Simon Bowkett's Podcast

Easter 2023 - Psalm 115

March 11, 2023 Simon Bowkett
Simon Bowkett's Podcast
Easter 2023 - Psalm 115
Show Notes Transcript

Twenty-five minutes from https://twitter.com/WelshRev at https://www.facebook.com/TyrBugail for https://www.facebook.com/Grace.Wales.online , https://welshrev.blogspot.com/and https://yGRWP.com

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A DIY Sunday Service Kit based around this recording is available here:

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Introduction

Imagine:

It is the night before your unjust execution.

You sit down to supper with your very closest friends on earth.

You know EXACTLY what is coming in the next 24 hours, but they painfully, woefully can’t get any grasp on the reality at all.

Obviously, they have nothing they can offer to help and support you, in fact some of their unawares responses do the opposite.

The supper proceeds to a point where you’re normally going to have a song or two together.

In that situation and knowing everything that is coming your way in the next 24 hours or so, what are you going to sing?

Sing?!

Sing.

Look across the face of the history of the early church and you’ll find notable occasions when threatened believers burst into song.

But as Jesus … that’s Who we’re talking about here … and His friends chose a song, well, wouldn’t you LOVE to know which song it was they chose?

Listen to Matthew 26:30 and look for clues … here is what we’re told about the song:

“When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”

No!

No hymn number … not even the name of the hymn book they were using!

Draw a breath.

Because it is here, in Psalm 115, (in fact Psalms 115-118) that we find what Jesus sang with His disciples at the Passover (seder) meal the night before He was betrayed.

It’s the standard musical ending that they chose for the Passover meal in those days, but to say these songs are poignant for that particular group of men on that particular night is a total understatement.

They give us an amazing insight into the psychology of the Saviour as He approached His unparalleled sacrifice for sin.

So, I plan to look at these songs Jesus sang at His Last Supper as we run up to Easter this year.

The family celebration of Pesakh was a relatively simple affair in the first century: roasted lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs and four cups of wine. 

Then after the fourth cup, which is called the cup of rest, the family would read or sing “a hymn,” Psalms 115-118. 

We see four groups singled out in this Psalm from what’s known as ‘the Egyptian Hallel’ and which is sung in the Passover seder Jesus was part of in John : 

·       The Nations,

·       Israel, 

·       Aaron and

·       “those who fear God.” 

But before it gets to them, the psalm sets out the over-riding principle that it meditates upon …

1) The over-riding principle, v. 1

V. 1 “Not to us, Lord, not to us

    but to your name be the glory,

    because of your love and faithfulness.”

Now, I reckon that the Lumina Bible App is a REALLY helpful and useful app because it contains the notes on the text published by the translators of the New English Translation, and they are usually very good indeed.

But on this verse, if I can dare to suggest this, they make a mistake.

A typical translators’ mistake, made from being very close up to the text in front of them but not close up to the overall Biblical context.

Here’s their explanation of verse 1:

“The psalmist affirms that Israel’s God is superior to pagan idols and urges Israel to place their confidence in him.”

Now those guys at Lumina are more highly theologically educated and no doubt smarter than me … but there’s a case here to be made for what Albright called ‘reading your Old Testament with your New Testament spectacles on’.

Jesus has been speaking at that Last Supper, His final incarnate Passover, about His betrayal into the hands of rebellious men who are going to mock Him, flog Him and nail Him to a Cross.

He is heading out to Gethsemane immediately after this time of sung worship where He will STRUGGLE in His Father’s presence with what’s about to happen to Him.

And as He prepares to leave and go off to do that, to face that terrible trial of love and faithfulness, He is going to sing:

V. 1 “Not to us, Lord, not to us

    but to your name be the glory,

    because of your love and faithfulness.”

His overwhelming focus is on the Glory of God … the Glory of His Name, a Glory arising not from what others accord Him … what we call having a good name … but arising from the key characteristics of His personality, His love and His faithfulness.

 

That ‘love’ here in the NIV translation is

חֶ֫סֶד (che.sed) 'kindness' … goodness, faithfulness and kindness.

