much time it covers. It covers a span of Israel's history, going all the way back to Moses, who actually wrote one of the Psalms. And then all the way up to Ezra and Nehemiah, the days where the temple was rebuilt.

So we're covering a period of time of 1400 to 450. B. C. This is a millennial book. Uh, an amazing book to cover in that regard, and it's under the genre of the wisdom literature, the five books of literature, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. But of course, this particular book is called the Jewish hymn book.

It's poetic in its nature. It is such a beautiful expression of worship and praise to the Lord. Now the authors of this book, I've already mentioned David, but there's actually six other authors making a total of seven named authors in this book from David to Asaph to the sons of Korah, Moses, Ethan, and a man named Haman.

Now the other authors are unknown, some of the books, we're not sure who wrote, as far as which chapters were written by who, but, it's taking place in Israel, primarily the different parts of Israel during the time of the kings. So that's the setting of this book. What is the purpose of the book?

Prayer and worship. Prayer and worship. It's about honest communion with God, and so therefore the audience. It's not just Israel this time, but our audience is also God. Many of the Psalms were written directly to him. And so that's why it's so intimate. Bodie. But this invites all people of faith to join in and enjoy the Psalms.

In fact, as you already mentioned, people of culture, people who are a part of the secular culture, even quote from, passages of the Psalms because of its poetic brilliance, there's so many beautiful things to discover in this book.

Yep. And I think there's the Psalms that everybody know, like Psalm 23, right? But there are treasures in here that we think you may not know if you've not read this book through. We want to highlight those treasures.

So how are we going to do that? Well, let's talk about now where Psalms falls on the storyline. Joey already gave us the general answer, which is it's basically around the time of Kings. But if we talk about when the Psalms were originally it's a little different than when the book was finalized to the version that we have in our Bibles today.

So the Psalms, of course, started with David and they were preserved all the way down through the time of Ezra. But the final collection that we read, the way it's arranged actually didn't happen until after the exile. We call that the Second Temple period. So that's interesting, but it preserved pretty much the arrangement that it kept all down through history. And there was some arrangement tweaks done near the end, but it was used in the temple.

It was used in the first temple, Solomon's temple, as well as the rebuilt temple. But it's so universal, isn't it, Joey, the book of Psalms. It doesn't really focus as much on the historical moment where it was written as much as it does being a universal expression of the human experience and how God fits in with that.

And I love that you said that God is one of the audiences of this book because he absolutely is. So many Psalms that we're going to go through in this episode are towards the Lord, but they were prompted by real historical events. And so, there's a universality that applies to our lives today. And that really gets us into the themes, so unless you have anything else on number two storyline, take us into the themes next.

Yeah. Well, I think we could dive into the themes because we're going to talk a little bit more about just how it covers such a wide range of history with Israel and so many scriptures in our Bible actually quote from the Psalms. And so this is like really a springboard book of the Bible that just finds its branches everywhere.

You know, the Bible says all of our springs are in is in Psalm 87. verse seven. But in a sense, Psalms springs into all the other texts of scripture. So let's dive into these themes and ideas.

Number three.

start off with at the very top. I think that we want to say that the book of Psalms is a collection.

It's a collection of prayers and praises. That's the overriding banner. It's also called the Psalter or the Psaltery. That's where the name comes from. And, When we talk about a collection of all the prayers and praises we're going to be able to specifically talk about these different areas. Here's one of the areas honest confessions, and divine assurance, we're going to see so many times where the psalms start with something very, authentic from the heart of the believer writing, whether it's a vent or a lament, whether it's a expression of frustration or angst, but then it turns into divine assurance and I love that.

And then we have songs of trust and deliverance against their enemies, you know, all the enemies that sometimes come against us in life, we have these beautiful ideas of trust and deliverance, but there's a lot of references to the Messiah, the Jewish Messiah, which of course we know is Jesus Christ. So we're going to see undertones and prophecies of the Messiah.

We have Lamentations over wickedness and injustice. We have blessings of comfort for the righteous. So we have those themes. But I love the theme of God's presence and sort of dwelling in the secret place with the Lord, uh, where we draw near to God and he draws near to us in every place at all seasons of life.

That's a beautiful theme. In the book of psalms. We also have God's presence, as it relates to being in the temple, and so we're going to talk about praise and thanksgiving in the temple where we see the, even in the song of ascents, they make their way to Jewish people, make their way to the temple.

There's so much beautiful talk of being in the sanctuary of God. And ultimately Bodie, the big theme as well is that God in the Lord, Jesus Christ, the Lord reigns over all the earth and over all the nations. So we're going to see how much. We see the Lord's sovereign hand at all times in our lives.

Beautiful collection.

Exactly Joey, thank you for kind of introducing a lot of this because I think that because Psalms is so big it's 150 chapters by far the biggest book we're gonna cover So people often don't know because there's so much in there, how do we even begin to approach this book?

So let's introduce the structure first. And then what we'll do is we'll walk through this structure, and what's so cool about this particular book, Joey, is that, well, the structure is kind of given to us in there because the book of Psalms is broken into a five book structure, you'll read it right there in your Bible. We didn't actually come up with this. We're just seeing what the scripture gives us, right?

So let me introduce each of these books. Now here's what you want to keep in mind. David is the predominant author of the book of Psalms. Joey already said that. So what I want to do is introduce you to these, what are called these five books that the book of Psalms is broken up into, and then we'll look at how much, of these five books, David is the author, and then how much some of these other authors play a role in each of these books. Okay.

