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Biblestudy: Psalms 90-100
An Overview of the End Time: Prophetic Psalms of Moses
#BS-743
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 15-Oct-05; 81 minutes
summary: Psalms 90-100 are prophetic, having a definite time progression, especially referencing the time frame between the Feast of Trumpets to the Last Great Day. Some have speculated that Moses wrote all eleven of these Psalms, and some have even suggested that they should be considered one psalm in eleven sections, analogous to Psalm 119. Unlike perishable mortal mankind, Immortal God is not concerned about time.
transcript:
If you mention the Psalms to most people, they will say that they are wonderful songs of praise and they receive a great deal of comfort and inspiration from them. Usually, they will say that they have a particular psalm that they like the most. A lot of people's favorite psalm, of course, is Psalm 23. Others have other psalms. One of my favorites (and it may be my favorite) is Psalm 37. But I also like Psalm 90, which we will be getting to later. And there are other psalms too that little sections of them we have either memorized or we know the words to the hymns. And we think of them when things come up or certain words or phrases pop into our minds. Everybody knows "Blessed and Happy is the Man" and everybody knows that that is Psalm 1. And so we generally have an idea of what Psalm 1 says. And Psalm 19 and Psalm 119 are very similar in their appreciation of God's law. So there are many things in those that we understand and can recite and remember. Even from a purely intellectual or scholarly point of view they are great poetry and people like them just for that. They make for good literature and they can relax even the most secular people because the words are so true and comforting to people. Some people even say that they are the part of Scripture that they turn to most often. They just love the Psalms. Psalms and the Proverbs are their sections of Scripture. I guess maybe as we get older and we need the comfort of the Scriptures, the Psalms really stand out as comforting parts and passages. But the Psalms are really much more than even that. Within them are Christian living principles, doctrines, even a little bit of history because certain psalms fill out what was going through a person's mind, specifically David's as he was going through various things. You will see in the superscription of several of these that this was written when David was fleeing from Saul in such and such a place or going to En-gedi or wherever it happened to be. So, there is history too. And of course, there is prophecy. Most people do not think of the Psalms as being particularly prophetic, but prophecy is there. Psalm 83 is one of the ones that talks about the confederation that comes up against God and His people. And this is, we think, very indicative of the people that will be coming together as a confederacy against Israel at the end time. Obviously, Psalm 22 is almost a perfect pre-account, not an account or recount, but a pre-account of what happened to Jesus Christ on His last days—not a bone would be broken and that sort of things thing. It is just all laid out there, 1, 2, 3. Some have even called Psalm 22 the fifth gospel because it so lays out what Christ came to do and what Christ went through. And if you would go then into the actual gospels and find out what happened on that Passover day, there are a couple of times they refer back to various scriptures and they almost invariably are from Psalm 22. And other psalms treat various aspects of prophecy just like those do. Today we are going to look at 11 psalms, all in a row, between Psalm 90 and Psalm 100. They are a series of psalms that are also prophecies and they are all related prophecies. They are prophecies that look to our day right now and the years ahead. They are very apropos, not only for our times, but also for this specific time, this fall festival season between Trumpets and the Last Great Day. And they are particularly appropriate for the Feast of Tabernacles, especially as we get toward Psalm 100. And we will see as we go through here that there is a time progression that goes from Psalm 90 all the way up through Psalm 100. So not only are they prophetic, but they are also in order or they have a semblance of an order. Maybe I should not be quite so dogmatic about that. But there is an order to them and we will see, time and time again, parallels to end time events and parallels to prophetic events that we understand are coming in the years ahead. Now, many of you are aware that my dad did a series of sermons on Psalm 23 and he took three sermons to go through six verses. Well, there is no way I could go through 11 psalms in an hour and 15 minutes or so—the length of a sermon—and go through them completely. I do not aim to do that. I am basically going to give you an overview of these 11. We will go to each one and we will read parts or all of each one and we will hit the highlights to show you just how things stand so you can get the general idea and theme of each psalm and how it fits into the whole. And I do not think that will be too difficult because they are so related to each other. So we will pick out a few verses in each chapter and get the gist of it. And I trust you that you will go back behind me and study them more deeply at another time. If you would look in Psalm 90 in your Bible, you would see (if you have a New King James Bible, I do not know if it does this in every New King James Bible), but it says Book Four: Psalms 90 through 106. And then it has the title, The Eternity Of God, and Man's Frailty. And then you see under that, that it is a prayer of Moses, the man of God. This is the only one of these 11 psalms that has an authorship given to it. Now, this is interesting. The next one that we come to that has authorship on it is Psalm 101. And it says specifically that that is the psalm of David. The other ones have subscriptions that just give you an idea of when they were sung or how they were sung or for what reasons they were sung. Jewish tradition says that Moses not only wrote Psalm 90 but 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, and 100. Some even go so far as to say that this is like Psalm 119 and is actually one psalm that should be separated into 11 sections. Now, I do not know if I go that far, but at least you will get the idea that this section of Scripture, these 11 psalms, are related and go together. And from early times, the Jews considered them to be a group by themselves, these 