Heart of a Psalmist - Worshipping Christ Through The Psalms

The silver and gold was payment for all of the years of slavery the Israelites had suffered in Egypt. The Passover meal was miraculous as it not only protected the Israelites from the death angel but it seemingly brought healing and strength to the entire nation for their upcoming escape. They left at the exact time God had promised to Abraham: “Then the Lord told Abram, ‘You can be sure that your de- scendants will be strangers in a foreign land, and they will be oppressed as slaves for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end they will come away with great wealth.’” (Gen. 15:13, 14) “The Lord spread out a cloud above them as a covering and gave them a great fire to light the dark- ness. They asked for meat, and he sent them quail; he gave them manna-bread from heaven. He opened up a rock, and water gushed out to form a river through the dry and barren land.” (39-41) Paul explains the spiritual significance of the cloud, the manna and the water to the Corinthian church: “God guided all of them by sending a cloud that moved along ahead of them…And all of them ate the same miraculous (spiritual) food, and all of them drank the same miraculous water. For they all drank from the miraculous rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:1, 3, 4) God guided them by the cloud and pillar of fire; Christ was the bread of heaven and the rock from which flowed the rivers of the Holy Spirit. “For he remembered his sacred promise to Abraham his servant. So he brought his people out of Egypt with joy, his chosen ones with rejoicing. He gave his people the lands of pagan nations, and they harvested crops that others had planted. All this happened so they would follow his principles and obey his laws. Praise the Lord! “ (42-45) All of history is moving toward the fulfillment of this sacred promise. Jesus is delivering people from the bondage to the gods of this world and rejoicing is being heard from lands of pagan nations. The fields of mankind are being harvested in order that many people will follow the Lord and his ways. The only appropriate response to such a magnificent God is the ancient, universal word for worship; HALLELU- JAH!

1 Scroggie, page 40

PSALM 106: WE HAVE SINNED Israel’s Sins and God’s Mercy

Psalm 106 begins with a call to praise God for his goodness and then tells the sad story of Israel’s failures and sins from Egypt to their Exile to the nations. It ends happily with another burst of praise re- focusing the worshiper on God’s faithfulness in accomplishing his plans for his people. It is the first of the nine (or ten) ‘Hallelujah’ psalms 1 that begin and end with the Hebrew word for ‘Praise the Lord.’ The others are Psalms 113, 117, 135, 146-150 and possibly Psalm 105. It is one of the three great histori- cal poems although each has a different emphasis: Psalm 78 emphasizes teaching, Psalm 105 singing but this Psalm is written for the purpose of repentance. It is the last song in the fourth book, (Numbers) in the Pentateuch of Psalms. Most of the examples of Israel’s failures in the Psalm are taken from the Book of Numbers. Christ is foreseen as the ‘New Moses’ who stands in the gap between God and mankind that was created by sin. The outline follows the history of the nation:

I PRAISE THE LORD - 1-6 Israel Under God’s Grace II THEY FINALLY SANG HIS PRAISE - 7-12 Israel at the Red Sea III THEY WOULDN’T BELIEVE HIS PROMISE - 13-33 Israel in the Wilderness IV THEY POLLUTED THE LAND - 34-39 Israel in the Promise Land V HE PITIED THEM - 40-46 Israel in Exile VI PRAISE THE LORD - 47, 48- Israel Restored

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