And this word translated ‘faithfulness’ is אֱמֶת (e.met) 'truth: faithful' … StepBible colours the term in for us like this:

“firmness, faithfulness, truth
1a) sureness, reliability
1b) stability, continuance
1c) faithfulness, reliableness
1d) truth”

Those are the qualities the psalmist picks up in God that account for the Glory of Who He is.

And the Lord is going to the Cross, where many of the victims of this terrifying method of execution despaired of the Glory, the love and the faithfulness of God.

And Jesus knows what is coming as He sings … V. 1 “Not to us, Lord, not to us

    but to your name be the glory,

    because of your love and faithfulness.”

There’s the foundational passion, with which Christ walks the Calvary Road.

But the psalm quickly moved on to considering ‘the Nations’ … and it deals with them at length.

2) The Nations, vv. 2-8

Vv. 2-8: “Why do the nations say,

    “Where is their God?”

3 Our God is in heaven;

    he does whatever pleases him.

4 But their idols are silver and gold,

    made by human hands.

5 They have mouths, but cannot speak,

    eyes, but cannot see.

6 They have ears, but cannot hear,

    noses, but cannot smell.

7 They have hands, but cannot feel,

    feet, but cannot walk,

    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.

8 Those who make them will be like them,

    and so will all who trust in them.”

Now ‘the Nations’ is a Biblical theme that stretches right back to times soon after the ‘birth’ of the nation of Israel when God brought the Hebrews out of Egypt and appointed them to be the administrators of His justice against their surrounding nations.

Those surrounding nations who dived into idolatry and the injustice and immorality that it leads to.

‘The Nations’ here then were the people who God judged for their idolatry and for the social injustice and sexual immorality that flowed from it.

And God judged those Nations using the Israelites who He redeemed and brought up out of Egypt to drive the Nations out of the land of Canaan on account of the extent of their sin.

The Nations are the idolaters whose idolatry has led the into excessive and awful behaviour that marred the face of God’s creation.

And the Old Testament prophets were scathing about their idolatries, exposing them for their follies and excesses.

Famously Isaiah 40 turns the tide in that book from God’s pronouncement of judgement on the sin of His own Old Covenant people and starts to talk about the Saviour and the salvation the Messiah would bring.

So Isaiah 40 starts ‘Comfort, comfort my people …’

But very soon it takes us to the prophecy of Jesus coming:

“You who bring good news to Zion,
    go up on a high mountain.
You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[
c]
    lift up your voice with a shout,
lift it up, do not be afraid;
    say to the towns of Judah,
    “Here is your God!”
10 See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power,
    and he rules with a mighty arm.
See, his reward is with him,
    and his recompense accompanies him.
11 He tends his flock like a shepherd:
    He gathers the lambs in his arms
and carries them close to his heart;
    he gently leads those that have young …”

 

There is true God for you … the One we have come to know as the Lord Jesus, the Messiah.

And in no time after introducing true God Jesus, Isaiah is to be found portraying the contrary characteristics of the idolatry of the Nations, and laying its follies bare:

“With whom, then, will you compare God?
    To what image will you liken him?
19 As for an idol, a metalworker casts it,
    and a goldsmith overlays it with gold
    and fashions silver chains for it.
20 A person too poor to present such an offering
    selects wood that will not rot;
they look for a skilled worker
    to set up an idol that will not topple.”

 

But in contrast to these dead idols, the Lord is able and willing to help in Isaiah:

“The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
    and his understanding no one can fathom.
29 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.
30 Even youths grow tired and weary,
    and young men stumble and fall;
31 but those who hope in the Lord
    will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
    they will run and not grow weary,
    they will walk and not be faint.”

 

Now that is the Lord’s theology as he sang and rejoiced in it that Passover night.

And much of what Isaiah has here in ch. 40 is ABOUT Jesus.

But over the next 24 hours it will feel as if His experience falls far short of what Isaiah promised here. 

Jesus is going to the Cross.

·       He gets challenged on the way there by the Roman soldiers who blindfolded and struck Him and demanded He should prophesy who had hit him.

·       He gets challenged as He hangs there to come down from the Cross if He is the Messiah, the Son of God.

See Psalm 115:2?

They say: ‘Where is your God’.

