Transcript of New Book Background: Psalms

All right, my Bible in 365, brothers and sisters, we have arrived at your third Book of the Year. I think it's a third Book. I don't remember the order. But it is the first of three, or the second of three, or the third of three, and that is the Book of Psalms. Now, I have to tell you, I love this book. Don't mind my silliness. That's what a little bit of sleep deprivation will do. By the way, I got to tell you this. I'm recording these on Sunday afternoon after doing three services. Not that I'm going to my looniness, but to give you a little bit of an understanding of how crazy of a day it's been. But I love this stuff. I hope you love this stuff. The word of God is powerful and it's important. Now, a quick reminder. I am going over five of the most common, difficult questions that I have been given regarding each of these books that we're going over. My hope and my prayer is that you will be able to pick up on the nuances that come from the questions and those answers and grow from it.

Now, I will also give you a couple of verses or chapters to focus on as a homework assignment. Also, at the same time, if you would like to know more about the background or the foundation or the history or any of those other things, I have many summaries that I have already done with Bible in 365 that you can go back to the library in and look up, and you will get all of those answers. If you want to dig deeper, you can go to jamescadiz. Com. It's completely free. You can download my Bible studies, and you will learn so much about what you are reading. Without further adieu, let's jump into some of these questions because I think they are important, and I think that they're asked by a whole lot more people than the average person might possibly think. Here's the first question. How can the Psalms be inspired by God when they contain raw emotions like anger, despair, and doubt? This is such a great question. It really is because the Psalms record honest human responses to real life under divine inspiration. God diviny inspired the Psalmist to speak their emotions under all kinds of situations, duress, difficulty, pain, suffering.

Inspiration does not ever remove emotion. It preserves oftentimes what I would call truthful expression. You can be inspired by God and still be raw in your emotion, and God will totally use it. Again, it's about glorifying God within the context of the use of those emotions, and God has a way of making all of that work. God invites his people to bring their concerns and their emotions directly to him. As a matter of fact, a prayer isn't going to be a healthy prayer if you're not raw and emotional to God. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not asking you to go to God and charge him unfaithfully and say, Well, God, if you love me, then why? That's ridiculous. But you can say, God, why? You can say, God, I'm angry. You can say, I'm frustrated. You can say, I'm hurt. You can even lament in front of him. Think about this for a second. When you lament before God, it really is a form of faith. It's not a form of unbelief. You're going before God in your greatest vulnerability. Just like we see in the Psalms, you're lamenting, and it's a form of trusting in God to know that God's purposes will be accomplished in you as you continue to walk in obedience.

As a matter of fact, one of the most prominent forms of lament that we know about in the Psalms might be found in the 22nd Psalm when Jesus goes before us, by the way, this is a prophetic fulfillment by Jesus saying this, later on, he says, Elahia lahe lama sabachtani. That's the way this Psalm actually starts. By the way, I think it's a 22nd Psalm. I'm speaking off the top of my head. I just want to make sure. I'm going to look this up right now because I don't want to give you something wrong. I believe it's a 22nd Psalm or the 21st Psalm, but I'm going to look it up because I'm doubting myself right now. So I'm going to do that. No, that's right. I said, why am I doubting myself? It is Psalm 22 where he says, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It's funny because when Jesus would have quoted, Elaha'elaha'lama sabachtani, every single person that would be watching him that has an understanding of the Bible would know that he's quoting the raw emotion in Psalm 22 and would have instantly associated him with being the Messiah.

This is really important, a principle, to understand that because the Psalms teach believers how to process pain without abandoning trust in God. That's why these emotions are so important. By the way, many of the Psalms that we see, they move from despair into confidence, modeling what spiritual maturity actually looks like. That's a really important thing to understand. Now, here's the thing, another question that I get, and they relate to impecatory Psalms. Now, we've talked about these before because I got questions about Psalm 83, for example, which I believe is an impecatory prayer and not a prophecy concerning what's going to happen with out of nations that surround Israel. Now, there's lots of other passages that do deal with that, but this one isn't. Now, understand what it even means. You got to look at the definition here. In Precatory Psalms, basically express a desire for God's justice, and it really is not a reflection of a desire for personal revenge. Now, there are some people that might be motivated by that initially, but when the Psalm appeal to God, they're going to him in essence. They're not going to another source to bring vengeance for themselves.

They want vengeance, so they're putting it in God's hands and they're asking him to bring that vengeance. Nothing wrong with going to the Lord and saying, God, this is the way I feel, rip his face off. Okay? Nothing wrong with that because God, in his perfect justice, will either do worse, the same, or not do anything at all because he understands the situation perfectly. I would rather ask God to do something and let God take and hear my prayers and do what is the right thing than rather me direct that something be done and it be the wrong thing. That's why God wants us to go to him raw and openly. Now, these prayers arise from a loyalty that's developed to the Lord in the Psalms, and it really is a reflection of moral outrage at evil. It's very, very common. We see this a lot and understand the fact that they acknowledge God as the one who's the righteous judge of all the earth. I said, worth. All the earth, so that these appeals that are being made aren't unbiblical. They're handing the motion for judgment to God, and they allow God to do that thing.

