In God’s Prayer Book – considering creation, part 2.

Class Outline:

Thursday October 27, 2022

 

What’s the big idea of praying the Psalms?

 

The Psalms teach us how to pray. It is God’s prayer book. Praying The Psalms train us to respond to the riches of biblical truth, mature our emotions and personality, reorients our straying minds, breaks us of individuality, and warm our hearts towards God when they grow cold.

 

One early church father wrote that the Book of Psalms had the anatomy of the human heart. What he meant was that every human experience, emotion, and interaction with God in the reality of human life, is found in them. So many others in the church have found the same thing. Don’t let the Psalms be a treasure that you have failed to open.

 

We started last time the theme of creation in the Psalms.

 

God is the sole Creator, and many Psalms summon us to bring Him honor, praise, and thanksgiving, Psa 8; 19; 29; 104.

 

There is no single Psalm that speaks only of creation. The creation is a picture of the power and the faithfulness of God to which we are to respond.

 

Psa 8 was creation and Creator related to God’s desire and plan for mankind, against which we failed and the Lord Jesus Christ could only fulfill.

 

Psa 19 was creation and Creator related to God’s law to which we must have the proper response. Moved by the observation that the heavens, under the dominating influence of the sun, declare the splendor of Gods’ handiwork, the psalmist asserts that the dominating influence of life is the efficacious law of the Lord, which prompts him to pray for cleansing and preservation so that his life will be acceptable before the Lord.

 

Psa 29 - the Lord’s power in a terrifying thunderstorm elicits glorifying Him who alone can give power and peace to His people.

 

In PSA 8:1 - “How majestic is Your name,” and here, “Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.”

 

Psa 29 A Psalm of David.

 

Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty [angels; and a sarcastic dig at the Canaanites who named their pantheon the same],

Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

2 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name;

Worship the Lord in holy array [priestly garments].

 

3 The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;

The God of glory thunders,

The Lord is over many waters.

4 The voice of the Lord is powerful,

The voice of the Lord is majestic.

5 The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;

Yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.

6 He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,

And Sirion [Mt. Hermon] like a young wild ox.

7 The voice of the Lord hews out flames of fire.

8 The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;

The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

9 The voice of the Lord makes the deer to calve

And strips the forests bare;

And in His temple everything says, "Glory!"

 

10 The Lord sat as King at the flood;

Yes, the Lord sits as King forever.

11 The Lord will give strength to His people;

The Lord will bless His people with peace.

 

The first stanza (vv. 1-2) is a call to praise God for who He is.

 

By praying The Psalms we would be reminded to do this frequently. Praying on our own without psalms, we might only do so when we feel like it. Of all the exhortations to praise the Lord in the Bible, do you think any of them add, “When you feel like it.”?

 

The psalm is entirely praise; there is no request at all. It is about the person of God and His works in life, or more simply, His greatness and grace.

 

The ones who worship God are in “holy array,” or priestly garments. They were white and clean, meaning, those who worship God as holy must also be holy. God’s awesome purity so inspires us that we choose it for ourselves, and struggle to walk in it, which leads to admire and worship Him more so for who He is.

 

We all have to grow to a place where we praise God for who He is and not for what things we hope He will give to us.

 

His greatness is depicted in the incredible thunderstorm and His grace in the power and peace He gives to His people.

 

God’s greatness is going to be sat right on top of where many claimed another greatness.

 

God’s storm is in Lebanon and Syria, the nations to the north of ancient (and modern) Israel who were in constant conflict with Israel. They claimed other gods and many in Israel worshipped those gods. I can only imagine that one of the top reasons for worshipping the false gods is because they did not demand the “holy array” to be in the heart. This has never changed, people, even Christians, want all the benefits of God without the painful and pesky problem of overcoming the flesh. Everyone is born in the flesh, and so it is a problem for everyone. Sin gets in the way of worshipping the One true Holy God, and so everyone has a struggle ahead in order to come to a close worship and fellowship with God.