Exactly what they taunted Jesus over.

And the response here in Ps. 115 comes straight back: “Our God is in heaven;
    he does whatever pleases him.”

And then in the long-standing tradition of God’s faithful prophets (like Isaiah), Psalm 115 exposes the folly of the idolatry of the Nations:

“But their idols are silver and gold,
    made by human hands.
5 They have mouths, but cannot speak,
    eyes, but cannot see.
6 They have ears, but cannot hear,
    noses, but cannot smell.
7 They have hands, but cannot feel,
    feet, but cannot walk,
    nor can they utter a sound with their throats.
8 Those who make them will be like them,
    and so will all who trust in them.”

Now, who of those involved in what goes on around the Cross fits that description?

Who in Gethsemane?

The POWERFUL-looking people.

The PERSECUTING people.

In first-century culture the pagan people, the idolaters, were the Romans.

The ones whose leader wrote a notice that was pinned above the Cross, mockingly proclaiming the Lord ‘The King of the Jews’, as He hung there so apparently defeated … yet triumphing over the principalities and powers and making a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them BY the very Cross that they mocked Him for.

Psalm 115 exposes the weakness of the idolatrous ‘Nations’, even in their apparent strength and power.

They are as dumb, blind, deaf, senseless and immobile spiritually as the idols they make for themselves (say verses 5-7).

In summary (v. 8) “Those who make them will end up like them,

as will everyone who trusts in them.”

And the Lord goes to the Cross as the Passover Lamb … perhaps with the next verse addressed to true Israel ringing in His ears …

The first group addressed in this psalm the Lord sang is the Nations … addressed at great length.

The next two groups are addressed in very short order.

3) Israel, v. 9

V. 9: “All you Israelites, trust in the Lord—

    he is their help and shield.”

The Israelites are contrasted with the Nations, whose foolish idolatry (better than which they ought to know as the rational critique of vv. 4-8 makes clear) is simply condemned.

Here Israel is being exhorted to what God designed them for, but which they have walked away from.

Right back at the beginnings of the Old Testament people of God and His special covenant relationship with them, in Genesis 15:6, Abram believed God and it was credited or reckoned to him as righteousness.

This episode back there with Abram is basic to the NT teaching of Paul on justification (Romans 4:3, Galatians 3:6 … also James 2:23, of course). 

Paul weaves this Genesis passage and Ps 32 together, as both refer to imputing an attribute, righteousness or guilt. 

Paul explains that for the one who believes in the Lord, like Abram, God credits him with righteousness but does not credit his sins against him because he is forgiven. 

Justification does not mean that the believer is thoroughly righteous in motive and conduct; it means that God credits him with righteous standing, so that in the records of heaven (as it were) he is declared righteous.

And that reckoning or accounting as righteous by God arises fundamentally from TRUSTING in the Lord … not from rule-keeping.

And around the Cross stood the teachers and experts in the Law.

And what should they have done in response to the Living God?

Not ritual.

Not works-based righteousness.

“All you Israelites, trust in the Lord—

    he is their help and shield.”

And there Jesus hung on His Cross … against the background of these words of the Psalm He’d sung the night before during His last supper with His disciples before Calvary, as the Jewish passers-by and leaders of the people poured scorn on Him.

Luke 23:35 “The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

And they sneered at Him like that while not simply the Lord’s body but His compassionate heart BLED for His rebellious people … oh that all you Israelites WOULD trust in the Lord … as He would then be the help and shield they so desperately need.

But interestingly it is not on the Sanhedrin who had Jesus condemned but specifically on the House of Aaron, the priests of the Old Covenant, that the psalm focussed on finally …

 

4) The House of Aaron, vv. 10-11

Vv. 10-11: “House of Aaron, trust in the Lord—

    he is their help and shield.

11 You who fear him, trust in the Lord—

    he is their help and shield.”

Aaron.

Priests.

Those who should have stood between God and mankind to bring them together … because that is what a priest’s supposed to be FOR!

They proved pretty useless in that role if they didn’t trust in the Lord Who sent them their Saviour!

You can’t stand between God and mankind to bring the together if you don’t trust God, if you aren’t with God as well as with humanity to bring them together.

