The Greater Vow (Through the Psalms) Psalm 132

Welcome to Through the Psalms, a weekend ministry of the Truth Pulpit, teaching God's people God's Word. Over time, we'll study all 150 Psalms with Pastor Don Green from Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

We're so glad you're with us. Let's open to the Psalms right now as we join our teacher in the Truth Pulpit. Well, as you know, I read Psalm 132 just a moment ago. This is a psalm that is a prayer, a prayer that God would remember David's vow to build a house for God so that Israel would experience God's blessing. It's calling God to remember what He has said in the past and act upon it in the present in order to secure their blessing in the future. Now, this psalm enters us into the final triad of the Songs of Ascent, and we remember that the Songs of Ascent were sung as the pilgrims, the Jewish people, were going up to Jerusalem for the annual feasts. And so this is a psalm that they would have sung often over the years. And the point of this psalm is this. As they were coming to the temple for worship, they were being reminded that God had promised to continue David's line, the kingly line.

God had promised to keep a king on His throne as long as the kings kept covenant with Him. It was a reminder that Jerusalem would be the dwelling place of God and that one day the Messiah would appear. This psalm has a very broad scope and a very telescopic perspective that it brings to the future in the history of Israel. And as we see those things just in summary form, one of the things that it reminds us is the psalms are a diverse collection of poetry. There are psalms that are very devotional in prayer. There are imprecatory psalms praying for curses on God's enemies.

There are songs of affliction. And so there's a broad basis, a broad subject matter to these 150 psalms. They're not all simply devotional matters for private prayer. Here we come to a psalm that has the future of Israel and the promises of God set forth in a way that is quite transcendent. It breaks down into two sections really, the vow of David in the first 10 verses, and then the vow of God in verses 11 through 18, and that's what we're going to see as we go through. There are two vows that around which the psalm pivots. There's the vow of David that he made in 2 Samuel 7 to build a house for the Lord, and then there is the vow that God made, so to speak, the vow that God made that he would establish a line for David that would extend forever. And so there is a lesser vow and a greater vow, and the psalmist, as he appeals to God on the basis of the lesser vow, the psalmist reminds us that there was a greater vow that God made to his people that was the source of their security and the source of their confidence going forward. So we're going to go through this psalm this evening and trust the Spirit of God to bless us, to sanctify us, and to edify us as we do. As the psalm opens, the psalmist calls to mind the history of David as a basis for his present prayer.

Again, he looks to the past, prays in the present, and God extends things into the future. Look at verse 1 with me, where he says, Remember, O Lord, on David's behalf all his affliction. He's appealing to God to remember something about David, and we see what it is that he is calling God to remember as he describes an affliction there at the end of verse 1, a spiritual affliction that David had in the following four verses, which we'll read in just a moment. But this affliction, as we're going to see, is probably not so much an external affliction that David was going through that's being referenced here. It's referring more to an inner conflict that David had. Look at verses 2 through 5 with me. Remember David's affliction, he says, and then he says how he swore to the Lord. The affliction relates to a vow that David made to God in the course of his kingly career in 2 Samuel 7, which we'll look at in a moment. How he swore to the Lord and vowed to the mighty one of Jacob, Surely I will not enter my house nor lie on my bed.

I will not give sleep to my eyes or slumber to my eyelids until I find a place for the Lord, a dwelling place for the mighty one of Jacob. You'll remember from 2 Samuel 7 that David was a warrior king. He fought many battles on behalf of the Lord and on behalf of God's people. And he was the sweet psalmist of Israel.

He knew war and he also knew the glory of God. And one of the things that troubled David early in his reign was that knowing the great glory and the great worth of God, he felt embarrassed on a human level by the fact that the earthly dwelling place for God at that time was a modest tabernacle made of animal skin. And David, as he evaluated this, was of a mind that God deserved a greater house than a house of animal skin. If you look back at 2 Samuel 7 now, we can kind of review this history and set it in our minds. 2 Samuel 7, which comes just after the ark had been brought to Jerusalem in the latter half of 2 Samuel 6. In 2 Samuel 7, we see the historic narrative portion of Scripture that underlies the background of Psalm 132.

And in verses 1 through 3, we see this. Now it came about when the king lived in his house, and the Lord had given him rest on every side from all his enemies, that the king said to Nathan the prophet, See now, I dwell in a house of cedar, but the ark of God dwells within tent curtains. And Nathan said to the king, Go, do all that is in your mind, for the Lord is with you. And so David wanted to build a house for God, but the Lord intervened and said that this was not the way that it was going to be.