So book one is, is Psalm one through Psalm 41, and all of them are written by David, except the first two and Psalm 33. That's book one, Psalm one through 41.

Book two of Psalms, is Psalm 42 through Psalm 72. Now here's where we get to see some other authors join in. Sons of Korah, Asaph, David is also one of the authors, as is Solomon. Solomon actually writes the last song of this section. He has two Psalms total. Psalm 72 is the last one of book two.

That takes us into book three, which is Psalm 73 to 89. Now here, David only has one. So mostly this is other authors that God inspires to give us some of the Psalms, Asaph and the sons of Korah up to Psalm 90. That's Book four, Psalm 90 to 1 0 6. Basically all these are untitled. We don't know who the majority of these were written by except 1 0 1 and 1 0 3. Those are Psalms of David.

And then Joey, we have the last section, Psalm 1 0 7 to Psalm 1 50, 1 of the most glorious sections of this book, right? So David writes a good section of these, but we also see a group of these psalms called the The Songs of Ascent, that we'll talk about that's Psalm 120 to 134, and then the book ends with five Hallelujah Psalms, 146 to 150. We'll definitely get to those. Anything, Joey, you want to say about just this larger five book structure of the Book of Psalms? And then, if not, just take us right into Book One and what we should know there.

Yeah. I think it's important for our listeners to know that these five books that the book of Psalms is broken down into has a certain parallel with the first five books of Moses. And so in fact, what's interesting is that, you have the five books of the law and now you've got these five books within the psaltery, the hymn book of the Jewish people.

Book one associates with Genesis in that we'll see some Psalms that are about creation and man. Book two is associated with Exodus in that there will be a lot of emphasis on Israel in the second book of Psalms. The third book of Psalms, has a lot to do with Leviticus. We see a lot about the sanctuary.

Book four, Is similar to numbers in that there's some parallels with the reign of the priesthood and the reign of Christ and then book five, a lot of emphasis on the word of God as we see the book of Deuteronomy doing. So I think that's another little interesting, addition to look at the structure of these five books, but what I love Bodie, is that in this whole big, collection of these Psalms is we see there's so much richness in it that calls us to just really take our faith and to put it into an experiential relational outlet.

The book of Psalms is an expression of the heart to the heart of God. And so I think what's a great thing that we can do is we, kind of give people a taster is we're going to give you. Some sample passages from the book of Psalms that are going to help you see the kinds of literature and the ways in which the psalmist expresses himself to God.

And so the first one we should start with, right, Bodie, it's Psalm one, the very opening of this book is an invitation. An invitation to just delight in the Word of God and to delight in the God of the Word. It starts off and it says in Psalm 1, 1 through 3, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked or the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners.

Nor sits in the seat of the scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. Now this person will be like a tree planted by the streams of water that yields its fruit in its season. Its leaf does not wither. And all that he does, whatever he does, he prospers.

And so you see this beautiful invitation that there's blessedness in the study of Scripture. There is a meditating on it that brings us into the beauty of the Lord, and so the righteous are blessed. But then the second part of Psalm 1 is that curse is the person who's ungodly, right? So someone gives us a good taste of what we're going to see in the whole book itself.

It does. Yeah. And another thing too, Joey. I love it. here in Psalm 1 is that this contrast between two types of people, the righteous and the ungodly, and so we also going to see this type of contrast also in not just two different types of people, but two different ways of looking at a certain moment.

For example, Psalm 30 says for his anger, it's about a moment. but his favor is for a lifetime. You see the contrast there. Weeping may tarry for a night, but joy comes in the morning. So Psalms point us to the multiple dimensions of human life, that even though when things are tough, God is still there.

Later in Psalm 30, it says, for you've turned for me, my morning into dancing. You've loosed my sackcloth, you've clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. Oh Lord, my God, I'll give thanks to you forever. So the Psalms are talking about real life, but they're not forgetting the eternal in light of the temporal, and I love that. Another one, Joey, I'd love to have you read is Psalm 40. Why, why should we know Psalm 40 verses seven and eight?

Yeah. This is another good sampler for you about the whole book of Psalms because like all scripture, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and it points us to Jesus. And one of the ways we know it points us to Jesus is this verse in Psalm 40 verses seven through eight. It says, then I said, behold, I have come in the scroll of the book, it is written of me. I delight to do your will. Oh, my God, your laws within my heart. So this verse is a reminder to us that we're going to see so many undertones, prophecies, and ways that the psalmist point us to Jesus. The volume of the book is written of Jesus, we see this repeated by the Lord himself.

We see it in the book of Hebrews, and so we want to be looking for Jesus in the Psalms. In fact, sometimes the psalmist is saying things from his own heart, but it actually is prophetic and a foreshadowing of really the heart of the Lord. Psalm 22, I think is a great example. When we see David saying, my God, my God, why is thou forsaken me?

But I really think David's writing under the inspiration of the spirit telling us what Jesus was feeling on the cross, cause he'll actually quote those words later on. So we want you to get these tasters of how beautiful the Psalms connects us to the story of Jesus.

Yeah. Oh, and another verse is, is one at the end. Well, Psalm 145, which we talked about earlier, we talked about the sovereignty of the Lord over all the nations, right? This says, all your work shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and your saints shall bless you. They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom, they'll tell of your power to make known to the children of men, your mighty deeds and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations. The Lord is faithful in all his words and kind in all his works. And we just see the perspective that the psalmist gives us. So these are tasters. These are glimpses. We, of course, can't cover the whole book, but we want you to be prepared when you read it.

