It is God who knows our way

Ps 142 1 I cry aloud to the LORD; I lift up my voice to the LORD for mercy.

2 I pour out my complaint before him; before him I tell my trouble.

3 When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way. In the path where I walk men have hidden a snare for me.

4 Look to my right and see; no one is concerned for me. I have no refuge; no one cares for my life.

5 I cry to you, O LORD; I say, "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living."

6 Listen to my cry, for I am in desperate need; rescue me from those who pursue me, for they are too strong for me.

7 Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name. Then the righteous will gather about me because of your goodness to me.

These prayers of David were written from his personal experience. Because they are the inspired word of God the Holy Spirit inspired David to write the words of his experience that were perfectly applied according to Gods covenant promises. All the words of scripture are inspired by the Holy Spirit.  You will find that the OT is written in the words that were taught in the Temple from the Psalms. This is more than just a response of David as he was hiding from Saul in the cave. 

We are taught in the scripture that we were created to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We glorify God by thinking, speaking and acting according to His word. Because Gods word has brought all things into existence. God created the earth from nothing by speaking it into existence. Every reality that makes us a person was spoken by God from eternity past. God has spoken everything into existence in our past, present and future by the word of His mouth. 

The standard of Gods side of the relationship with us is His perfect creative work that is accomplished by what He has promised to us according to His perfect attributes. He has spoken His promises in covenants and decrees. He has sworn to uphold His covenant by signing the promise in His own blood. When the Psalmist expresses his troubles or prays for an answer it is not really according to the Psalmist description of the trouble or the perceived goodness in the promise but it is according to Gods standard of perfect recreation. So the Psalmist expresses both his troubles and his joys in longings that cannot be understood. 

This is why the Psalms go beyond the personal struggle of the king. The Psalms are written as if the Trinity was interacting according to the standard of the holistic understanding of the word of God applied to the interior struggle of the Perfect Man. These human reactions are both understandable and mysterious. "When my spirit grows faint within me, it is you who know my way." In other words God has ordered all experience in His perfect word so that His knowledge of our experience consumes our present human experiences. 

We must understand that God has spoken His promises and covenant in our language. In this sense the covenant language is Gods response to us and His presence in our experiences. This language is the communication of the heart that temporally satisfies our desires because it swallows up all of the false communication that weighs us down. The Psalms are an honest reaction to the troubles of this world that contains the re-creative fiber as we are transformed by transparency. This is the book of the perfect language of the human heart.

Covenant obedience

Ps 78 5 He decreed statutes for Jacob and established the law in Israel, which he commanded our forefathers to teach their children,

6 so the next generation would know them, even the children yet to be born, and they in turn would tell their children.

7 Then they would put their trust in God and would not forget his deeds but would keep his commands.

This describes how faith and works are established. When you come to the teaching in the Psalms of mans responsibly to the covenant you will be accurate in your interpretation if you put it in context with the surrounding verses. You must also have a holistic understanding of Gods creative hand that unifies all things by His covenant faithfulness. This is a description of Gods word passed down to the next generation in which the kingdom of God exist in the holistic teaching. The words or decrees of God are like a separate kingdom that we live in as the reality that creates our earthly governing. God has given us the laws , decrees, statutes , covenants , promises of His eternal kingdom that are designed to be on our lips in the form of curses, pronouncements, encouragements, and establishing eternal life so that we bring heaven and earth together as we experience God purposes. 

The teaching is more than instruction. It creates Gods kingdom in us so that as we speak in our created image of ruler-ship we act from His love and faithfulness. God has created us with freedom to choose what we desire. He has established freedom in His instruction that produces a holistic healing from one reveal word.  We can say that Jacob and Israel are synonymous with the enjoyment  with learning Gods word from one line to another, like God is revealing Himself in our enjoyment of a united nation. 

Gods success in unifying and protecting the nation is the cause of our believing. Look at how the Psalmist responds to his pronouncement of mans covenant with God.25 10 "All the ways of the LORD are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant.11 For the sake of your name, O LORD, forgive my iniquity, though it is great." This is the way the Psalmist reasons within the context of the use of Gods law. Gods law produces death. When the Psalmist speaks of his obedience as compared to Gods law , he has no argument or foundation of using Gods law as a legal declaration of war. He is quieted. This means that its wrong to conclude that second causes establish unity between us and God so that we can return to confession and re establish unity. 