David had vowed to have no rest until the project was finished. But in 2 Samuel 7, as you continue to read, you see that God tells David, That's not what I want. I'm not going to have you build a temple for me. Rather, I'm going to do something for you.

I'm going to build a dynasty for you that comes through your line, and I am going to establish a dynasty for you. You can look at it here in verse 4, In the same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, saying, Go and say to my servant David, Thus says the Lord, Are you the one who should build me a house to dwell in? For have I not dwelt in a house since the day I brought up the sons of Israel from Egypt, even to this day?

But I have been moving about in a tent, even a tabernacle. Wherever I have gone with all the sons of Israel, did I speak a word with one of the tribes of Israel, which I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, Why have you not built me a house of cedar? He's telling David, I didn't ask for that.

This is not what I wanted. I don't want a house built by your hands. And so instead, we see in chapter 7, verse 12, he now speaks a promise to David. And he says, When your days are complete and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your descendant after you who will come forth from you and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him and he will be a son to me. When he commits iniquity, I will correct him with the rod of men and the strokes of the sons of men. But my lovingkindness shall not depart from him as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom shall endure before me forever. Your throne shall be established forever. So in Psalm 132, we see the Spirit of God expand something of what David was thinking, what David was saying at the time of this vow that he made to build a house for God in 2 Samuel 7.

He said, I'm going to build him a house and I'm not going to take any rest until I do. He was exercised for the glory of God. And yet in 2 Samuel chapter 7, as we've gone on, God tells David that David will not build the temple, but that God will build a dynasty for David.

It's quite the turn of events. With that in mind, you can turn back to Psalm 132 now. In Psalm 132, the ark was the symbol of the presence of God. And this next section in verses 6 through 8 refer to the ark and the dwelling place that would one day be built for it. In verse 6, the people are saying, Behold, we heard of it in Ephrathah. The ark was, they heard that in Ephrathah, which is another word for Bethlehem, they heard about the ark and they went and they found it in the field of Jair. And now they say, Let us go into his dwelling place.

Let us worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength. And so the ark was a wooden box about three feet long and 18 inches high and 18 inches deep that was covered with gold, and the stone tablets of God's law were kept inside it.

Its top was a solid gold covering that was called the mercy seat. And so this was the symbol of the presence of God and his people, and the high priest would sprinkle blood on the ark once a year on the Day of Atonement. And so it had a great significance, a great spiritual significance, as it represented the presence of God, represented the covenant of God with the people, and it was a spiritual place where the blood would be spread about on the Day of Atonement, symbolizing the forgiveness of the people's sin.

It was highly significant. And this ark was constructed during the time of wilderness wanderings in the book of Numbers, and as God had an animal skin tabernacle, the ark was kept within the most holy place inside this portable tabernacle. And so you can see that the ark symbolized God's presence and authority. It had great significance to the people of God and represented his covenant, his promise to bless them, and so the ark symbolized everything that God had promised for them.

What the psalmist is doing here in Psalm 132 is this. He's pointing to the ark as representative of these promises, and he recalls the history that surrounds the ark, and specifically when the people heard that the ark of the covenant was in Bethlehem. Now you may remember from reading your Old Testament that the ark had been neglected during the reign of King Saul, and David was setting out to correct that abandonment. And so as the ark came to Jerusalem in David's day, David vowed to build a house for God that was worthy of the ark and worthy of his presence. Now flash forward to the time of the writing of this psalm and the way that this psalm was used, the people have arrived in Jerusalem and they're there to worship. And they're there to worship now in the temple where the ark is being housed, and they're remembering the history that brought the ark into the temple as a basis for God to bless them going forward into the future.

And so the ark went up to Jerusalem in David's day. Now in subsequent days, the people were going up to Jerusalem in order to worship. What the psalmist is doing here, he's asking God to meet them there as they come for worship. Look at it there in verse 7, he says, Let us go into his dwelling place, let us worship at his footstool. They're anticipating worship in the temple, and now in a spirit of invocation, you might say, in verse 8 they say, Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength. In other words, God bless us in worship. As we come to worship now, bless us, meet us there, pour out your blessing upon us as we have come to your place for worship. And he goes on and says in verse 9, Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your godly ones sing for joy.