11 psalms. And as you go through these, you will see that that is definitely true, that there are definite similarities, there are constant themes. And as I mentioned, there is this progression of time. It seems to be whoever the author was, or authors were, are moving us along a line of thought that they want us to think on. Now, we can ascribe this, of course, to God, that He put everything together. And even if these were done by 11 different people, God put them in an order so that we would see that these things go together. Now, I kind of wonder, I cannot say that I believe wholeheartedly, but I kind of think that perhaps Moses did write all 11 of them. I cannot say that for certain, I do not think anybody can say that for certain. But I think, just from what I understand of these 11 psalms and that they are so similar and in such a grand theme, that certainly one mind was behind it—God's—and perhaps one hand. Maybe He did it through Moses. Like I said, I cannot be dogmatic, but that is just my own feeling. Moses is the prophet that Jesus is compared to. And we do not have a great many of Moses' prophecies. There are a few, Deuteronomy 33 where he talks about the blessings that are given to Israel and a few others, but if he did give prophecies, they have been lost to history. But perhaps Psalm 90 through Psalm 100 are a series of his prophecies. I do not know, just something to chew on and very interesting to think about if that is the case. I mentioned earlier that Psalm 90 begins Book Four, but the Psalms themselves, the whole 150 of them, can be broken down into five different books. There is Psalm 1 through 41 which is the first book. There is Psalm 42 through 72, the second book, and it says at the end of 72 that here ends the prayers of David. So most of the first 72 psalms are of David. 73 through 89 is Book Three. I mentioned before Book Four is 90 to 106, and Book Five is 107 through 150. And the last book has a great many songs of praise to God. If you go back to like Psalm 150 these are the ones that we sing where just about every word is praise and hallelujah, and that is kind of the theme of that one. Now, the theme of Book Four (I will not go through any of the other ones), meaning Psalms 90 to 106, which is the fewest number that are in any book of Psalms is The Lord Reigns. And that comes from the first line of several of the psalms that are in this section. So that is the overall theme of these particular psalms. Let us go ahead and go into Psalm 90. This is the introductory psalm to the whole book, Book Four, so it is important that we understand just where Moses is coming from. And I think I may go ahead and read the whole psalm. Psalm 90:1-2 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. He starts in the right place. He starts with God. God is above all. He is supreme. He is everlasting. He has been there. He is the One that created us. He is the beginning of everything and the foundation of everything. But then he goes on and turns to man. Psalm 90:3-4 You turn man to destruction [he is still talking about the works of God but men are beginning to come into the picture], and say, "Return, O children of men." [Repent. He wants them to turn back to Him.] For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night. This begins to open up the theme of time and this is important in this section because remember, we are looking forward to the last days. And when did Moses write this? Well, evidently he wrote it around 1400 BC. Now to God, if a day as 1,000 years, well, that was just a couple of days ago. But for us, it has been 3,500 years, 3,400 years. Man and God have vastly different concepts of time. God is in complete control. He is sovereign over everything. In one place, Isaiah said that He inhabits eternity. So God seems to be able to move in time like we move through air. Now, I do not know how accurate that is, but God does not seem to be perturbed about time at all. He does not seem to be anxious about time. Time to Him makes no nevermind because He created time. He is master of time. But for men, they have come and gone in a blink of the eye. And so Moses is getting us thinking immediately as we go into this book that we have got to understand that God is in control. Time does not matter as much to Him as it does to us. And so if things are going to hell in a hand basket, we are asking God, "God, do it now, return now, help us now. We are going through pain." You know, we want it to be ended right now. But God has an entirely different view on that because should we die, He could raise us up. And we will die and He will raise us up. And to Him, time that you spend in the grave is nothing to Him. It will be just like you went home and then came back, as it were. He does not see you for a time. But for Him, those long spans to us mean little. And so if somebody has been dead for 5,000 years, 6,000 years like Seth or like Abel, well, it is not like all the electricity in His cryogenic chamber is going to run out. God has His Spirit and it does not matter if it is 5,000 years or a million years, He can bring Abel back. God is such a sovereign over time that the things that happen need to be taken by us in that light. And should we pass, we can still have faith because God is in control, not only over circumstances but over time. So this is what Moses is doing. He is trying to get us to slowly begin to think like this. And he also wants us to think too that the people out there who are persecuting, who are wickedly gouging people for money, who are robbing, killing, committing adultery, you name whatever the sin is, even the Beast and the False Prophet, they are going to get what is coming to them. Time does not matter in that regard either. It works both ways. If we are worthy of reward, it does not matter how long it is. God will reward us. And if they are worthy of death and destruction, it does not matter how long. They are going to get what is coming to them. So we can have faith from both sides. Not only that God will avenge, but also that God will reward. So this is the idea that Moses is beginning to get us to think. Psalm 90:5-12 You carry them away like a flood; they are like a sleep. In the morning, they are like grass which grows up: in the morning it flourishes, and grows up; in the evening it is cut down and withers. For we have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins lie in the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. So this is, maybe, his conclusion that since God has such a different perspective on time, that the best we can do is use the 70 or 80 years that He has given us to understand and grow in wisdom. This prioritizing comes from understanding how fleeting our life is and that things may go on longer than we think. We may die before Christ comes. So it is the smart thing, the wise thing, to learn God's way, to understand it, to grow and to be right with Him so that it does not matter when He comes. We are going to be on the winning side. Psalm 90:13 Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on Your servants. You can hear a little bit of frustration in Moses' voice here. He might have expected things to happen in his time too, 3,400 years ago, but it did not. Many things had to happen so he asked God to have compassion, to ease us through our lives, to be merciful, to help us along. Psalm 90:14-17 Oh, sanctify us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! [So it is a prayer to God to give us a good life under Him.] Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil. Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands. He is asking for Christ to return and all the blessings that it will bring to the world to those who are sanctified. But if He does not come in our lifetime, he asks to grant us mercy and a good full life. If nothing else, equal parts good and bad. That is kind of the meaning of "make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us." You know, make sure things even out here a little bit and give us some satisfaction with our physical lives, establish the work of our hands, help us to do things right. Help us to make sure that the things that we do are enduring so we leave something to those who come after us. So what we see here in Psalm 90 is where we are now. This is a present tense song. As a matter of fact, we could say that this psalm applies for all of humanity up until the time Christ returns because we all have these same questions. We all have the same requests of God. You know, teach us to number our days, help us to have good lives, help us to have at least equal parts good and bad, help us to establish what we are doing and leave something to the next generation. Help us to make the most of our time in our lives, satisfy us with this and that, it goes on and on. These are our daily prayers to God. And so not only has Moses given us this heads up on the way God looks at time and upon life, but he has also given us, say, a laundry list of things that we can ask God for to help us along in the meantime. This is the general way that Christians have to look at life, he is saying, because God has things timed perfectly, but we are not in on the secret. And so we have to make the most of the time that we do have. So in a sense he is saying, give us hope and joy, give us peace and prosperity, but please fulfill Your plan as soon as possible. Psalm 91—here is where we begin to see the progression of time because this psalm has been called the Place of Safety psalm. Psalm 91:1-16 He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress; my God, in Him I will trust." Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler and from the perilous pestilence. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you shall take refuge; His truth shall be your shield and buckler. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you. Only with your eyes shall you look, and see the reward of the wicked. Because you have made the Lord, who is my refuge, even the Most High, your habitation, no evil shall befall you, nor any plague come near your dwelling; for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways. They shall bear you up in their hands, lest you dash your foot against a stone. You shall tread upon the lion and the cobra, the young lion and the serpent you shall trample underfoot. "Because he has set his love upon Me [this is God speaking], therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation." It may well be the "place of safety" psalm, giving us an idea of the terrors that go on during the Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord and we—those who are faithful, those who He chooses the to shelter—being protected from all the terrible things that are going on. I mean, he mentioned so many different things there. The snare of the fowler, perilous pestilence. He talks about the terror by night, the arrow that flies by day, pestilence, destruction, wasting things, great battles that happen right nearby that you can see with your eyes, but none of the evil befalls us. This can also apply, though, generally to any Christian during hard times. It does not necessarily have to be during the time of the Place of Safety, but it certainly moves things forward. Things are getting worse in the world. Things are happening right and left. Just turn on the news. You have great hurricanes, you have earthquakes, you have terrible influenzas, you have various other natural disasters. You have terrorism, you have wars. Just name something, it is probably happening around the world. But God's people have been pretty much spared from these sorts of things. And that is what God promises here. Even though things may get bad, we can rely on God to keep us safe because He is our refuge and we can trust in Him for that. So we can always fall back on God and His promises, and His truth. Notice verses 14 through 16. This is one of those things that might make a very good memory passage because this is a very confident promise from God: "Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him. I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, and show him My salvation." It is a tremendous promise. There is no qualification there, no quibbling, no saying, well, you know, maybe if things are going okay I can spare you a minute. It is just very confident: I will satisfy him; I will deliver him; I will show him salvation; I will set him on high. These are all very promising, confident things, something to hang your hat on, something to remind Him about every once in a while, something to have faith in because we know. Let us go to Isaiah 55, where it says, Isaiah 55:11 "So shall My word shall be that goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to Me void [or empty], but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it." We can then look at what He says here in Psalm 91:14-16 and say, "God, you said that Your word that goes out is not going to come back empty. You do not make empty promises." And we can remind Him of these things and ask Him to fulfill it in our lives. Now, obviously, we have to remember that God has a plan and God has His will and He knows that certain