So I think, Joey, let's go into book one. And what we're going to do, friends, in each of these five books of psalms, we want to highlight some particular psalms that we think are crucial. So in book one, we have seven of them. Joey, if you would just give us the list of the numbers and then let's talk about why some of these are so special.

So in book one, which is chapters one through 41, we're going to highlight Psalm one, Psalm two, Psalm eight, Psalm 16, Psalm 19, Psalm 22, and Psalm 32. Now we could have put some extras in there. I would definitely add 34 and 37 is perhaps some extra ones we could have thrown in there, but this is a good feel of this book one and some of the real prominent Psalms because of the content that's in there because of the way it's quoted in the New Testament and the way that we help get a better picture of the kingdom of God and his king. Jesus. So I think this is why we've chosen these particular Psalms here, Bodie, so why don't we just zoom in now and just kind of just drop in some great nuggets that are in each of these Psalms

I don't know if you guys have ever thought of it like this, but Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 are kind of like showing you the first and second coming of the Lord in the way in which the emphasis is. Psalm 1 is about the law, the word that the need to be staying true and obedience to God, and that's where the blessings flow.

So the righteous are blessed and the ungodly are cursed, and we see that was the law of Moses, right? That's what we saw through the whole of the Old Testament, but Psalm 2 immediately takes us to the second advent or the second coming of Christ and shows us how Jesus is going to one day reign on the earth.

He is going to rule and he is going to have the inheritance of the nations. I love how it says that in Psalm 2 and how we should be serving the Lord with fear and rejoicing with trembling and kiss the son lest he be angry because when he comes back we're going to see, he's going to establish his righteous reign on the earth and every knee is going to bow and every tongue is going to confess that he is Lord.

So, Psalm 1 and 2 carry both with it such a richness. I love the , poetry in both of those Psalms too, how we're like a tree planted by the rivers of water when we're meditating on the word and how we're kissing the son when we're seeing the righteous reign of Christ. Beautiful poetry.

Yeah. Well, it's so good because when you have for example, Psalm 8, , it's a reflection of the glory of the Lord in Christ. Creation, but it's so great that it gives us a picture of worship. Psalm eight is like, I am, I'm small, but I'm still significant. But God, you are vast and great and mighty, and when you read Psalm eight, it's meant to enlarge your heart towards the Lord. It's one of the things I love about Psalm eight.

Yeah. I love how in Psalm 8, the psalmist David writes, when I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have ordained, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him. I mean, how beautiful is this picture of like, we can look at how vast the universe is, but the psalmist is reminded that God has chosen man to have the dominion of the earth and to one day be the partakers of the divine nature. We are going to be sons of the kingdom. Heirs, with Jesus, and so we're going to be crowned with glory and honor, even though we were originally made lower than the angels.

I love in Psalm 16, Psalm 16, 11 is one of my favorite verses. You make known to me the path of life in your presence. There's fullness of joy. It's your right hander pleasures forevermore. Um, it's just, you get the hope of like the Messiah's victory, there's another verse I think that you had shared with me earlier in Psalm 16 that talks about the resurrection. Is it there?

Yeah. Verse 10 of Psalm 16 says, for you will not leave my soul in Sheol nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. This is one of the prophetic verses for the resurrection of Jesus, who will not stay in a tomb, corroding or being corrupted, but rather will come out resurrected. And this is one of the key verses for that.

And I love Psalm 16 because the whole of it is showing us the beautiful hope we have in. The Messiah, the victory that's coming. I love how David says, my goodness is nothing apart from you in verse two. And then in verse eight, he says, I have set the Lord always before me. That's really a pattern of spiritual living.

Isn't it?

I love that. Yeah,

in and of ourselves don't have righteousness, but when we put the Lord before us and we make him our treasure. Our heart goes after that and I love verse 11 where you started as well in his presence is the fullness of joy, at his right hand our pleasures forevermore. So psalm 16 is so rich love that psalm and then I think psalm 19 Similarly to psalm 8

Mm hmm.

about creation again testifying of god psalm 19 verse 1 through 4 says the heavens declare the glory of god the skies or the firmament shows His handiwork day and today at her speech night and tonight reveals knowledge. There's no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out throughout all the earth I just love the way that all of creation testifies of the glory of God, Bodie, and then it kind of ends with so should we let the words of my mouth? And the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer that's just a beautiful reminder of all things are for the glory of god. Amen

yeah, it's so good. The hard part about this is there's always gonna be more than we want to cover, but I love that the ones we talked about Psalm 22 and 32 are two that we haven't mentioned yet. If you friends have not read Psalm 22 next to the Gospels, you are in for a treat because what happens is when Jesus is on the cross, he actually quotes Psalm 22 one when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

We'll read that in the New Testament. Most people don't realize that's an actual quote from this particular Psalm. So Psalm 22 is one of those essential ones in book one, isn't it, Joey? Because we see the suffering of Messiah. We see some unique medical details even about the crucifixion that shouldn't have even been possible, right? You'd mentioned some of those earlier. What are some things that, that we see in Psalm 22? Yeah. Jump in.

yeah. In fact, I mean, it's important for our listeners to know when some 22 verse 16 tells us they pierced my hands and my feet. That's a picture of crucifixion. . That never happened to David, but David's writing this because he's prophetically speaking about Jesus and crucifixion wasn't even invented yet. This is hundreds of years before the invention of crucifixion, and so very powerful prophetic pictures, even , they divided. My garments among them. And for my clothing, they cast lots that happened at the cross of Jesus. So powerful prophecies here.