For the sake of David your servant, do not turn away the face of your anointed. And so here in verse 10, you see that a subsequent king is praying to God, and based on the promises that God made to the dynasty of David, he's saying, Honor my prayer here on behalf of the people, and meet us and bless us. He's seeking the blessing of God as the people gather for the annual feast and gather together for worship at the temple. And so he's asking God to meet them there, which shows us that they came to Jerusalem with spiritual aims, they came with lofty desires, they came with lofty aspirations to glorify God and to experience his blessing. They wanted to fellowship together with God, and they look back to the history with David as a basis for him to meet with them. And so there in verse 9, look at it again with me, Let your priests be clothed with righteousness, and let your godly one sing for joy. They're praying for the priests and for the congregation. They want holiness, and they want joy to mark the tenor of worship. They're coming prepared for the time of worship. Giving us a sense, if I could just step back and make a little bit of a word of application here, is that it gives us a good reminder, it gives us a good sense that this is something of the way that we should be anticipating when we gather together, especially on Sunday, for our weekly worship, coming together with a sense of anticipation, and having prepared our hearts to do so.

Now, I'm going to say something here that might make some people uncomfortable, and I don't intend that at all. I have a friend who says that Sunday morning starts on Saturday night. And what he means by that is that you begin, the preparation for Sunday morning starts on Saturday night in terms of anticipating, anticipating the day, preparing your heart for the worship, even preparing your body for the worship.

It always kind of, I always kind of wonder when I hear that people have been out until really late hours on Saturday night, I always wonder what they get out of Sunday morning when they come in a little bit bleary-eyed because they had social activities or whatever going on. And I would just encourage you to think about how you approach Saturday night and Sunday morning to do it in a way that prepares your mind, prepares your heart, and also prepares your body in order to be with the people of God on Sunday morning. Because worship matters to an extent that we prepare ourselves for it, and we order our lives, we order our lives around it. We structure not just the weak, but we structure our lives around the worship of God and being together with his people if we're truly devoted to the Lord.

You know, we were singing just a few moments earlier, weren't we? We are God's people, the chosen of the Lord, and on and on like that. And that's a wonderful hymn, and the aspirations, the corporate aspirations that that expresses are really, really good. But what I want you to see is that that only means something if you structure your life around being with the people of God when they gather together in worship and being a regular part of the worship of God and the fellowship of his people when it comes together. Here in Psalm 132, you see an Old Testament sense of that as the king is praying, the subsequent king to David is praying, and asking him to clothe the priest with righteousness and let your godly one sing for joy.

There's a sense of anticipation. And for us, Sunday morning should not be an afterthought to the way that we live our lives. Sunday morning should somehow be a matter of the way that we structure our lives and structure our people for consistent worship together with the same people of God on an ongoing basis. This is what it means to be a church. This is how we gather together and share together in the work of God over time.

And I tend to make a point of this often, and I'm glad that I do. What I mean by that is I don't make any apologies for it because the benefit of life in the body of Christ, beloved, the benefit of belonging to a church is found in consistent participation over time and being there on a regular basis week after week after week as the people of God gather together. Let me step back and say something about preaching that's tied to this.

It's going to seem like a tangent, but it's really not. There is an approach to the ministry of a pulpit that places great emphasis on every single sermon, and every sermon has to be exciting and has to be clever, and there's got to be, you're just looking for results in every single sermon, and that's not sustainable over time. We don't operate that way. When people are expecting a lightning bolt in a single sermon to be that which changes their lives, they come with certain expectations that aren't realistic and that aren't even healthy. And so the value of a pulpit ministry is not found in any one sermon being a lightning bolt that changes your life forever. That's not the way that God works in our hearts in order to accomplish our sanctification.

Sanctification occurs by the consistent application and the consistent hearing of God's Word and consistent obedience to it over the course of time. And so people that just come in and out and, you know, here one week and gone for three, back for two, gone for six, it's no wonder that ultimately they struggle spiritually. It's no wonder that ultimately that their lives don't become all that they could be in Christ.

It's because they're taking the wrong approach to corporate worship and the wrong approach to life in the body of Christ. That's why I get so encouraged on Tuesday nights and I see so many of your same faces week after week after week because I'm confident that God is using his work in a consistent way over time in order to conform you to the image of Christ. That's where the blessing is found. It's in that consistency in the presence of the people of God, that consistency under the preaching of the Word of God where the work of God is done. It's a cumulative impact over time rather than a lightning bolt that comes from any one given sermon. And the people who understand that and act upon that are putting themselves in a position to experience the blessing of God and the growth in their hearts that Christ would have them to have. And so it's just very important for us to understand the priority that worship takes. And you see the priority being expressed in Psalm 132 as the king leads the people and prays for the blessing of God before they gather in the temple.