things need to be done in a certain timing or whatnot. Obviously, Romans 8:28 is there, "All things work together for good to those who love God and who are the called according to His purpose." So He has our best interests at heart. And even if we do not see the promise fulfilled in the way we want it, He is going to fulfill the promise. See, Moses' Psalm 90 comes back into here. We have got to understand that He can make this promise because He is the sovereign God over, not only everything, but time itself. So Moses in these two psalms is not only getting our attitude right, but he is pumping us up. You know, we are the ones who have set our love on God, we are the ones who have known His name and these promises God will fulfill. So we just need to be faithful. And why is he doing this? Why is he doing this in these first two psalms? Because things are going to get worse and so we need this attitude, we need the faith to face what is coming. Now, it is interesting that even though worse things are coming, all of these psalms are psalms of praise. We usually think of praise in terms of good things. And what happens in these psalms as we go along are good things from God's perspective. But a lot of destruction is going to be happening or accompanying them. So, we need to have that perspective as well. Let us go on to Psalm 92. Now, this is traditionally a Sabbath psalm, a psalm of praise. And I get the idea that this was a psalm that was sung as the Sabbath was beginning because the understanding of this in terms of the Sabbath being God's rest and the Feast of Tabernacles being a type of the Millennium, which is God's rest, all go together here. And the idea is that this psalm, in the chronology of end time events, happens just before the Day of the Lord, right on the edge of the Millennium, just as it is about to begin. See, we have come through from the time of the 6,000 years, let us say, or most of the time, the 6,000 years in Psalm 90. Psalm 91 has a great deal to do with the time of Tribulation. Psalm 92 is after the Tribulation and when God is about to intervene, the rest of God is about to begin. Psalm 92:1-2 It is good to give thanks to the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High; to declare Your lovingkindness in the morning, and Your faithfulness every night. Now, this is a reminder. Think of this in terms of what is going to be happening. The world will have just gone through the worst time in history. That is what Jesus says about the Great Tribulation. He says (as Martin reminded us last week), that if He did not intervene, no flesh would be saved. But we have to be reminding ourselves at this time that God is merciful, that He is full of lovingkindness, He is faithful in what He has said. Psalm 92:3-4 On an instrument of ten strings, on the lute, and on the harp, with harmonious sound. [this is the way we praise] For You, Lord, have made me glad through Your work; I will triumph in the works of Your hands. During that time, we probably will not have very much reason to be glad except in God and in the fact that we have the hope ahead of us that we will be victorious. Things are really going to look terrible at this time, but we will be able to be happy. Like Martin was saying, we could laugh at famine. Well, this is a similar thing, where we can be glad, even though the world is falling down around us, because God's work is moving forward. God's work. Not man's work for God, but God's work, His own work is moving forward. His plan is being fulfilled and our triumph is right on the horizon. Psalm 92:5 O Lord, how great are your works! Your thoughts are very deep. I think at the time that is what we are going to be thinking. I do not understand how all this is going to work out, you know, nuclear winter is upon us or whatever. How is this all going to be turned around? Psalm 92:6-7 A senseless man does not know, nor does a fool understand this. When the wicked spring up like grass, when all the workers of iniquity flourish, it is that they may be destroyed forever. This is interesting too from the standpoint that, at the time, the wicked are going to think that they have got things in hand. Israel by this time will probably have been destroyed. They will probably think that good times are just around the corner but for themselves, for the wicked. And the psalmist here, hopefully, it was Moses as I have been saying, is saying they are just being puffed up, pumped up, to be destroyed. They are going through a period right now in which they feel like everything is going their way—and God is going to take their knees right out from under them. Psalm 92:8-10 But You, Lord, are on high forevermore. For behold, Your enemies, O Lord, for behold, your enemies shall perish; all the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. But my horn You have exalted like a wild ox; I have been anointed with fresh oil. What is oil a symbol of? Remember the Parable of the Ten Virgins. They had oil to carry them through. They were able to dip in and get fresh oil. They had enough to endure. Psalm 92:11-15 My eye also has seen my desire on my enemies [We see us moving forward, they are beginning to get theirs.]; my ears hear my desire on the wicked who rise up against me. [and then we see what is going to happen] The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing, to declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. What we see here is that in this psalm we have gone from being on the verge to it actually happening. This psalm, in a way, takes place throughout the whole Day of the Lord. When God finally intervenes, He destroys the wicked, and on the other hand, He rewards the righteous. And that is what we see there. Beginning in verse 12, "The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, grow like a cedar in Lebanon." And then the next two to three verses. Notice what it says in Revelation 3, verse 12. I just want you to compare this to what it says there in Psalm 92:13, "Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God." Now notice, Revelation 3:12 "He who overcomes, I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall go out no more." It is a very similar thought. Now, when does this happen? When Christ returns. And so by the end of Psalm 92 Christ has returned, He has begun meting out punishment and vengeance on His enemies and He has rewarded the righteous by planting them in the house of the Lord. Now, verse 14 is kind of interesting in this. Back to Psalm 92. Verse 14 is interesting because it says "they still bear fruit in old age; they shall be fresh and