Yeah. So good, and the last one in this first section, this book one is Psalm 32. I just love it. Paul quotes this in the book of Romans chapter four. But Psalm 32, one is just talking about the joy of forgiveness. It says, blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the one against whom the Lord counts no iniquity and in whose spirit there's no deceit.

So we see so much of this interconnected beauty because that's what happens in Christ, in Christ we get to experience the blessing of Psalm 32. So Psalm 32 is just another one of those that we just can't miss in this book one.

that's right. I love that verse in verse 10. It says, but he who trusts in the Lord, mercy shall surround him. And, and so you see the psalmist always coming back to the goodness of God and how faithful God is , so that , this covers pretty well, book one, these selected psalms that we did, Bodie, again, Psalm 34 and 37, are so wonderful to see the blessing the Lord at all times and trusting him at all times. So we encourage you, to explore those. And of course the whole book where we're just giving you highlights.

sure. Yeah.

that brings us into book

Yeah, it does. So here, so in books one and five, there's going to be seven chapters. In books two and four, there's going to be five chapters. So the chapters we want you to look at in book two, Psalm 42, 51. 63, 67, and 72. So Joey, let's walk through some of these. Let's start with Psalm 42, one of the most beautiful ones.

So what's interesting is that when you know which Psalms begin a new book, I want you in mind as you go into read it. This is something that I didn't even realize when I love Psalm 42 as the deer pants for the water, my soul pants for you, O Lord. This is actually the beginning of another key section of the book of Psalms.

Yes. And actually all the books end with a doxology, of blessing and favor, from God toward God. So that's something just to point out to you as well. And, one thing about Psalm 42 is the imagery of a deer panting for water, and likening that to our soul shows you the poetry of the Psalms. It shows you that the writing was superb. I mean, back then, the analogies, the metaphors, and of course the Psalmists like David and others, when they wrote these Psalms. They were out in nature a lot of times, but they were looking up at the heavens when they wrote about it.

They were in caves or by rivers or streams or fields or pastures. So you'll notice a lot of use of the geography that they were in, but of course it's so deep when you talk about the relationship with God that I'm going to highlight Psalm 51 where we see David had committed, a great adulterous act with Bathsheba where he actually murdered the husband of her he felt so ashamed when he was found out and his sin caught up to him that he writes this Psalm 51 of repentance unto the Lord.

and really would say that if you are ever in a situation where you just feel the weight of your sin, you could pray Psalm 51 yourself and just express these same words that David. Prayed. he says, have mercy upon me. Oh God, according to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions and wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

David talks about how God desires truth in the inward parts, and so, Psalm 51 is such a deep Psalm of repentance and honesty, right? How honest to confess sin so directly and specifically to the

Yeah. One of the things I love in Psalm 51 is where David says, against you and you alone have I committed this wickedness and done this evil in your sight. Like he recognized that sin is always God word first, but sin always affects other people and other lives. And so we get that from the Psalms.

one last thing on Psalm 51 is he talks about creating me a clean heart. Oh God, renew a steadfast spirit within me. Then he says, do not cast me away from your presence and take not the Holy Spirit from me. I just want to say that this shows you the difference between the old covenant and the new covenant, where he's actually saying, don't let the Spirit leave me, because he saw that happen with Saul.

But in the new covenant, we have the abiding promise that the Spirit stays with us and ever abides in us, and so this is where we can also take our new Testament understanding and go back and just see where these psalmists were at, at that point in the covenant that they were with, with a God. So that that's another picture.

Yeah. There's so many good ones here. Right? So we've covered Psalm 42, 51. I'd point out Psalm 63 as if you are someone who feels like your spiritual life is dry, open up Psalm 63 and read it. Oh God, you are my God. This is how it starts. Earnestly. I seek you. My soul thirst for you. My flesh faints for you.

Like if you're like, my heart doesn't feel this way. By reading and absorbing this kind of literature and scripture, they will change our heart. It actually conforms our heart to the heart and will of God. And you know, it says in my, in a dry and weary land where there's no water, I've looked for you where Joey in the sanctuary beholding what your power and your glory.

And I love verse three because your steadfast love is better than life. My lips will praise you. And we talked about earlier that praise is one of the main themes of this book. One of the main purposes of this book.

Yeah, Bodie. That's so good. You know, some 63 carries so much richness of, Christ centeredness of just being centered on the Lord. When you say you're loving kindness is better than life, as my translation says that you just think like, wow, everything is put into perspective when you see these Psalms, just kind of showing us what's most important.

And, and I want to jump over to Psalm 67, because here you see an example of God's heart for the nations. We see that although Israel has been the focal point of a lot of the Psalms and God has made a covenant with them. They were meant to be a light to the Gentiles, weren't they Bodie? And one of the beautiful things of Psalm 67 is it's, , let the nations be glad that phrase comes out of this, , where one of the reasons why we need to get the gospel out to people is because people are not all worshipers of God yet they're worshiping other things, idols and, creation rather than the creator. So this Psalm calls us to see salvation for all the world, all the nations.

It says, Oh, let the nations be glad and sing for joy for you shall judge the people righteously and govern the nations on earth. Remember. God's kingdom is not going to be limited to Israel, is it? It's going to be over the whole earth. And this psalm is a beautiful reminder to us of

Yep. And I think too, it went, Psalm 72 is the last one of this second section. And this is actually, and we end with a song from Solomon where he says, you know, 72 one, give the King your justice, O God, and your righteousness to the royal son. May he judge your people with righteousness. And so there's even that call, even though Solomon made some mistakes, we've covered in past episodes, the heart of a King , is to be a distributor or a vehicle for righteousness for the people. So we see so much of that in this book two. Joey, but anything else you want to say on book two?

