Hey friend, welcome back here to the Seminize
Seminary. And here we are another week, another
episode of our Bible study that we call the Bible
for Grownups. This week, pardon me, this week
and for the next couple of weeks, we're going
to be kind of dipping in and out of the book
of Psalms that we find in Hebrew Scripture and
introducing ourselves as to what this book as
a whole, really means. We know some Psalms. A
lot of us, well, we kind of know a lot of the
23rd Psalm, but we don't really know much about
the Psalms as a book and what it means to the
overall story of the people of God. So we're
going to spend a couple of weeks kind of investigating
exactly what the Psalms are. Tonight is just
a straight up introduction. But one that when
we look right at Psalm 1, we find ourselves with
a decision to make. Which path will we choose?
The righteous or the wicked? I'll see you on
the other side. You guys ready? We're going to
spend a couple of... We're going to spend a couple
of Wednesdays looking at the Psalms, kind of
examining what the Psalms are. We're going to
start off very basically tonight with a foundation
of what the Psalms are when they were written
and what we can gain out of them. A couple of
things I think we can learn from really reading
and meditating on the Psalms. Also, as a foundation,
we'll look tonight at Psalm 1. The Psalms as
a book. are a poetic collection of prayers. They're
part songs, they're part prayers, and they're
part poems. That's the kind of literary theme
or genre that we find psalms characterize. There
are 150 psalms. They're divided into five books.
73 of the 150 poems or prayers or songs are attributed
to David. Two of the Psalms are attributed to
Solomon traditionally, right? And one is believed
to have been written by Moses. So that leaves
approximately one -third of the Psalms written
anonymously. Psalms were also compiled. by the
people of God after they were taken away from
the promised land and what we known as the Babylonian
captivity or the exile, right? You might've heard,
we've talked about what the exile is. So let's
just do our little history lesson real quick
with context. So we have David, we've Saul first,
David, it comes into power about 1000 BC. Then
about 930 BC, the unified kingdom splits into
two. And we get the northern tribes revolting
against Judah. And now instead of one nation,
we actually have two. The northern kingdom of
Israel and the southern kingdom that was known
as Judah. Okay? After about 200 years, The Assyrian
Empire comes from the west to the east and invades
and takes out the northern tribes in Israel,
okay? So 930 BC is when we get the second, the
kingdom split. About 200 years go by, then the
Assyrians next door to their west attack them,
okay? Take them over. That's when many of the
Israelites, Kingdom of Israel. So many of the
Israelites were then transported to the east
in Assyria. Then a hundred years after that,
the Babylonian Empire, which is today modern
-day Iraq, about a hundred years go by, and the
Babylonian Empire knocks off the Assyrian Empire.
And so now everybody that was under the control
of the Assyrians are now under the control of
the Babylonians. And then we find that in 587
BC, we see the fall of Jerusalem, and that's
really what's completely known as the exile.
That's the loss. of the temple and the deportation
of many of the residents of these two kingdoms
into these foreign enemy kingdoms. Okay, the
exile. In this moment, right here, the people
of God had lost everything. Everything they'd
ever known. Their homes, their businesses, their
farms. They've lost their loved ones. Their loved
ones have also lost family members and friends.
They find themselves now scared, vulnerable,
and enslaved in a foreign land. And it's from
this place of slavery in a foreign land that
the people of God began to put together this
book known as the Psalms, this text that we have
in front of us this evening. So again, there's
many different writers of these Psalms written
at many different times. But it's during this
time of exile that people begin to compile and
put these 150 poems together to make what will
eventually become the book of Psalms. Now, we'll
also note that the compiler sets apart two poems
at the beginning. Next week, we're going to look
at Psalm 2, another poem. Psalm 1, Psalm 2, and
then the last five psalms come together as a
type of conclusion. So the first two psalms aren't
necessarily song, prayers, or poems. They're
poems, but they're not song, prayers. This is
an introduction. This is going to tell you about...
some of the truth that you will encounter in
your life, that sometimes bad things happen to
good people and sometimes bad things happen to
bad people because they deserve it and they sin.
That happens. And there's a lament that comes
along with that with the people of God. There
is a reluctance. To continue on their idolatrous
ways. There is a decision by the people of God
to turn back to God. And in their lament, in
their suffering, in their recognition of what
had brought them to this place, the words of
the Psalms are often written in reflection to
that sadness. Okay? But these first two and the
last five are kind of set apart for themselves.
Again, like I said, Psalms 1 and 2 aren't prayers.
They're an introduction. And these two Psalms
work together to characterize two things, two
things about the people of God. One, that the
people of God are those that are faithful to
God's teaching. And two, the people of God are
characterized, are known by. Those who await
the Lord's promised king. These are actually,
although they're deeply rooted in sadness, these
psalms are actually an exclamation of joy. This
is encouraging words for the people of Israel.
But what do they have for us in the 21st century?