flourishing." This is, at least from the way I understand it, an old Testament way of saying we are going to be changed. Even if we are old at the time, we are going to be given the vigor of young people. We will be fresh and flourishing and be able to bear fruit, bear fruit in terms of produce things, get things done. We are not going to be sitting around in a wheelchair, not being able to move and just waiting for our time to come. No, this is when we are going to be invigorated with new life. And then verse 15 is what we do, "To declare that the Lord is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." In a word, we will be witnesses. We will be saying this, obviously, that God is upright. He is just, He is righteous. But by being there—having lived as human beings under God's instruction and having gone through all that we went through, having been persecuted and ostracized by the world, being thought of as loonies and strange and whatever else happened—but actually being there and being changed and actually being an example of what will happen to a human being who submits to God's will and lives God's way, we will be able to, just by being there, witness like no other witness ever has. They will see the end of a righteous man's life or a woman's life, and that God is righteous, meaning God promised, He said this is the way, this is what you need to do to have salvation and eternal life. And they will be able to see that He did exactly what He said. So that is Psalm 92. Psalm 93:1-5 The Lord reigns [this tells you where we are in the time progression], He is clothed with majesty; the Lord is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength. Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved. Your throne is established from of old; You are from everlasting. The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their waves. The Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, than the mighty waves of the sea. Your testimonies are very sure; holiness adorns Your house, O Lord, forever. When does our change come? When Christ returns. It says that He comes down and we meet Him in the air. Well, now Christ's feet have touched the Mount of Olives. He, by coming back to this earth, has announced His own reign has begun. From the moment He starts coming back, He is in control, He is in charge. And if we would go to Revelation the 19th chapter, we would see exactly this. That He comes with majesty, He comes with strength, with an army behind Him, and He comes to do His will on the world. Look at the end of verse 1. It is kind of tongue-in-cheek here. "Surely the world is established, so that it cannot be moved." If you look in the margin, it says shaken. What happens when Christ returns? The world shakes, the mountains fall, all kinds of things happen. And the psalmist is saying surely this earth is strong enough to take what is coming. It will not be moved. But it is exactly the opposite! That there is going to be so much tumult, so much shaking, earthquakes, the heavens are rolled up like a scroll, you know, the signs in the heavens, everything is going to seem like it is going to shake loose. And of course, in verse 3 is this thing about "the floods have lifted up. O Lord." Now, if you would go back to Revelation the 17th chapter, you will see what floods actually are. Revelation 17:15 Then he [an angel] said to me, "The waters which you saw, where the harlot sits, are peoples, multitudes, nations, and tongues." So what we have here in Psalm 93:3-4 is what happens when Christ returns. The people of this world lift up their hand against Jesus Christ and they go to attack Him. But verse 4 tells us that "The Lord is mightier than the noise of many waters." And so He is going to destroy them, like it says in Zechariah the 14th chapter. So when He comes back, even though they make a big stink, He is going to shake the earth and He is going to put down His enemies. Now notice verse 5, "Your testimonies are very sure." If I can paraphrase this it is saying, "What You said will come to pass." You better bet your bottom dollar! "Holiness adorns Your house," this is the attitude and the way in which He does everything and it is always the way that He acts. He comes back in righteous, holy indignation. He is just in His judgments. Though the people of this earth might not think so, what He does is deserved. Psalm 94. I do not know if I will read the whole thing because this psalm has to do with what Christ does to judge the wicked when He returns. Psalm 94:1-3 O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongs [It tells you right away what the psalm is about. He is coming back to avenge His servants.]—O God, to whom vengeance belongs, shine forth! Rise up, O Judge of the earth, render punishment to the proud. Lord, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph? And then it goes and talks about what they had done. Psalm 94:5-7 They break in pieces Your people, O Lord, and afflict Your heritage [all the persecutions they had done on the church]. They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless. Yet they say, "The Lord does not see, nor does the God of Jacob understand." They do not have this understanding of time and they do not have faith in God being able to do what He promised He would do. And time and time again within His Word, He told us that if we sin they are going to find us out. We will have to pay the penalty, we will reap the consequences. So the Lord does see and He is just waiting and biding His time. So Moses says, Psalm 94:8-15 Understand, you senseless among the people; and you fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear, shall He not hear? He who formed the eye, shall He not see? He who instructs the nation, shall He not correct, He who teaches man knowledge? The Lord knows the thoughts of man, that they are futile. Blessed is the man whom You instruct, O Lord, and teach out of Your law, that You may give him rest from the days of adversity, until the pit is dug for the wicked. For the Lord will not cast off His people, nor will He forsake His inheritance. But judgment will return to righteousness, and all the upright in heart will follow it. So verses 8 through 11 is a plea to those who do not understand, who are going their own way, to repent before the time. And verses 12 through 15 are a pat on the back, an encouragement to those of God's people who do understand and continue to live by God's law and have faith in what God is doing. So there is more of that as we go through the rest of Psalm 94. Basically, it is just saying that God will come and exact