For us in the Christian era, in the New Testament era, we do this on an ongoing basis as we gather together with the people of God. So in verse 10 here, just to wrap up the first half of the Psalm, we see in Psalm 132 verse 10 the king makes his plea. It says, For the sake of David your servant, do not turn away the face of your anointed. In other words, Lord, hear my prayer.

Lord, answer my prayer. Bless our worship with joy and holiness in a way that pleases you, that we fellowship together, and that we know your blessing from having gathered together in the worship of God. And so that sets the stage for the Lord's response in the remainder of the Psalm. Here's our second point, the vow of God, the vow of God. We saw in the first 10 verses the vow of David and the implications that followed on the heels of that in subsequent generations. Now here in the second half we see the vow of God.

And what we see in the second half is we see God in a sense changing the subject or pivoting to something different. God now rehearses his own vow about David. Look at verse 11.

Let's just step back to verse 2 for a moment to see the contrast here. In Psalm 132 verse 2, David swore to the Lord and vowed to the mighty one of Jacob. Now as we come to verse 11, we find in the words of the Lord being recorded and we're seeing the vow that the Lord himself made. In verse 11, the Lord has sworn to David, a truth from which he will not turn back, of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne. So just as David had resolved to build a temple, God here is reminding and responding that he has resolved to build David's dynasty and the city of Jerusalem.

In other words, what's happening here is really wonderful to see. The reigning king at the time comes and says, God bless our worship, bless our priests and clothe them with righteousness as we sing for joy. God is saying, I will bless you far beyond what the nature of your prayer is. Let me remind you that I have sworn to build David's dynasty and the city of Jerusalem. So God, as it were, looks at this and says, I will do more than simply bless this one act of worship, this one gathering of people for the feast. Let me remind you that I intend to bless Jerusalem forever. I intend to bless the line of David forever.

I won't just bless you in this weekend, I'll bless you forever is the idea. And so God had refused to receive from David a perishable house of wood. What God had done instead was to establish an imperishable house of the Spirit. God promised David that he would keep a son to rule on the throne that he had given to David. And the implications of this promise are this, is that God would keep David's successors on the throne as long as they were faithful to the covenant. And the longer term promise that, again, this just kind of telescopes out in a remarkable way, the longer term promise that we saw in that text that we read earlier, is that God would one day send the Messiah, who alone would perform all the requirements of his law and thus would rule forever. In fact, let's go back to 2 Samuel 7 so I can emphasize that with you again so that you can see this. As David responded to God's promise in verse 18, 2 Samuel verse 18, David understood at the time that God just made him a promise that had massive long-term implications. In verse 18, David the king went in and sat before the Lord, and he said in utter humility. He was overwhelmed at what God had just said to him. He says, Who am I, O Lord God?

And what is my house that you have brought me this far? And yet this was insignificant in your eyes, O Lord God, for you have spoken also of the house of your servant concerning the distant future. David knew that God's promise that he had just made was not for one or two generations.

This was something that had distant future implications, and this is the custom of man, O Lord God. Verse 20, Again, what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God. For the sake of your word and according to your own heart, you have done all this greatness to let your servant know.

For this reason you are great, O Lord God, for there is none like you, and there is no God beside you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. And what one nation on the earth is like your people Israel, whom God went to redeem for himself as a people, and to make a name for himself, and to do a great thing for you and awesome things for your land, before your people whom you have redeemed for yourself from Egypt, from nations and their God. For you have established for yourself your people Israel as your own people forever, and you, O Lord, have become their God. Now, therefore, O Lord God, the word that you have spoken concerning your servant and his house, confirm it forever, and do as you have spoken, that your name may be magnified forever by saying, The Lord of hosts is God over Israel, and may the house of your servant David be established before you. For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made a revelation to your servant saying, I will build you a house, therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you. Now, O Lord God, you are God, and your words are truth, and you have promised this good thing to your servant. Now, therefore, may it please you to bless the house of your servant that it may continue forever before you.

For you, O Lord God, have spoken, and with your blessing may the house of your servant be blessed forever. David, at the time when God made the promise, responds with this long-term recognition of the blessing of God upon the house of Israel. God, here in Psalm 132, is picking up on that promise and reminding the people of it, as it were, reminding the people of what it was that he had promised to David. Look at it again there in verse 11 with me.