These aren't the stories of our... forefathers,
maybe spiritually, but more than likely not.
This isn't of the story of our grandparents.
Well, one, I think the Psalms can teach us a
shared language of prayer. The Psalms are spoken
in a language of grief and sorrow and pain, as
well as thanksgiving and praise and joy. I'm
sorry? And beauty, absolutely. spoken with words
of lament, sadness, are also words rooted in
faith. The Psalms, sometimes in their emotion,
are raw but honest. In other words, the Psalms
are written in a language that describes our
shared human existence and it tries to connect
us and cleave us to God in relationship. Number
two. The Psalms also help us to initiate a conversation
with God. So often people don't connect with
God because they're scared. Why? Because they
don't know what to say. We don't know how to
describe how we feel about God. We don't know
if it's all right to tell God we're mad at God.
It is, by the way, okay to tell God that you're
mad at him. But sometimes we don't know. We don't
have that confidence, and it scares us. It frightens
us to the point that we just choose not to communicate.
Or we do know how we feel, and again, we're just
afraid to express it. The Psalms show us. They
teach us how with a language to start with. So
let's look at the first Psalm. Psalm 1. Psalm
1, verse 1. Blessed is the one who does not walk
in step with the wicked, or stand in the way
that sinners take, or sit in the company of mockers,
but rather those who delight, those whose delight
is in the Lord, and who meditates on his law
day and night. That person is like a tree. planted
by streams of water, which yields its fruit in
season, whose leaves do not wither. Whatever
they do prospers. Not so the wicked. They are
like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore
the wicked will not stand in judgment, nor sinners
in the assembly of the righteous. Why? For the
Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but
the way of the wicked leads to sin. Two paths
of life. Psalm 1, in its five, six verses, presents
to us as believers, fork in the road. The path
of the righteous versus the path of the wicked.
What we see here is a theme that is expressed
throughout the whole of the Bible. That people...
or rather the people of God are defined by their
relationship with God and by their relationship
with other people. At its most basic, people
who are people of God can be defined as such
by looking at their relationship with God and
looking at their relationship with other people.
And in this psalm is really... embedded a question.
It's hidden, but it's hidden in plain sight if
we know how to see it. I mean, as we read this
psalm, we could hear it asking this question,
right? Which path will you choose? Now, the author
could have just said the path of the righteous
leads to prosperity and the path of the wicked
leads to destruction. I mean, that's the point
here, right? But because this is a psalm and
not a proverb, it's not written that way. It's
written in a poetic way, but it does kind of
sound like a proverb, doesn't it? Because it's
a psalm, it's going to use metaphor and imagery
so that we as the readers can't just know what
the words have to say, but in some way we...
feel the words that are said, and to be able
to experience the difference between those two.
So play along with me. Close your eyes. Imagine
a tree in a meadow. It's strong. It waves in
the wind. A stream runs beside it. Now, allow
your imagination to go beneath the ground, underground,
and see the roots and their complexity, seeking
after and finding the water. Strong, grounded,
weighty, alive. That's the way of the righteous.
Now, imagine a corn husk. that's been peeled
off of a dead corn stalk. It falls to the ground
and it quiveringly barely touches the ground.
It's so light and dry. The wind blows and it
wisps the husk into the air and carries it a
few feet. And wherever the wind will blow, this
dry, frail husk will be taken away. It's frail.
It's unattached. It's easily broken. The way
of the wicked. Okay, you can open this. So which
will we choose? Now, let me talk briefly about
what the psalm is saying and what the psalm is
not saying. Okay? This is one thing that I think
is super important right up front. To grasp,
to understand about this particular psalm, this
psalm is saying the final outcome for the righteous
is prosperity. It's saying that the final outcome
of the wicked is and always will be destruction.
Final outcome. The psalm doesn't say anything
about the present. No. In fact, We see this truth
all the time. We see all of the time wicked people
who have no concern for God, those who have no
concern for their fellow man or fellow woman.
They seem to get ahead all of the time in the
present, while the righteous seem to struggle
and suffer. And it seems like every time they
turn around, they're taking another beating.
But because their roots... are well -grounded
and well -watered, they can take it. The psalmist
also points something out, I think, here that's
very important, how easy it is to follow the
path of the wicked. Notice the progression in
verse 1 of action. First, the wicked walks, then
it stands, then it sits. Walk in the world, maybe
stand around for a bit to make ourselves comfortable,
and then maybe sit. It's subtle. It's tricky
in the change. And we've talked about this the
last three or four weeks. That trick is a lie.
The lie isn't that the way of the wicked is better.
The lie is that we can convince ourselves. We
are superior at convincing ourselves that we
can be a tree, and we can be strong, and we can
be tall, but I don't need the water. Verse 2,
this, friends, is the fork in the road. Streams
of water are the delight of the law, the meditation
on the law. The taking on board the word of God.
The lie is I don't need to be planted in the
word of God. Maybe I don't even need God at all,
right? I don't need church. I'm a good person.