But the truth is the Psalmist must forget himself in the non compliance of the law or breaching the covenant. In this sense we are always focused on the law as an instrument of destruction or legal guilt even tho other people are putting us back into that old relationship to the law. The Psalmist treats Gods law like a coin. On one side is the laws power to experience personal death but on the other side is the laws power to overcome opposition. These two attitudes are both the same. 25 19 "See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me!20 Guard my life and rescue me; let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you.21 May integrity and uprightness protect me, because my hope is in you.22 Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles!"

Verse 19 "See how my enemies have increased and how fiercely they hate me!"is synonymous with  "forgive my iniquity, though it is great."You will see this same reasoning throughout the Psalms. The official instruction 22 " Redeem Israel, O God, from all their troubles! is evidence that the Psalmist writes the Psalm for the purpose of instructing those who are struggling to give them hope. Its not really a personal letter to show how the Psalmist is struggling. Same with 51 18 "In your good pleasure make Zion prosper; build up the walls of Jerusalem." In other words the Psalmist is motivated by the emotion of guilt or shame directing anger in a defensive posture in governing because the Psalmist only confidence is on the coin side of the laws activity in a legal sense and not a covenantal sense. In that legal sense the Psalmist confronts the opposition with the curse.

God Almighty

God has existed in eternity past. The word of God is eternal because it is a spoken revelation of God that is outside of time. These creative words cannot be divided. These words are tied together with a string line so that one word is the spirit of all the words. We can be implanted with the word of salvation in the sense that the entire knowledge of the bible is in that implantation.

IN this sense as we learn the concepts of the bible we actually understand the entire spirit of the bible even tho we do not have a comprehensive knowledge. So these words are more than ideas that we begin to comprehend but they are the communication of the Trinity in designing and upholding all things. God never changes. 

This is why the names of God that are used in the OT Hebrew are carried over into the Greek language of the NT. Because God has established His word...that being His design from the beginning of time to the end of time ...in eternity past. Every revealed word of God then is tied to His creation. In that creation He has designed, determined quality and span of the life of, and put the object into a perfect order to bring glory to Himself. The evidence of Gods design is a reflection of God Himself even tho it is His description in words. To have a correct interpretation of the bible we must understand who has spoken these words because God has many names to describe how He works in creation and re creation. 

When God established the Nation of Israel He gave them the law, decrees, statutes , and covenants. Israel would rule over the earth as God was successful in upholding His laws and showing forth His covenant faithfulness. But Gods design for Israel was to spread His salvation to the ends of the earth. God ruled from the mount Zion as the Lord Almighty. 

The Lord Almighty was the Lord of Glory who established the nation by fighting Israels wars for them. The ot pictures the display of Gods glory as the God who ruled from the mountain. The official government of God was described in the procession of people that were ascending to the hill after God had saved them in the war. This is the ot picture of God ordering all things in His creative word to fall out so that He would be praised in the most extravagant way by Israel defeating their enemies and as they proceeded to the mountain where the glory was, the nations around them would give glory to God. The Lord Almighty was the God who upheld His covenant by establishing Israel in overcoming all of their enemies by His power and strength. He showed Himself worthy in the official arena in parading that power so that He could be seen as the ruler of the earth. 

Gods wrath

Rev 6 8 And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.

9 And they sang a new song: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. 

Chapter 5 of revelation opens up with a description of Gods throne room. God sits on the throne with His heavenly beings. The description of the throne and the response from His creation in this chapter are like a snap shot of all time as God responds to the destructive nations on the earth. These heavenly beings take up their positions to bring judgement to the earth. 

The reason that God cannot remain on His throne in silence is because He has created everything and views His creation as valuable as His Son. The Lamb of God was sacrificed in order to redeem Gods creation and His chosen people. The purchase price is the value of Christ life that is demanded from Christ enemies. The Revelation is a description of God redeeming His people and renewing the earth by demanding the payment from His enemies.  God demands eternal retribution to pay the price for the destruction of the earth and the suffering of the saints. God pours this judgment our by breaking the seals of judgement. 

These seals are Gods actual judgement for sin when what is owed is carried out to its fullest. But the seal is Gods absolute voice of the curse that prevents His saints from being destroyed. When we pronounce His curses that are from His word we experience a seal that prevents our souls from being destroyed. This is why the seal is opened in response to Johns cries. 

All of these cries of distress from the suffering saints are stored in heaven as a testimony for the final trial and pronouncement of judgement. When we cry out to God in curses we are acting as a witness to the suffering on the earth. 

These seals are opened up when a nation becomes abusive. The rider with the bow is Gods actions to over turn this national destruction. The red horse is a judgement of shortening life by violent war. The black horse is a judgement in response to destroying the value of the currency.  The pale horse is another judgement on creation. The 5th seal is a description of Gods saints who are suffering as a result of the national apostasy in whos prayer for retribution will be a witness for God to act to receive the full payment for the suffering of those He redeemed.