vengeance, but that the righteous (verses 22 and 23) will have God to protect them. So the wicked are going to get what is coming to them. Psalm 95 is the middle psalm in all of this. Psalm 95 is the keystone psalm in these 11. And it is a call for God's people to worship and praise Him for what He is and for what He has done. It is first to the church, which he calls His sheep, and also to the people of Israel, His lost sheep. Let us read part of this. Psalm 95:1-5 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods. In His hand are the deep places of the earth; the heights of the hills are His also. The sea is His, for He made it; and His hands formed the dry land. All power is His. He is the Great God. He is the One who has come back as King and He is coming to rule. And those who are are among His people praise Him because He is acting. Psalm 95:6-7 Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker. For He is our God, and we are the people of His pasture, and the sheep of His hand. This is the reaction of the church to what God is doing. But the end of verse 7 begins a warning and it is, in a way, coming back in time to us before these things have happened. Psalm 95:7-9 Today, if you will hear His voice: "Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried Me, though they saw My work." Now He is saying, and in a way, we could also say that this is being said to physical Israel, because they are the ones that He promises will come out of tribulation and come weeping back to the land of Israel. And so He is telling them too at the time if we want to put it in the time frame, that do not do like your fathers did. They saw Me working in Egypt and they rejected Me anyway. And now you see Me working again in the whole world; make sure you do not reject Me too. And if you do not, if you do not reject Me, then you will enter My rest, unlike the people of Israel back in old times who did not enter His rest. Let us get to that here. Psalm 95:10-11 "For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, 'It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.' So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest.'" This is a very stern warning to those coming out of tribulation, that just like in the first exodus, here in the second exodus they better have a different result than what their forefathers in Israel had. We would go to Jeremiah the 30th chapter. We will see what he prophesized there for Israel. Jeremiah 30:7-11 Alas! For that day is great, so that none is like it; it is the time of Jacob's trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. 'For it shall come to pass in that day,' says the Lord of hosts, 'that I will break his yoke from your neck, and will burst your bonds; foreigners shall no more enslave them. But they shall serve the Lord their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up for them.' [There is the time period, the time element.] Therefore do not fear, O my servant Jacob,' says the Lord, 'nor be dismayed, O Israel; for behold, I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet, and no one shall make him afraid. For I am with you, says the Lord, 'to save you; though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, and will not let you go altogether unpunished.' So He tells them that they are in for a time of great trial and destruction and punishment, but He will save them out of it. And He is warning them back here in Psalm 95, just make sure that the end this time is different from your ancestors. And by the way, "Today," here is an allusion to the Sabbath because this also is a Sabbath psalm. I do not know if I mentioned that before. And the Sabbath, of course, is a type of the Millennium, the rest of God. So He saying at this time right on the edge of the real rest of God, "Don't make the same stupid decisions that your forefathers did." Psalm 96. Now, as we go through these later ones, they mirror or parallel some of the earlier ones. Psalm 96 is very much like Psalm 94. It is a psalm of praise to God that He is coming to reign and to judge. Remember, in Psalm 94 Christ returns to judge the wicked who have persecuted the righteous. So it is a victory song and it is sung to all the world to repent and submit to their new King of kings. Psalm 96:1-9 Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! [That is interesting, is it not?] Sing to the Lord, all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; proclaim the good news of His salvation from day to day. [Do you not think that is going to be done when Christ returns, that the gospel will be preached?] Declare His glory among the nations, His wonders among all peoples. For the Lord is great and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are idols [Notice that this is the first commandment that we are basically reviewing here.], but the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary. Give to the Lord, O kindreds of the peoples, give to the Lord glory and strength. Give to the Lord the glory due His name; bring an offering, and come into His courts. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Tremble before Him, all the earth. By the way, I should have mentioned this earlier, but the idea of holiness and the beauty of holiness is all through this section. We will come upon it in a bit. It talks about that God is holy; His house is holy; His name is holy, and it keeps going through and really pushing up the idea of holiness throughout this. It is very important. Now notice verse 10, Psalm 96:10 Say to the nations, "The Lord reigns; the world also is firmly established [it is, now that He has come back and started settling things down], it shall not be moved." This is in response to what was said back there in Psalm 93:1 where he says, "Surely the earth is established so that it cannot be moved." And now he says, "Yes, now that the Lord is reigning, it is established, things are starting to get better already." Psalm 96:10-13 "He shall judge the peoples righteously." Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad; let the sea roar, and all its fullness; let the field be joyful, and all that is in it. Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord. For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with His truth. Remember this verse, remember it was written long ago, at least, say, in the time of David, maybe a little bit later than that or as early as the time of Moses. And so this verse is a plug for us as we go through time to remember that these things are going to come to pass. He is coming. Now this is in response to Psalm 90:13, "Return, O Lord! How long?" It took him six chapters to finally give you the answer. He is coming does not necessarily say how long it is, but he reassures us He is coming. I also just wanted to point out the fact that the gospel is mentioned in verse 2. Finally, the good news will be proclaimed to all the world and they will be in a mind at that time to start hearing it. And notice too in verse 3 that it is among the nations and among all peoples. This is going out to the whole world, not just to Israel, but it is worldwide. Verse 10 also mentions the nations. So things have gone past the initial time of Christ's return and things are beginning to be administered. For right now what is being administered is the praising of God and the beginning of the gospel to go out. Things are being established. We have this promise that the world is finally settling down and things for a long time are not going to be moved because the Lord reigns. He has set His throne on the earth and He is beginning to establish order and His way on the earth. Psalm 97. This psalm mirrors Psalm 93. Christ returns, He is really here. Psalm 97:1-6 The Lord reigns; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad! Clouds and darkness surround Him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of His throne. A fire goes before Him and burns up His enemies round about. His lightnings light the world; the earth sees and trembles. [this is kind of a flashback to Him returning] The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the people see His glory. That is interesting because in Revelation 1:7 where it says when He returns "every eye shall see Him." Here it says all the people see His glory because when He comes, He is not going to come, as the rapturists say, "secretly." He is going to come openly. It is going to be like lightning flashing from the east. It is going to be something that is going to be tremendous so that every eye understands what is going on. Now, as we saw in earlier chapter, they are going to then take up arms to try to fight it, but they will have the witness already of every eye seeing Him. Now, remember I mentioned in the last chapter that the first commandment was mentioned. Well, here is the second commandment. Psalm 97:7-12 Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols. Worship Him, all you gods. [It is the gods that should be worshipping the one God, not us worshipping those false gods.] Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice because of Your judgments, O Lord. For You, Lord, are most high above all the earth; You are exalted far above all gods. [and then an admonishment to us] You who love the Lord, hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name. So this is a an urgent plea, a call to us who are waiting for this to happen to continue to endure. You know, Matthew 24:13 says, "He who endures to the end, the same shall be saved." "You who love the Lord, [continue] to hate evil!" Do not give up, do not give in. Hold on! For He is coming and He will preserve your lives. It says here in verse 10, "He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked." It is just a little while longer. Keep holding on. The Lord reigns. He reigns right now for us. He is in control. That is a constant theme here. Even though He does not reign physically on the earth, He reigns for us and He reigns over all things and always has. So remember, keep your hope up, continue to hate evil. Have faith in His ability to preserve. Psalm 98. This psalm mirrors both Psalm 92 and 96 in certain ways. And the opening words are reminiscent of Revelation 14:3. You remember when I noted in Psalm 96 where I said, "That is interesting"? Where it says, "Sing to the Lord a new song." Let us go to Revelation 14, verse 3. Remember where we are in the time sequence? These are the 144,000 standing before the Lamb on Mount Zion. Revelation 14:3 They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth. Now, let us read Psalm 98. Psalm 98:1-2 Oh, sing to the Lord a new song! For He has done marvelous things; His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory. [I am sure you recognize this psalm from the hymnal.] The Lord has made known His salvation; His righteousness He has openly shown in the sight of the nations. Here is another detail about every eye will see Him. He openly shows His righteousness. And notice this too, that this is in the past tense. The Lord has made known His salvation, His righteousness He has openly shown in the sight of the nations. Psalm 98:3-8 He has remembered His mercy and His faithfulness to the house of Israel [remember we saw that in Jeremiah the 30th chapter]; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. Sing to the Lord with the harp and the sound of a psalm, with trumpets and the sound of a horn; shout joyfully before the Lord, the King [He has been crowned, He is on His throne]. Let the sea roar, and all its fullness, the world and those who dwell in it; let the rivers clap their hands; let the hills be joyful together before the Lord. Notice back in Romans, here we see nature rejoicing. If we go back to the book of Romans in chapter 8, verse 18 Paul writes, Romans 8:18-22 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. [Now, when is that to happen? When Christ returns and we are changed.] For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. When Christ returns and we are changed as His sons and daughters into spirit beings, the whole earth is going to rejoice. Because they are under bondage right now, everything that is in the earth. God did it for a purpose. But when we are changed, things are going to change in nature and it is going to be like nature is let loose, they are freed from bondage and from corruption. And I believe this has a great deal to do with what it says there in Isaiah about the lion dwelling with the lamb and the young child being able to lead them and that sort of thing, that nature will be changed to the way God intended it to be. And it will be a relief to nature to finally be able to exist as God had created it. Now, they may not be able to consciously say something like that, but it would be in the way God created these things that there is going to be a great difference, a great change in nature once this happens. Verse 9, back in Psalm 98, another reminder to us: Psalm 98:9 For He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He shall judge the world, and the peoples with equity. So he is, let us say Moses, constantly putting these little verses in just like he did back in Psalm 96, just to give us encouragement. He