With that background, we see something of the greater significance of it. The Lord has sworn to David a truth from which he will not turn back, of the fruit of your body I will set upon your throne. You could say that this is an Old Testament version for Israel of Philippians 1.6, for in the New Testament, where the Lord says that he will complete the work that he has begun in us, God is saying here to his people in the Old Testament, I am still at work. I am going to continue the work that I have begun.

You can draw great courage from my promise. And so he goes on and expands in verse 12 there in Psalm 132. If your sons will keep my covenant and my testimony which I will teach them, their sons also shall sit upon your throne forever.

You see that forever, the long-term promise of God. And what this teaches us is this, is that in this Psalm, in Psalm 132 and in 2 Samuel 7, because of the long-term nature of the promise, we see that God ultimately is looking even beyond David's human descendants to the coming of Christ himself. The greater son of David is the ultimate fulfillment of this promise that God has made. And so it's not simply that God would bless Jerusalem. It's not simply that God would give them a promise about a city or about a temple or even about a human dynasty. The ultimate fulfillment of the promise of God would come in the person of his greater son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And you can read about this as you continue on in the following verses in Psalm 132. Look at verse 13 with me. For the Lord has chosen Zion. In other words, there's this long-term promise to Israel that is grounded on the fact of what the Lord has done. This long-term promise is in effect because the Lord has chosen Zion, the city of Jerusalem, in other words.

He has desired it for his habitation. Verse 14, this is my resting place forever. Here I will dwell, for I have desired it.

Now, notice what happens here. Go back to verse 8 where the king who is praying says, Arise, O Lord, to your resting place, you and the ark of your strength. He has the temple in mind, and he has this gathering for worship in mind.

It's a more narrow focus. God takes that prayer and expands it infinitely, expands it, you know, geometrically, exponentially, and says, as he starts to talk about the city of Zion, he says, this is my resting place forever. I will dwell here, for I have desired it. In other words, his answer to the prayer goes beyond the petition that was made in the first half of the Psalm. What he is saying is this, is that God had chosen the city of Jerusalem to be the place where his chosen kings would reign. In Jerusalem was the temple where his presence was manifested in Old Testament times.

When Christ came, the key events of Christ's life happened in the city of Jerusalem. One day, still future to us, Jesus Christ will return from heaven and will reign on earth from Jerusalem. You see, that wrapped up in the concept of Biblical Jerusalem is the fulfillment of all of the promises that God made to his people. And God is reaffirming those promises as we read here in Psalm 132. These verses are addressing more than the immediate situation. They are pointing us to the coming of Messiah and the coming throne of him. God is speaking of his resting place.

He will dwell there. Look at verses 15 and 16. God, having said in verse 14, I will dwell in Jerusalem, and then he says, I will abundantly bless her provision. I will satisfy her needy with bread. As you see this future coming son of David from the perspective of the psalmist, God is stating that this Messiah will be no one less than God himself because God is speaking in the first person singular when he comes, when he dwells in Jerusalem, I, it's the Lord speaking, I will bless her provision.

I will satisfy her needy with bread. Her priests also, I will clothe with salvation, and her godly ones will sing for joy. And so when Christ reigns in the future from Jerusalem, he will be pouring out blessing upon his people. The king in verse 9 had asked for righteousness for their priests and joy for the immediate audience. Here God takes it much further and promises to clothe them with salvation, a greater and eternal concept.

And so God blesses the prayer of this king far beyond what he could have anticipated. And in that coming day when Christ reigns and when his people are gathered around him, we will sing for joy in the context of eternal salvation, not merely an annual feast. We will sing for joy in the context of the forgiveness of our sins and permanent fellowship with a holy God. And unlike, unlike the annual feast where the people had to go back to their homes, here with an eternal resting place, verse 14, look at it there again, this is my resting place forever, here I will dwell, for I have desired it. When we are with Christ, that fellowship will not end. We will not have to go home.

We will be home as we worship around his throne. And so God establishes these blessings. It is still future to us, these physical and spiritual blessings that you read about in verses 15 and 16 have not yet been fulfilled for Israel, and so we're looking at a text that is still future to us today.

But what we see is that it's not merely physical blessings but spiritual blessings as well. Look at verse 17 where he says, There I will cause the horn of David to spring forth. I have prepared a lamp for mine anointed. The anointed one, that phrase anointed one, applied to David because he was God's anointed king, but it is fulfilled ultimately in his greater son. And so as you look at the language and the metaphors of verse 17, he says, There I will cause the horn of David to spring forth, the horn of an animal symbolized its strength and its vigor.