Gods unfailing love

Ps 63 3 Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. 

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I had a very difficult time developing relationships with the opposite sex. I had a very big hunger for intellectual stimulus. But it was miss directed because I was motivated to gain knowledge through my hands on experience. I think this was from growing up in a family where the communication and the level of enjoyment through entertainment was so high that it created a connection in our family that was uncommon. So I learned at a young age how to focus my mind and body to experience the ultimate enjoyment. I was so self motivated that it was hard for me to read people as they responded to me in the proper context. Im gonna explain how I freed myself from this terrible introspection. 

When I began to memorize the Psalms they became my language of prayer. There are two miss guided principles that we apply to ourselves in our natural way of thinking in the christian experience. One is that we view our growth process by how we respond to scripture. We focus on our response as the cause of getting Gods favor. The other miss guided principle is that we focus on our actions as the cause of getting God to communicate acceptance to us. When we complete our task then God will respond with a reward. 

This kind of natural way of thinking is circular. We are starting out with focusing on our selves and we are ending with a focus on our selves This limits how we communicate to God. We feel safe with the thinking that we are approaching God through a process. We always confess our sin first, then we express our guilt, then we focus on being forgiven, then we feel accepted and then we pray for others.  The reason that we do this is because we are trying to make our wills acceptable to God in order to make our petition. 

But in this verse the Psalmist is saying that we are not pursuing God but God is pursuing us. A lot of people reason that we fulfill our side through confession and God will fulfill His side which is pursuing us. But this is just a contradiction. The Psalmist is expressing Gods love in a metaphorical way as a Person. You will find this kind of reasoning throughout the Psalms. 

As I began my long journey on praying the Psalms this one teaching allowed me to free myself from this terrible introspection and begin to enjoy the other person. Every time the Psalmist was petitioning God to gain a greater trust or to ask blessing for the people in his kingly role , he expressed his confidence in Gods blessing on the basis of Gods unfailing love. 6 4 Turn, O LORD, and deliver me; save me because of your unfailing love.21 7 For the king trusts in the LORD; through the unfailing love of the Most High he will not be shaken.  13 5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.31 16 Let your face shine on your servant; save me in your unfailing love. etc.

The Psalmist self confidence in Gods blessing was based upon Gods unfailing love. We see the same type of teaching by the Apostle when He says that "It is not I who do it but it is Christ living in me" In other words because the Psalmist points to Gods love as the only reason that he has confidence in Gods blessing , he is pointing away from himself and praying on the basis of Someone else who causes him to be confident. But in my younger years my attitude began to change as I came to this part of the petition. So the change did not start from experiencing Christ substituting Himself in everything that I experienced but it began the process by acknowledging that Christ alone was the basis of my confidence in my petition that I was drawn into being attracted to having a relationship with Him in which my confidence and growth was based upon seeing Christ in this substitutionary relationship.

So I did not really believe that Christ was pursuing me until I His unfailing love gave me freedom to be transparent before Him so that all of the other expressions of the Psalmist like praise, describing his relationship with Christ in terms of hunger, debt, longing etc was all given to me for my own benefit. I had to be freed through Christ unfailing love in order to be fully engaged in how He substituted Himself on my behalf in every situation.

This is exactly what the Psalmist is expressing here. This is a mature man who has gone through many victories. He has a relationship with Christ as if  Christ was in the battle and jumped in front of David to take the arrow and save him from death. So you see this expression of this relationship that is beyond explanation as the Psalmist uses eating at a table with the finest foods as a metaphor for this enjoyment of being delivered through substitution.

Grace is freedom

Ps 58 1 Do you rulers indeed speak justly? Do you judge uprightly among men?

2 No, in your heart you devise injustice, and your hands mete out violence on the earth.

3 Even from birth the wicked go astray; from the womb they are wayward and speak lies.

4 Their venom is like the venom of a snake, like that of a cobra that has stopped its ears,

5 that will not heed the tune of the charmer, however skillful the enchanter may be.

6 Break the teeth in their mouths, O God; tear out, O LORD, the fangs of the lions!

7 Let them vanish like water that flows away; when they draw the bow, let their arrows be blunted.

8 Like a slug melting away as it moves along, like a stillborn child, may they not see the sun.

9 Before your pots can feel [the heat of] the thorns-- whether they be green or dry--the wicked will be swept away.

10 The righteous will be glad when they are avenged, when they bathe their feet in the blood of the wicked.

11 Then men will say, "Surely the righteous still are rewarded; surely there is a God who judges the earth."

Out of all of the Psalms this Psalm is the most destructive in my opinion.  This Psalm is not really teaching us to rebel against authority. God has given us an ability to pronounce His absolute standard of governing. Our understanding of grace and ability to apply it is the only way that we will be able to live in true freedom. The truth is that grace is freedom and freedom is grace. No matter what institution we are talking about, unless it is motivated by grace it is the abusive exercise of authority. 