No, I just think it ends as you rightly said, but Solomon showing us the kingdom coming of the Lord. We, we often pray, may your kingdom come and your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and, Psalm 72 is just really showing us what that kingdom will look like when it comes in fullness. And so such a beautiful one, and, it says at the end there, this, the prayers of David, the son of Jesse are ended. So you can kind of see that, that notation there at the end of book two, and we're now entering into book three.

And so book three has, four Psalms as we mentioned before that we want to highlight to you. Psalm 73, Psalm 84, Psalm 85 and Psalm 86. Those three in a row are so rich. So let's kind of go back into each one of these Bodhi and just highlight a couple great treasures in these four

Oh, I love Psalm 73. It's really because as Asaph begins book three, it's really the question of why do the wicked prosper, and so it's, it is one of those Psalms that have honest wrestling with God. Right? And so it's, that's, what's so cool. Sometimes people feel like they can't be honest in their faith if they're really struggling or if they're doubting, they're like, ah, that's, I don't have enough faith or I'm not a good Christian.

Friends, if you read the Psalms, you're going to see that there's no human emotion that's off limits to God. God wants your true self. So when you read Psalm 73, for example, he's angry, he's frustrated about why it seems like things are so unfair. But then Joey, we see one of those great twists, don't we? What happens at the end of Psalm 73?

Yeah. Bodie, Psalm 73 is so honest because here he is venting that all the people who are not walking in a godly way have it so easy and he's trying to do good and his life is so hard. And he's like, I, I don't know what to make, how to make sense of this. Why am I being punished and other people have

And we've all

then he finally. Yeah, he, we all can relate to this. Every, every believer can.

But then he comes to verse 17 in this psalm and he says, until I didn't know what to think of this until I went into the sanctuary of God. And then I understood their end. Finally, he realizes there's a reaping of what is sown and that God is the ultimate judge of all things.

And brings out the destruction of the wicked at this point, and then he talks about. You know what? My glory is still coming. I have a hope. And so he ends on a beautiful crescendo. Verse 23 says, Nevertheless, I am continually with you. You hold me by my right hand. You will guide me with your counsel and afterward receive me to glory. That's a beautiful way that the Psalms work is that they're honest vents, honest expressions, but they always come back to the expectation of hope that we have in God.

And so that is a beautiful, beautiful Psalm there.

Totally. Yeah. Psalm 84 is the next one we want to point you to in this third book. And really what's so cool is about this is, is the courts of the Lord, the temple of God, and the really how special the sacred place of the immediate presence of God is. When we go to church, friends, we are entering into a sacred space. Even if it's in a strip mall or if it's in an independent building or if it's in a living room it's the presence of God that separates it out. And I love how 84, they were seeing the glorious temple in Jerusalem, but what we see in Psalm 84, 1, how lovely is your dwelling place. And again, we get back to Psalm 63. soul longs and faints for the courts of the Lord. heart and my flesh sing for joy. So I just love the longing for the house of God that we see in Psalm 84.

Yeah. So beautiful. And one last thought on Psalm 84 is I love how, even when we're going through hard times in our life, we're just pilgrims on this earth. We have to remember that this is not our eternal home, and so the Psalmist writes in verse five, blessed is the man whose strength is in you and whose heart is set on, pilgrimage.

And so if we know we're pilgrims, we can pass through the valley of Baca, this idea of weeping, and we can make it a spring. We can bring new springs of life and hope as God makes a way in the wilderness, right? As he gives streams in the desert and we can go from strength to further strength as we trust in the Lord.

So I love that about Psalm 84. Jumping over to the next Psalm, Psalm 85. This is a great Psalm for revival. You know, a lot of times we pray, for revival. And this is what the Psalmist does here. In fact, the sons of Korah, they cry out and they say in verse six, will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in And you realize that this is a constant need where we need to see God's restored favor back to us. So often we drift, we bring consequences upon ourselves when our hearts turn to other things. We make idols out of things that God meant to just be blessings for us, and we need to have our hearts revived.

And so you can read Psalm 85 and just see a beautiful picture. Of what revival looks like when it comes, it talks about how truth shall spring out of the earth and righteousness shall look down from heaven and, and this picture of righteousness and peace kissing. I love that. And then his footsteps becoming our pathway, I love that too. It's so

Always. Always. Yeah. Psalm 86, too. Just some highlights that I like from this psalm. So this is our, these are the four that we think we should get from Book 3. Psalm 86 is so cool because it talks about in verse nine, like all the nations you have made and worship before you, oh Lord, shall glorify your name.

It gives this beautiful vision of like what humanity was created to do. For you, verse 10, you are great, you do wondrous things. But then I love verse 11, Psalm 86, 11, so good. Teach me your way, oh Lord, that I may walk in truth. But then the way we do that is the last little section, unite my heart. to fear your name.

Can you imagine, Joey, if that was the prayer of our church every single week, if that was what our nation valued, right? That we would fear the Lord, we would walk in the ways of the Lord, and that our hearts would be united to fear his name. What a beautiful thing.