These people, when they write these Psalms, anticipate an ultimate justice being fulfilled in God's plan of literal redemption, which is why the imprecatory Psalms are important ones to read. Now, this is an interesting one that I get a lot, and that's this. Are the Messianic Psalms really about Jesus, or are Christians reading him into the text? They're talking about Psalms like Psalm 2 or Psalm 22 or even Psalm 23 in some cases. Here's the thing you have to understand. Some psalms speak beyond the immediate historical situation written by the writer or the poetry being expressed here. We know that certain descriptions do exceed the life and the experience of David or other authors. The New Testament specifically, and explicitly identifies specific psalms as messianic. Jesus himself applied the Psalms to not only his very action and motion, but also to his mission. The Psalms present a very suffering, righteous king who was later exaltet, which makes it very clear that we're talking about Jesus here. By the way, the Bible, the best tool that we have to know this is the New Testament, points to the Psalms oftentimes as being messianic and spoken of concerning Christ.

On the fourth question that I get, and this one is a a mouthful, and that is why do the Psalms sometimes seem to contradict each other about the prosperity of the wicked? Because this is one that's pretty spoken about. There are some Psalms that you'll read that will say, Well, God will destroy the wicked. In other Psalms, it'll say, Well, the wicked always get away with everything. A thing. But understand that these different Psalms reflect different moments of perspective, and they oftentimes reflect different moments of struggle that the author is going through. Some Psalms are going to record confusion over why the wicked prosper temporarily, and other Psalms will just simply affirm God's ultimate justice that he's going to bring upon these people. People conflate these questions about the wicked prospering with the fact that the Bible declares the prospering of the wicked, which that is That's simply not the case. The tension here reflects a lived experience by the person who's writing these things, not some a theological error. And by the way, it's interesting because there are Psalms that show this very effectively. Psalm 73 is a great example. It shows a very distinct shift from a place of confusion to clarity while being influenced by the very presence of God.

And Psalms teaches us to look at it this way. Psalms teaches us to look at the confusion that we experience and to find clarity in seeking the Lord and worshiping him. Which brings us to the fifth question that I often get, and this is this. I said, this is this. This is the question, and that is, how do the Psalms or how should the Psalms be used to develop our understanding of how to worship God, not just through music. That's really important because the Psalms do something for us. This question is a staged question by me because It's a statement that I want to give you in you understanding the fact that the Psalms define worship to us as a whole life response to God. It's not just something that you do when you sing. It's not just something that you do when you feel a certain way emotionally. It speaks of the way that you should live your life. It includes things like praise, which is what we do when we go to church and we sing, or confession, or lamenting, or thanksgiving, or physically being in a place of trust. Worship involves truth.

It involves, I almost said humility, humility, and even reverence for God. It's not just some ritual that you live out. It's a lifestyle that you carry out, and that's really important. Keep this in mind, guys. The Psalms are going to always emphasize obedience more than it's going to emphasize any type of ritualistic performance. So your obedience is going to be the issue that most contingencies are placed upon, not how you feel in the current moment. We're Worship is always going to be directed towards who God is and how he wants us to regard him instead of how we feel. That's an important thing. Our emotions should have nothing to do with the worship of God. It's our obedience. The Psalms form the theology behind what worship really should be, which is why I have such a hard time with so many worship leaders who are so doctrinally incorrect. We've seen a lot of them. We've seen a lot of them crazy songs that really do not reflect appropriate biblical theology. We've seen a lot of them do really evil things because they do not pursue the foundation of what God calls worship. That's the very theology of it that I'm describing.

Psalms does an amazing job showing that. Now, with that said, where I think you should focus on the Book of Psalms, and there are a couple of really amazing places, Psalm 2 is an important one. Psalm 1 is even more important because It speaks about the picture that must be created through a person who seeks out the word of God, and it is a very important one. I would also want you to focus on the 23rd Psalm. I would want you to focus on Psalm 139 because that's really, really, really, really, really important. Guys, I'm telling you this right now. There are so many other Psalms that are out there that you could spend time with. Psalm 37 is one of my favorite ones. Psalm 53, believe it or not, is an interesting Then, of course, you could look at an example of my favorite imprecatory prayer, which happens to be Psalm 83. There's some good places to go to where you could learn a lot from. I would just tell you this right now, spend time focusing on those things, meditating, and you will grow immensely in your faith with the Lord. Now, with that said, this is good stuff.

I hope you will dig deeply, that you will use the tools we've made available to you. We have all those resources available to you. You can dig in and you will grow immensely from all of it. With that said, I'm so proud of you. You are doing an amazing job. Keep on seeking the Lord. You guys are amazing. I love you. I'm proud of you. Keep fighting a good fight.