What we must understand is that because we are corrupted we are easily led to believe that second causes are always creating the circumstances in our world. Ive always said that the major problem that we confront is not how we describe our doctrinal positions or what we do in our practical lives to change our circumstances. But our problem is taking these scriptural principle and exaggerating one at the expense of another. In this sense all men are subject to applying the scripture with a false view that comes from their own imaginations. The Psalmist seeks to speak in absolute words that are describing authority from Gods view that is over all the earth. As the Psalmist applies these absolute pronouncements he is transformed in how he reasons as he applies the scripture to his practical life. 

In the Psalms we find there are two governments. There is Gods government and mans government. Gods government has been established in His eternal counsel by speaking every thing into existence. God has decreed whatsoever comes to pass. He has planned the beginning of time and to the end of time. In Gods government there is nothing that is able to thwart his power or create events that tilt the world into disorder. Everything that God does in creation and recreation is motivated by grace. God overcomes all opposition by expressing His perfect judgements in grace. 

The truth is that just because we are nicer and less judgmental than God does not mean that we are realistically bringing unity in our world. Gods view rises to the level of life and death because He cannot blur the line between His defensive posture and His will to end all destruction. If He were to judge inconsistently with His nature then He would cease to be the absolute ruler of the world. He would enforce a pragmatic way of ruling and uphold man as his own god. He would throw the whole world into chaos.But in Gods view He must render all second causes as powerless so the existence of hope and love would be found in His free exercise of blessing and cursing in order that man could rise above the institutions of this earth and dwell in grace and freedom. As God is trusted to reorder the world without opposition , He is building His case in which all things will be aligned with His judgments in His final recreation of all things.

We are kings of Gods kingdom

Ps 138 1" I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; before the "gods" I will sing your praise.2 I will bow down toward your holy temple and will praise your name for your love and your faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your name and your word."

Here David is teaching that Gods kingdom is established through His creative word. When God unites our experience with the reality of His creative hand working all things together for His glory then we experience a confidence that is compared to winning a war. God has established His law in the same way that we build muscle from exercise. He builds His confidence in us through His love and faithfulness. "Love and faithfulness" are part of these two word phrases that are used to teach a lesson to Israel as they sojourned through the desert with Gods presence as light and fire. His presence was out in front and covering their back. Its like a city with walls moving from camp site to camp site enjoying the protection of God from all attacks. 

The parallel is "love and faithfulness "with "His name and word." God establishes the success of Israel through His name and word and it is displayed by His covenant faithfulness. So David is saying that God has established Israel as a nation in His eternal counsel through speaking His creative word . Just like Gods light and fire is displayed to them so His name and word are made known among the nations as a display of Gods name. No one is able to thwart Gods power. Every enemy of David has been destroyed. 

When David says that he comes in the Name of the Lord he is saying that God in establishing His word through creating, has also done the work necessary to be pleased with the results. The only way that Gods covenant can be known is by His absolute judgement at all times. God in establishing His covenant stands over all of time making absolute judgements on all reality so that His creation and recreation does not depend upon His creatures. God sits on His throne as judge pronouncing life and death on every thing that exist. 

What is the principle that separates Gods purposes from mans plans? Its Gods recreation through blessing and cursing. The law of God is an instrument of the judge to overturn all of mans communication that establishes man as his own governing authority. God proves His covenant sovereignty by overturning all of mans destructive communication so that He can glorify Himself. This absolute voice of life and death is described by David as Gods covenant success in saving His people. 

The confidence of the king is that Gods word is a spoken word. The king speaks the law, covenants, decrees, and promises as the source of the kings authority. These words of God transcend all governments. David has been given the prescription that addresses the problems of all authority by the King of the universe.  These words create the identity of the real man. They are given to us in the creation ordinance so that we can understand our place in this world. Each man gets his authority by God alone. We are identified with the God -Man who took His place on the throne as He rules as King. In speaking these words we are approaching God as a king. It is terribly important to understand our position in order to reflect Gods purpose in giving us this authority. By lowering our position as king we lower God. David expresses his success in overcoming all opposition in this kingly image by declaring.3" When I called, you answered me; you made me bold and stouthearted."