It is so beautiful. And it shows you that God's more interested , in our inward disposition, that the posture of our heart, not just the outward acts, and so when we learn the ways of the Lord, we're going into a higher level than just learning his precepts or his word. We want to learn his ways. How do we do the right thing in the right way for the glory of God? And so the psalmist is crying out for that. So that brings us into book four,

Book four. Oh my goodness. I, there's so much good stuff in here. Okay. So again, we, we said in our larger structure, we got five Psalms that you shouldn't miss. Psalm 90, Psalm 91, Psalm 95, 100, and 103. So, Joey, where should we start here? Somebody enters into book four and they read Psalm 90, we actually get a new author, don't we? Who's the author of Psalm 90,

listen, Psalm 90 is one of the reasons why we know that Psalms existed for a really long time. This is actually a Psalm of Moses. This is the only one we know for sure is by Moses, but that takes you all the way back to the beginnings of God revealing himself to Moses. And so I love how he starts. He says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations, and so you realize how many generations go by where there was worship to God.

We know that, his sister Miriam had, had sung songs, right? There's the redemptive songs, the songs that they sang when they left Egypt in their Exodus. And so Psalm 90 Paints a beautiful picture to us about the generations of time. In fact, it's in Psalm 90 verse four, where it says a thousand years in your sight is like yesterday when it is passed. It's like a watch in the night. We see the timeless faithfulness of God. And we also see this beautiful prayer in verse 12, which says, so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. That's a prayer that I think we should all pray. How do we redeem the time and make sure our days count? We may not be able to count our days, but we can certainly pray that our days count for the kingdom of God and for eternity.

Well, this is one of my favorite Psalms. And I, Joey, I had actually never realized, I had never placed this in the timeframe of Moses. Because I love that verse that you read, Psalm 90, verse 12, teach us the number of our days. Because now I'm putting myself back in Moses's time. I also love verse 14, where he says, satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all of our days, and if you think about, even back up to verse one, he says, you have been our dwelling place. Well, why? Because they didn't have their land yet. The Lord really was their dwelling place when they were in Egypt preserving and keeping them. So much

And, and Bodie, would encourage our listeners just in light of the verse you shared, satisfy us early with your mercy. You should wake up in the morning and Psalms should be one of the first places you go. I really want to encourage our listeners to include the reading of Psalms in your devotion time each morning.

When you pray, to seek the Lord do your readings, as Jesus said, give us this day, our daily bread, the Psalms give you an opportunity to express prayers that are inspired. They give you praises that you can just sing songs to the Lord out of what you read. Many of the songs themselves are just songs that you could just sing to the Lord.

So that takes us right into Psalm 91, which of course is a well known Psalm. It starts off, he who dwells in the secret place of the most high. Shall abide in the shadow of the almighty. See, God wants us to see that he is our dwelling place and that we abide in him and under him.

And so, Psalm 91 is another Psalm of invitation to just really draw near to God. Put your trust in God. Don't be afraid of all the arrows that are flying around you, all the noise around you. This Psalm was quoted a lot during times of hardship for Israel, I know it was quoted a lot in our recent times with COVID and those kinds of things of, you know, when there's pestilence around us and these kinds of things.

Well, we have to realize brothers and sisters that God is always just a prayer away. He's just a movement away. You just move toward the Lord and he's right there. And so Psalm 91, I can even say. If you're ever in an emergency, remember 9 1 1 here in America, um, call up Psalm 91 1 and dwell in the secret place of the most

Oh, I love it. Oh my gosh, Joey, that's so good. Well, Psalm 95 is the next one, the third one that we think you should look at in this book four, and it's a call to worship. And this is where we get verse six, for example, Oh, come, let us worship and bow down, kneel before the Lord, our God, our maker.

But what I think what's interesting about this one is it's actually set within the context. If you keep reading, it says, don't harden your hearts like the children of Israel did after they were brought out of the land of Egypt. So it's an interesting, and this gets quoted in the book of Hebrews later.

Where worship is not just songs. Worship is the right heart. But, if we see in the first few verses, it does say, come let us sing to the Lord. Let's make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. So it's a call to worship in its fullest and complete sense. That's what I love about Psalm 95.

I love that Bodie, and because it's a call to worship, it reminds us that worship has many forms. Sometimes we're kneeling. Sometimes we're standing. Sometimes our, arms are raised and our hands are lifted high. Sometimes we're bowed down or we, can't even barely look up or we do look up. And so you'll notice the Psalms give a lot of directives to our body.

And how we can just include worship as a whole person. We're called to love God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and when you get to the New Testament, true and beautiful way of worship in the new covenant is in spirit and in truth. And so we want you to see the Psalms are inviting you to so many different ways to express affection.

And to meditate on the Lord and to express your heart. And the last couple here, Psalm 100 and 103 are reminders to us of that. And Psalm 100, I love this Psalm because this one just kind of brings us right into the temple praise and worship. In fact, we know that every time that people entered into his gates, they were to do it with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise.

Well, that's, that's on your way to the temple. , and so this Psalm 100 shows us how, worship was so central in the temple life, the songs that were sung and the way that we serve the Lord with gladness and come before his presence with singing. So what a great song that is. 100.

Yeah. Yeah. Psalm 103 too, just, you already mentioned, bless the Lord, oh my soul, the first one, all of it is then we bust the whole, I mean, I don't need to say any more than that. It's just praising God for his unfailing mercy and his unconditional grace. Just one of those great Psalms that will just lift your spirit. That's what's so great about Psalms. Anyone has something for you.

and I'll just add this in Psalm 103, you'll notice there's a difference between knowing the ways of the Lord or just his acts. Verse seven says he made his ways known to Moses, but his acts to the children of Israel, always a reminder that God wants to take you into a deeper place of intimacy, and it's only by his mercies that we can do that. verse 11 says for us, the heavens are high above the earth. So great is his mercy toward those who fear him, as far as the East is from the West, so far as he removed our transgressions from us. That's a well known verse

Oh, sure.

in Psalm 103.