Or, hey, I go to church. What do you want? Besides,
who has time for Bible study? Not only that.
I already know everything there is to know about
the Bible. If I went down there on Wednesday
night, you wouldn't be able to teach me anything
I don't already know. Right? The lie is I can
be a tree, but I really don't need the water.
Now, knowing, as I think you all do, the cultural
and historical and geographic... realities of
the people of God and where they lived and when
they lived, you know that water to these people
is super important. Water is no more important
to their lives than water is to our lives today,
except to say it was a lot more difficult to
get plenty of water then than there is today,
right? The need for water for humans. This is
one of those things that we all can relate to.
You don't have to live in the Middle East. Spend
three or four days without drinking any water
and see how you feel. We all need water. And
this issue of water and God being the representation
of the living springs of water is also something
that the prophet Jeremiah. talks about now jeremiah
also is a prophet that's right in here during
this time period the time period that when jerusalem
is about to fall he's making the same arguments
to the people about you're you're you're not
crying now because you're going after false gods
but when god reckons you you will be crying he
also wrote the his companion book of prophecy
that's called the lamentations It's a whole book
about crying about the people of Israel. And
he uses this same metaphor in his prophecy in
2 and 13. He says, my people, he's saying God
has spoken to me and I'm repeating God's words
to you, okay? My people have committed two sins.
They have forsaken me, the spring of living water.
And they have dug their own cisterns, broken
cisterns, that cannot hold water. Now, we think,
okay, all right, what's that mean? Because I
don't, a cistern? Like, I don't even know what
a cistern is. I think I might know, but I don't
know. What's that? So springs of living water,
right, they flow naturally. They often flow continually.
They're also moving water. We know something
about moving versus stagnant water, don't we,
right? Moving water. Water that can bring life
to us. Stagnant water. Water that comes, that
we store perhaps in a cistern. So they would
dig these big holes in the ground. And they would
try to waterproof them by plastering them, doing
stuff like that. And then they would use them
for one of two things. They would either use
them for grain, the storage of grain, or they
would use them to store rainwater. But this water,
because it's not living and free -flowing, this
water becomes stagnant. It becomes full of bugs.
It becomes not life -giving. But with dangerous
bacteria that might lurk in the brackish water,
it might be life -threatening. Do we see the
perhaps metaphor here between God's truth being
springs of fresh, life -giving, running water
and this man -made alternative that's really
just a hole in the ground and full of stagnant,
dirty... And Jeremiah is saying, and the psalmist
is saying, you cannot replace the life giving
water of God with any other substitute. Now,
Jeremiah here in his particular instance, Jeremiah
is actually specifically talking about. He's
saying God is the living springs of water and
the idols that you're now worshiping, those are
just man -made alternatives that are counterfeit
at best. And what's going to end up happening
is you're going to go out one day and you're
going to depend on the water that's in the cistern,
but because it's broken and it doesn't hold water
efficiently, you may go and while depending on
the water that's there, you might not find anything.
That cistern is empty. We all need water. Psalm
1 describes the people of God. As a people who
depend on living water. And Psalm 1 teaches us
that nothing else can flourish without being
rooted in the word of God. Maybe you're well
rooted. Maybe you're growing. But maybe it's
been quite some time since we felt that way with
God. And honestly, maybe it's felt more like
a drought than anything else. Maybe we're confused.
Maybe we're disappointed. Maybe we don't even
have the right words to say. We're just plain
tired of the brokenness that we seem to see every
day. And God can feel so distant. And just like
that corn husk, we start to drift with the wind,
wherever the wind takes us. And we start to dig
our own cisterns. So. We're at a fork in the
road. The righteous or the wicked. Which way
do you choose? Amen? Any questions? You know,
when I look at the Psalms, I hope this will bear
out not only in tonight's episode, but... But
over the next couple of weeks, when I look at
the Psalms, and if you've been listening to any
of these podcasts before, you know that for me,
the historical context in which those words were
written mean everything. And finding these words
being compiled, put together as words of inspiration
and joy and a way to communicate with God in
one of the worst. periods of time in the people
of God during the Babylonian exile really really
gives us I think hope because our lives so far
have often very much felt like some sort of exile
for those of us that that might be really dedicated
believers We might wonder why we aren't closer
to God and why do we see all of the horrible
things happening in our world. Maybe we're further
from God. And we think there can't possibly be
a God that loves us. And this is a lost world
because look at all the bad things that happen
in this world. Psalms give us a long -term view
of God's plan for us. But even in the midst of
calamity, there's hope. There's hope because
of God's faithfulness. Something that the people
of God recognized in the throes of one of their
worst episodes. Something that caused their hearts
to turn back towards God and completely change
the story of humanity. Now that's something to
think about. Anyway, I hope until next week,
I hope you'll continue to join us as we look
here at the Psalms. Until next week, friend,
be blessed.