 

Later on, people caught on to this, as Israel did after their captivity, and they threw away their idols and set off to overcome the flesh so they could worship God from a position of holiness. But Satan, wise and wily, had a counter attack - he would heartily encourage their overcoming of the flesh, but only by the flesh, so that the flesh would find power in self-righteous pride. (The Muslim religion would be built on the same premise - control of the flesh by the flesh.) Our Lord Jesus came into a world where both kinds of self-worship flourished.

 

God has always shown mankind the way. We must overcome the flesh so that we can worship Him from holiness, but we do so through faith in God’s grace, mercy, truth, and Holy Spirit. We learn of Him while sinners and long for Him and find our strength, wisdom, and conviction as a gift from Him. It still means that we have a lot of work to do, but our work is one of faith, not doing for the sake of doing.

 

Map of Israel, course of the storm…

The focus of the thunderstorm is interesting because it is not located in Israel. The psalmist traces the movement of the storm as it crosses Lebanon and Syria to the north, which is Canaanite territory. This may be a dig at the storm god of the north who was the god Baal (Hadad).

 

Baal the storm god.

This idol was found just feet from the temple of Baal in Syria, right where the psalmist puts God’s storm. The pictures of Baal clearly portray him as the storm god, standing on waves of water with a spear of lightning flashes in his hand and a club, for thunder, in the other. When it rained and thundered, the people credited Baal. In fact, the Canaanite texts refer to the seven peels of thunder from Baal, perhaps represented in this psalm with the seven occurrences of “the voice of the Lord.” Remember, Israel loved idol worship, as have people always. We think power comes from man or from nature or from machines or money or influence, but God takes all the credit for the mighty storm. It is not the voice of Baal that smashes cedars to splinters, but Yavah, the God of Israel.

 

God’s storm sits right on top of the place where people thought they had a real storm god. God does this in word and in deed throughout history. Where we try to build our idols, He places Himself on them so as to crush them.

 

ISA 42:17

They shall be turned back and be utterly put to shame,

Who trust in idols,

Who say to molten images,

"You are our gods."

 

ISA 46:5-7

"To whom would you liken Me,

And make Me equal and compare Me,

That we should be alike?

6 "Those who lavish gold from the purse

And weigh silver on the scale

Hire a goldsmith, and he makes it into a god;

They bow down, indeed they worship it.

7 "They lift it upon the shoulder and carry it;

They set it in its place and it stands there.

It does not move from its place.

Though one may cry to it, it cannot answer;

It cannot deliver him from his distress.

 

Focusing again on prayer, now that we know that there is an underlying theme to Psa 29, that is God crushing idols and showing Himself as the only source of power that can give peace to His own, we should find ourselves exploring with God in prayer as to the identity of our own idols so that we can drag them out into His light for God to crush them. Money, sex, power, alcohol, drugs, entertainment, sports, or is it more subtle things like putting other people down when you can, bitterness, hatred for someone, fear, anxiety, self-pity, legalism, judging, etc. Yes, you can make an idol out of fear or bitterness or hatred to another… you grow to love the misery and funny feeling of self-power you feel that it gives you, but it is only empowering the flesh who will take any stimulation. God wants to free us from all of this filth now, so we can walk with Him in holy array. Isn’t this something wonderful to pray about? Knowing that your real Almighty Father is intensely listening in real time, and knowing that success in this is His will and knowing then also that He is really going to do something to push you up and over if, when the time comes, you’re still ready to receive the boost.

 

In the last stanza, the psalmist takes us to something mightier than a great storm, the flood of Genesis.

 

PSA 29:10-11

The Lord sat as King at the flood;

Yes, the Lord sits as King forever.

11 The Lord will give strength to His people;

The Lord will bless His people with peace.

 

This is the greatest exhibit of the Lord’s sovereign control over all of nature. Since this is our God, He will give strength to His people and bless them with peace.

 

Psa 104, a psalm of praise to God as the Creator and sustainer of all things.