I love

Yeah. That's so good, and then we are, we're on our last book now, book five. So again, this is, there's a lot to cover here, but if you don't understand this one, we talked about kind of the structure. We actually have seven chapters here that we think are standouts , because book five, which is Psalm 107 to 150 friends is just magnificent.

So here's the Psalms you want to keep in mind, or we want you to turn to later after listening to this episode, Psalm 110. 111, 119, 121, that's four of them, 139, 145, and then the last one, Psalm 150. So there is, there's just so much goodness to behold in these. Joey, start us off with Psalm 110, if you would. Why that one?

Yeah. Well, we, we highlighted this one because there's an announcement. Of the messiah here and how he's really the high priest that we're going to stay with for all eternity So there's a reference here to melchizedek. Remember melchizedek was this obscure figure that came out in genesis 14 many call it a christophany a manifestation of christ in the old testament.

I would agree with that Um, what's interesting is that you see in this psalm, how the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. This gets repeated, if you remember, in the New Testament. So this is a very quotable psalm, a very important one for focusing on the messianic reign of Christ as our high priest.

Yeah, it's so good. Psalm 111 is another one we want you to look at. I love how it starts, Joey, because it really gives us some of the essential ingredients of a corporate worship service. Look what it says. Psalm 111. 1. Praise the Lord. Okay. But then it gives us some details. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart in the company of the upright in the congregation.

thanksgiving is a key part, but then in verse 2 of Psalm 111, Great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them, meaning the group that should be assembled. So we want to declare, but we also want to give thanks, and we also want to study, and we want to do it together. That's kind of what Psalm, 111 is talking about, just the greatness of God's works in the assembly. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, what's beautiful about verse two of Psalm 111 is that it was actually written over the archway of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge University. Many of you know, I pastored in Cambridge for over 10 years and, do you know this was written in Latin over the archway, all of these great scientists that went through there, including Einstein, where the atom was split and so forth, they would see this phrase in Latin, the works of the Lord are great studied by all who have pleasure in them.

So, how important that verse was to even those who studied science, you know, and so going now into our, this is the, the Magnus opus here. Psalm 119 is the longest chapter in the entire Bible. It's 176 verses broken up into 22 sections of eight. Why 22 sections? Because each section matches a letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The first word was the first letter of that alphabet. So Aleph, the first word there in Psalm 119 to section this scripture, uh, comes from that, and this was a way of memorization and meditation for the Jewish people.

They would focus on the word of God and meditate on it. And Psalm 119 was what they would often young people and those who would be scribes and so forth to be able to. Take these 22 sections, memorize them, meditate on them, because all of it is about the Word of

Yeah,

it's

all about the beauty of His testimonies, His precepts, His ways, His Word, His statutes, and how they keep us from sin, how they delight our hearts, how they bring revival, how they make us wiser than our instructors.

So many rich things in Psalm 119. I want to Your Word is a lamp unto my feet. and a light into my path. And the entrance of your word gives light. As verse one 30 says, when you read the word light is turning on, you're getting revelation about God. And here, the psalmist is, it's just causing us to meditate on the word.

It's got so much in it. There's so much richness that we want you to study on your own. I don't know if there's anything you want to add further on that

no, I mean, I mean, I would love to, but I need a whole nother episode, Joey, just to do that one, you know, but Psalm 121, I love this one. This is really about, about remembering. It says I first one, I lift my eyes to the hills. Where does my help come? Come, my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.

This is a really important verse to really give you a sense of perspective. Again, a lot of the Psalms do this, but I think Psalm 21 is for that person who's looking around and they're at a crossroads in their life and they're wondering, what's next? Where, what should I even think about? Keep your eyes on the Lord. He is the provider of your help. That and so much more going on here. Yeah.

And Psalm 121 is in a section known as the Songs of Ascent. And this is important because, a lot of you, after Psalm 119, that big chapter on the word, Psalm 120 to 134 are 15 songs that were sung and meditated on as the Jewish people made their pilgrimage. Uh, as you might know, Jerusalem is up and it's surrounded by mountains and, and they would go up to Jerusalem and each one of these Psalms would be progressive meditation as they got closer and closer when you actually arrive at Psalm 134.

actually show you they're in the sanctuary. Now, you know, they talk about lifting up their hands in the sanctuary. So you can really see there's a progression happening there. And as you rightly said, someone 21, one of my favorites in there is like, even when you're going through the hardships of life and the troubles, you can lift up your eyes to the hills and know that the maker of heaven and earth, imagine that if God can create heaven and earth, he can take care of your situations, no matter how hard they are.

So someone 21 is a beautiful one of the songs of

Oh, it's

Um, and that brings us into Psalm 139, a very. Knowable psalm, right? Bodhi, uh, what, why is Psalm 139 so well known and so quoted?

I think because it really talks about how much God knows you and loves you for who you are. So I think when we take Psalm 139 alone, outside of the rest of Psalms, we can get maybe the wrong view that, hey, I'm really great, and maybe I'm really special, in the sense that I'm, you know, maybe I should be worshipped, or I should be the one who has the attention.

No, that's not really how it fits in Psalms. What Psalm 139 is really, Lord, you've searched me and you've known me. Like God knows everything about us, even the stuff that we maybe not like to look at. And it just talks about how, you know, when I sit down, when I rise up, you know, my past. So God loves you, but he also knows your ways. And he is, he's, he put a hedge in front of you and he is protecting you. And that's so, it's so encouraging to just know that God is with you.