Fascinatingly, in Acts 6 tells us how the early church in Jerusalem appointed deacons and then says (Acts 6:7) “So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.”

Why do you think this point gets so heavily emphasised?

It was the High Priests who sent soldiers … their Temple Guard … to bring in Jesus from the Garden of Gethsemane.

It was at the High PRIEST’s house that the charges against Jesus were cooked up.

In Luke 23 and in John 18-19 it is the leading priests who keep pushing the civil authorities to crucify Jesus, whipping up the mob to pressure Pilate into doing so.

Look through Matthew 26-27 and see just how responsible the priesthood and in particular the high-priests were in betraying Jesus to death on charges that were spurious.

The priests.

It is at their door that the early apostolic preaching lays the responsibility: 

With the Glory of God as His highest motivation in life and in death, the Lord is so let down in His experience in life and death by the failure of those who were supposed to bring wandering humans back to Himself to even TRUST Him themselves.

SO let down.

SO despised.

SO rejected.

A man indeed of very many sorrows as He sang out that Passover night this plea of the psalmist … ‘trust in the Lord, Who longs to be your strength and shield as you put your trust in Him’.

But no.

It was ‘Crucify!’, they shouted, insisting that they wanted Him done away.

The last group specifically identified in Christ’s last song is that of the God-fearers

5) ALL God-fearers, vv. 12-18 

Vv. 12-18: “The Lord remembers us and will bless us:

    He will bless his people Israel,

    he will bless the house of Aaron,

13 he will bless those who fear the Lord—

    small and great alike.

And the astonishing thing is that is EXACTLY what God was going to do, with the Messiah they were about to crucify BY MEANS OF the awful and terrible thing they were about to do to Him.

But look … did you see the subtle shift that has now taken place in the definition of those God is blessing?

Here’s the great change predicted when the Messiah comes along … now the promise to Abraham is fulfilled … 

Genesis 18:18“Abraham will surely become a great and powerful nation, and all nations on earth will be blessed through him.”

Genesis 22:18 – “and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed,”

Genesis 26:4 – “through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed,”

And so the covenant with Abraham which involves the incorporation not just of Israel’s priests and people but all who ‘fear God’ … who stand in respectful, awed, covenant relationship with Him … come to be launched.

And it is here in Psalm 115, sung by Jesus on the night that He was betrayed.

14 May the Lord cause you to flourish,

    both you and your children.

15 May you be blessed by the Lord,

    the Maker of heaven and earth.

16 The highest heavens belong to the Lord,

    but the earth he has given to mankind.

17 It is not the dead who praise the Lord,

    those who go down to the place of silence;

18 it is we who extol the Lord,

    both now and forevermore.

Praise the Lord.”

Yes, yes!

Jesus knew that’s where things were heading.

But first they would betray Him, despise Him, reject Him.

First the penalty of the sinfulness of humanity and the sinful manifestations of that condition as people committed acts of sin would all be poured out on Him.

And the wrath of the Father would fall on Him for ALL His people’s sins, ALL (that is) who would come ultimately to truly turn from sin and trust in Him.

Sin up to and including the sin of taking the sinless saviour and nailing Him to a Cross to die between heaven and earth … reconciling the two again.

And so, we who have received mercy extol the Lord both now and for ever more.

Conclusion

Bringing it back to that Passover meal, Matthew 26:30 tells us quite innocuously, ““When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.”

But what a hymn.

Given what was about to take place with the Romans and the Jewish people and their spiritual leaders in the priesthood who were supposed to bring Heaven and earth together through their ministry but despised the Passover Lamb instead of honouring Him … given all of that … 

What. A. Hymn.

And how much of the pain of His heart at His rejection would it exacerbate?

You see, Psalm 115 demonstrates and opens out what Jesus, what God the Father would have LOVED to have seen … but didn’t … and opens a window on some of the anguish of the Saviour’s soul as He was sacrificed for our sin.

And whilst He wrestled with that burden in Gethsemane … His passion for the Glory of God in the salvation of sinners drove Him on through it.

He saw everything that was coming to Him.

And notice this my friends: our Saviour did not turn back.