is coming. Do not lose hope. The truth will out when He comes back. He is going to judge and everything is going to be set right again. Psalm 99. This is where we begin to see God—Jesus Christ—beginning to set things in order as far as His rule. Psalm 99:1-4 The Lord reigns; let the peoples tremble! He dwells between the cherubim; let the earth be moved! [We are back to that again.] The Lord is great in Zion, and He is high [notice where He is, He is in Zion now. Remember He was, in Revelation 14, standing with the 144,000 on Mount Zion. Now He is great in Zion.] above all the peoples. [He is the greatest in the world.] Let them praise Your great and awesome name—He is holy. [Here comes the holiness because he wants to add this to get us to understand why He is doing what He is going to do.] The King's strength also loves justice; . . . It is going to appear that His strength is being used indiscriminately. But this is a reminder that He is a just God. He does not do anything that is not deserved. He does not do anything that is not in accord with His own righteousness and His own holiness. Psalm 99:4-7 . . . You have established equity; You have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob. Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His footstool—for He is holy. Moses and Aaron were among His priests, and Samuel was among those who called upon His name; they called upon the Lord, and He answered them. He spoke to them in the cloudy pillar, they kept His testimonies and the ordinance that He gave them. This is a flashback to the time of the Bible, back to Moses and Aaron and Samuel and their examples. Now this tells me that as part of Jesus Christ establishing His rule, He is going to be sending out people to preach this Book and use the examples of Moses and Aaron and Samuel and David and Joshua and on and on it goes. We are going to be His messengers, letting all the people of the world know that He has done all these things in righteousness and holiness. This is how He acts. We have all the examples from the Bible. Because He has returned and He has opened up His Spirit to many more generally than now, these things will begin to be understood, and this Book will still be our basic textbook and will show from the lives of men like Aaron and Moses and Samuel and others that they kept His testimonies and we will be able to turn around and say, "There they are. Look what's happened to them. Wasn't God fair? Wasn't He just? Isn't He righteous? Didn't He fulfill His promises?" Psalm 99:8-9 You answered them, O Lord our God; You were to them God-Who-Forgives [now, this is talking about salvation here, they repented, they believed in Him, they sought forgiveness and He responded to them.], though You took vengeance on their deeds. [He did not let them get away with sin. How many times did we see that in the lives of Moses and Aaron? He punished Moses and Aaron pretty severely.] Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy. So this is a direct call for them to come and worship Him, having seen the examples of these men. Now, if you would look through that particular chapter, you would see that holiness is mentioned three or four times. This is very important because this is the gist of what we are trying to do. If we would go back to I Peter 1, verse 13, it is laid out for us there. Peter says, I Peter 1:13 Therefore [this is kind of what we will be teaching these people in the Millennium] gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; . . . This is to us now, because that is when the grace is going to be fully shown. When Jesus Christ is revealed, we will be raised or will be changed and our glorification will happen, we will be saved fully, totally, irreparably, if you want to put it that way. I mean, from that point on it is ours forever. I Peter 1:14 . . . as obedient children, not conforming yourselves to the former lusts, as in your ignorance; . . . And that is what it will be for them. They did not know, those people in the Millennium. God kept them ignorant and gave them over to their own devious, horrible minds. I Peter 1:15-20 . . . but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy." And if you call on the Father, who without partiality [there is that equity again] judges according to each one's work, conduct yourselves throughout the time of your sojourning here in fear; knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold [remember we just went through the idols back in Psalm 97], from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. [notice verse 20] He indeed was ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you. And boy, will we be able to tell that to them! He was set apart to do this from the foundation of the world and here He is. He has fulfilled His destiny, as it were. God keeps His promises. And if we will be holy, those things can happen to us. And that is the gist of the teaching. Psalm 100, the final one. This is another psalm of praise and it echoes, in the very last verse, the very first verses of Psalm 90. Psalm 100:1-5 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. [He is there. He is present with them and they can come before Him.] Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations. And from that time forth, throughout the Millennium and beyond that, His truth will endure. And we will be able to say how good the Lord is, because even at that early state it will begin to be very plain that things are looking up, that His rest has come, and the world will begin to turn to Him in a big way. So here, in 11 psalms, is the whole panorama of end time events from now until the Millennium begins—and into the Millennium. And if you want to, you can even take Psalm 100 to mean into all eternity. I hope that I have opened up a new area of study for you and that you can use this Bible study as a springboard for a little bit deeper understanding of these chapters. And if you would like an assignment, a study assignment for the Feast, if you want something to study about other than maybe just opening the Bible and sticking your finger and saying this is where I am going to study today, go through the rest of the psalms in Book Four, Psalm 101 through 106, and see how they fit into this theme of "the Lord reigns." That is seven psalms that could take you through most of the Feast. Pretty much one a day. We do not have time, oftentimes, to study real deeply. But if you want to take one of these every day in the morning, just read it through and think about this theme, the Lord reigns.
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