He's prepared a lamp which signifies clarity and direction. And then you go on in verse 18, you see, His enemies I will clothe with shame, but upon himself his crown shall shine. The crown referring to the royal dignity and the holiness of this king. And so we get this magnificent picture of the coming Messiah. He will be a king with royal dignity and holiness. He will be a king carrying the blessings of God to his people. He will be a king strong and vigorous. He will be a king providing light to his people, giving them clarity and giving them direction. And everything about David's strength as a king would be fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ is the strong warrior, the light of the world and the king of kings. And it will be in the end with David's greater son that Christ will, and in Christ I should say, that we will see God bring forth victory and peace for his people. Look at it there in verse 18 again.

His enemies I will clothe with shame. Meaning God speaking of the ultimate son, speaking of the Messiah. The enemies of Christ will be clothed with shame, but upon himself his crown will shine. Derek Kidner summarizes the psalm in this way.

He says, so the psalm which began with hardships and with grim determination ends with the glory which is their proper aim and outcome, the victory and radiance of the promised king. Now, as we step back from the psalm and just contemplate the significance of being in Christ today, being in Christ here in this side of the cross, I want you to understand, I want you to see something of the glory and the majesty of what it means to be in Christ and to be in his kingdom. When the Lord Jesus Christ called you to himself at some point in the past and saved you, understand something of the magnificence of what he did. He did not simply call you to the forgiveness of your sins. He didn't simply call you to receive eternal life for yourself. We all have a tendency to think of salvation in individualistic terms, what it means for me personally, what it means for me individually.

And there's a sense in which all of that is true, that there is a much bigger perspective that we ought to have on the nature of salvation. When Christ called you to himself, he called you to enter into his kingdom. He called you to enter into a plan of God which was established before the foundation of the world, Ephesians chapter 1, but also a plan of God that has been carried out in time and is being executed over the course of millennia. These promises were made to David some 3,000 years ago.

They are still in effect. God's greater Son is still going to come. He is going to reign from the throne of David in Jerusalem, and you are in his kingdom, and you are a part of a much greater work that is taking place in the purposes of God.

It's not just about God saving you and you having a private little personal God for yourself. We are part of something greater. We are part of an outworking of the purposes of God in Christ that are going to be great and glorious and involve nations, that involve people from every tongue and tribe from all over the earth across the ages of time. This is something of the majesty of what God has called us to and gives us something of a sense of the reason that he is worthy of such great worship, and he's worthy of worship and worthy of our highest devotion that he would bestow such a gift like that to us and that we would be a part of this great kingdom that he is working out. And so, as we see the purposes of God, as we see something of the character of God, and we see something of the way that he has blessed us, we are left with nothing to do but to bow before him in adoration and worship and thanksgiving for all that he has done for us. If you're here, not in Christ, let me assure you that God calls you into this blessed kingdom. He is a gracious king, as shown in the work of Christ that secured salvation for his people with his shed blood at the cross. He is a gracious king calling you to participate in this worship, calling you to come to Christ, calling you to enter into his kingdom. Jesus said, repent and believe in the gospel, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. When God comes to us through his word, the kingdom is right there, right at hand, as he calls upon you to receive Christ and believe.

Have you done so? Let's pray together. Gracious Father, we bow before you in the majesty of the work that you have done. We thank you for your promises to your people. We thank you that you are a God who keeps your promises.

And if you have promised a son to David who will one day reign from Jerusalem as king, then that promise will most certainly be fulfilled. And we look forward to that great and coming day when Christ is reigning from earth, receiving the glory that is his due. We pray, Father, that you would prepare us for that day. I pray, Father, for those that do not know Christ, that you would work by your Spirit in their heart to draw them to yourself. And Father, as we gather together on an ongoing basis as the people of God, Father, I pray that you would mark this church, this congregation, by those who love you, who are devoted to faithfulness, to worship. And Father, who prepare on an ongoing, consistent basis to be in your presence and to give you the worship that you deserve from hearts that have been prepared, ready to give you the honor and praise, which is your rightful claim from our lives. So we commit these things to you with gratitude for your kindness to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Well, friend, thank you for joining us on Through the Psalms. Did you know that we also offer a daily podcast?

It's a shorter format that is a perfect companion for you as you start your day, drive to work, or maybe have your workout on your treadmill. You can find that daily podcast at thetruthpulpit.com. Thanks, Don. And, friend, Through the Psalms is a weekend ministry of The Truth Pulpit. Be sure to join us next week for our study as Don continues teaching God's people God's Word. This message is copyrighted by Don Green. All rights reserved.