Amen. And, and in this Psalm, it tells us that his thoughts toward us are more than the grains of sand. I mean, God is thinking about us all the time. And, and of course we can't skip verses 13 and 14, which says for you formed my inward parts. You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise you for I am fearfully, and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works and that my soul knows very well.

This scripture anchors reality that life begins in the womb and starts at conception. You see, when God begins to form a baby in the womb, he's covering us, his hands are forming us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, this shows us that we are image bearers of God, even before we come out of the womb, we are to show the marvelous works of God. There's a soul. , don't forget. We are more than just biology and chemistry walking around. We have a soul within us and our soul is known by God. Oh, how precious is the soul? And so God gives us a soul even in the womb, this scripture confirms this and it's beautiful. It's a wonderful passage. And it shows us that God knows every detail about

It's so good. Yeah, let's, it's, yeah, God, how much God loves you by knowing him. And so what's so cool is that the more we love God, we love God by knowing him, by doing his ways, by following and obeying him. And you see like, yeah, and the next, so the next two, the last two really of book five that we want to highlight are Psalm 145 and 150.

And this is the first, and the last of the hallelujah psalms, the one, the final group of the entire book, Psalm 145 is about the Messiah's majestic reign. And Psalm 150 is just the culmination where everything has breath. And I love, there's so many quotables in Psalm 145, Joey, but verse eight, the Lord is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love is one that sticks out to me. What's the, what's one of the ones that you like from 145?

I love the, great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable. That's in verse three. , , it's gives us such a magnification of the majesty of God and how he's going to rule and reign over the whole earth and his kingdom will have no end. I love how his kingdom is called everlasting and how his dominion endures throughout all generations. And it says that everyone's going to be bowed down. All eyes are going to be looking expectantly to him. Verse 15, he's going to open his hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing that takes us back to Psalm 16, how in his right hand, our pleasures forevermore, all God has to do Bodie is open his hand and there's just blessings that follow.

And I love that about Psalm 145, and of course, Psalm 150 is telling us that if you, if you're even breathing. If you have breath in you, you're called to praise the Lord. just think that's so beautiful. You know, we talked about being in the womb. You know, God calls us from the womb. He called Jeremiah in the womb. But when you come out of the womb, what's the first thing a baby does when they come out? They start crying. They start speaking and making a joyful noise to the Lord. May not always sound joyful to you, but it is to God. And so everything that has breath is to praise the Lord. It's beautiful.

Yep. And I don't think, I mean, that's just so good because we, that's what we want this podcast to be. And that's what we want our lives to be, is to, is to be a praise and worship to the Lord. That's what's so cool. You know, Psalms is mostly written by David and David is called a man after God's own heart.

Friends, if you want to know what life looks like to be a person after God's own heart, you have the Psalms. They guide us, they, they lead us and it's so good. So, you know, like our last question of our framework, I think, Joey, we've already covered in spades. What are some things that we personally love about Psalms?

What are some favorite things, but is there anything else that you would like to wrap us up with as we close this episode has been a little bit longer, but we did not want to do this book anything less than the justice it deserves. But any final thoughts, Joey, you have is I think I'm done.

Well, I would just encourage everyone to just make again a daily reading of the Psalms. love Psalm 34 verse 8, which says, Oh, taste and see. That the Lord is You see, it's one thing to learn scripture or to quote scripture, but God wants you to use the scripture to actually commune with the Lord, to actually pray these words that you read. You can pray all the scriptures throughout the Bible back to the Lord, but what better than the Psalms, because they're directed to the Lord in their prayers and praises.

So we want you to taste, we want you to see how good the Lord is. I love, the treasury of David by Charles Spurgeon, great books and volumes where people have written so much on the Psalms over the years, , of course, Psalm 23, you mentioned that in the beginning, Bodie, The shepherd's psalm is quoted in funeral services. It's reminders to us at all times in our life. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. And then you get to the last verse. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. That's the hope that the Psalms remind us of. Amen.

Amen. Well, that's it for episode 25, friends. Psalms Explained, a seven part framework to equip and inspire your Bible study. If you'd like a summary of the Psalms , that we pointed you to, we have a one page PDF for you at YouCanLearntheBible.com/notes that is YouCanLearntheBible.com/notes if you'd like to see a one page summary of this, So that you can go and you can read the Psalms that we highlighted as well as the ones that we didn't have time to.

As always, we're so thankful if you are able to leave a comment on YouTube or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We read every single one, and they make a huge difference, not just for us, but really to help other people like you be blessed by the show. But now Joey, we're coming into our third book of the Wisdom Literature genre, the Book of Proverbs, episode 26. What's one thing we can look forward to in our next episode?

Where in Psalms, we have a beautiful songs of praise and worship and prayers, proverbs is going to focus on wisdom. You're going to get quotes from the wisest man that was ever on this earth outside of Jesus, where we have these incredible Proverbs of wisdom and nuggets of truth that we can apply in all areas of our life.

And so we're going to be able to take you through a wisdom journey and give you so much good advice and good tips and ways to train your Children and ways to just be trained yourself in all different kinds of areas of life. So the Proverbs is rich.

so good. Yep. Well, that's it for this episode, friends. We hope that this has been a blessing. Go read the Psalms. Love the Psalms. Memorize them. And we'll see you back here in episode 26 for Proverbs Explained. As usual, we believe that you can learn the Bible, and we will see you again next time. God bless you.

Amen.

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