Psalm 103B - Bless the Lord (Part 2)
As you might recall from the introduction, this study of Book Four of the Psalms, #90-106, began with reflections on the surprising truths in Psalm 103. Thus, the study of Psalm 103 is in two parts, and part two is perhaps longer than others.
Remember what God has done in the past. (v. 6-7)
The Lord performs righteous deeds
And judgments for all who are oppressed.
He made known His ways to Moses,
His acts to the sons of Israel. (Psalm 103: 6-7)
While Genesis is a collection of stories that take place over thousands of years, Exodus through Deuteronomy all takes place during the 120 years of Moses's life.
If you chart the dating scheme of Genesis, you can construct a spreadsheet of Genesis's time.
(request Charts for each era below, at tomshedd@globaltrainingnetwork.org)
1) Adam through Noah
2) Descendants of Noah (Gen. 10)
3) Noah through Abraham (Gen. 11) and Patriarchs
4) Life of Abraham (Gen. 12ff)
5) Descendants of Esau; of Seir; kings of Edom (Gen. 36)
6) Descendants Jacob/Israel who went to Egypt (Gen. 46)
7) Dating of Exodus Journey through Judges
8) Numbers leaders of tribes
The Lord performed many righteous deeds during the time of the exodus from Egypt. Those deeds are all remembered in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. What happened, where it happened, when it happened, and who was involved, are all present. We see the victories and the failures of the people and also of their leaders. We even see the disobedience of Moses himself, which prevented him from actually entering the land, but only being allowed to view it.
The giving of God's Law begins with the Ten Commandments at the beginning of the journey in Exodus 20. It repeats at the end of the wilderness time in Deuteronomy 6. Once the people were no longer under Egyptian law, they needed a code of their own, and God provided it.
Similarly, there was a need for a new liturgy of worship. Free from the Egyptians' false religion, they needed guidance in the worship of Yahweh, the one true God. So God instructed them to build the Tabernacle, the Tent of Meeting, where sacrifices and offerings would be presented, and where God Himself would be manifest within the Holy of Holies. The instructions for building the edifice are incredibly detailed, reflecting the true tabernacle in the heavenly places. The dimensions, materials, furniture, clothing of the priests, and even the spices used in the incense offerings are listed. Also included are the priests' instructions for every aspect of their service in presenting offerings to God.
The Lord did indeed make His ways known to Moses, and His acts to the sons of Israel. No one can say that God was distant and removed - He was present and involved.
Remember the forgiveness of God. (v. 8-10)
The Lord is compassionate and gracious,
Slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness.
He will not always strive with us,
Nor will He keep His anger forever.
He has not dealt with us according to our sins,
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. (Psalm 103: 8-10, NASB)
The story of the people of God in the wilderness is obedience and rebellion, grumbling and discontent. God physically manifested His presence to Israel in the pillar of fire to the people. Within the Holy of Holies once a year, the high priest saw the Shekinah glory. Yet, as those who were tired while waiting for Moses on Mount Sinai decided to return to Egypt's worship by building an idol of gold in the shape of a calf, the people of Israel continually returned to false gods.
For sinful people - them and us - who stand before the Holy God, there is hope. God demonstrated His anger and wrath because of disobedience and lack of faith. But God also created us in His image because of His love. That love is eternal. His lovingkindness is everlasting. So there must be a way for God to reconcile the sinfulness of His creatures with His holiness. Again, this is the beauty of the gospel.
God created us with the ability and freedom to make choices. In the garden, he allowed the circumstances to exist where His creatures could make choices and did make choices. God was not surprised because in giving choice, He recognized that there would be good choices resulting in blessing and bad decisions resulting in sin. His holiness would require justice.
So before the creation of heaven and earth, God already determined how that issue would be solved. There would be one penalty paid for all time for all sin, and since there could be no payment higher than God Himself, He determined that the second person of God would take human form and become that payment for sin through His death on the cross. The gateway to life - even eternal life - became available for all who accepted that payment. Thus, faith is the choice to accept that payment personally. It is a decision that each person must make for themselves. No one can make it for them. Every generation shares the story of the acts of God and the nature of His character. Each person then decides for themselves to receive Christ. As a result, God applies the payment, and they have a personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit, as God resides within that person.
There are four characteristics of God mentioned in these verses demonstrating his loving nature:
compassionate - God knows how we feel and sympathizes with us
gracious - God doesn’t immediately judge every wrong act that we do
slow to anger - God doesn’t lose His temper with us, but rather His wrath accumulates at times to a place where God renders discipline
abounding in lovingkindness - God created us in His image because of His love, and that love has no end
The author explains how the Lord demonstrates these characteristics in verse 9.
1 not always striving with us
2 not keep His anger forever
3 not dealing with us according to our sins
4 not rewarded us according to our iniquities
These should give us great comfort. Often we are tempted to feel that our sin causes separation from God, but in the gospel, that cannot possibly be true. The payment of Jesus on the cross was “once for all." It never needs to be repeated because it is efficacious in paying for all sin for all time. Therefore, there is no sin for which His payment would not apply except the sin of rejecting His offer. It is appropriated by faith. Thus any separation which we feel is created by our guilt and shame, not by any inadequacy by Him. As far as He is concerned, that sin has already been stamped, “paid in full." Does that mean that we should never feel guilt or shame when we sin? “May it never be," as the Apostle Paul says. We should feel guilt and shame when we knowingly determine to do what we know is wrong. And when we continue in it, God is free to bring discipline to correct us and get us back on track with walking with Him. God is not unconcerned about our sin, even though He has paid for it. He is still aware of it, and the reason He is concerned about that sin is that He loves us and wants the best for us, and that sin will keep us from experiencing His blessing, which He wants to give us.
Remember His compassion for us. (vs. 11-16)
In verses 11-16, David writes of the extent to which God's forgiveness impacts us, His creations. The truths expressed here are so beautifully anticipatory of the gospel in Jesus. Some people think that the principle of forgiveness of sin is only a New Testament concept, only a Christian concept, exclusively revealed by the writers after the time of Jesus. But these verses show that the principles of forgiveness for all were foundational from the beginning. Faith in God to forgive sin has existed since the creation event itself.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
So great is His lovingkindness toward those who fear Him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
Just as a father has compassion on his children,
So the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him.
For He Himself knows our frame;
He is mindful that we are but dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
When the wind has passed over it, it is no more,
And its place acknowledges it no longer. (Psalm 103: 11-16, NASB)
In these verses, David gives three illustrations of the magnitude of God's lovingkindness as expressed through His act of forgiveness of sins.
1) How high are the heavens above the earth? (verse 11)
Until the time of Galileo, people had difficulty understanding the earth's place in the universe. People saw the motions of the stars and heavenly bodies in terms of concentric spheres rotating around the earth.
With the advent of the telescope, astronomers of the 15th and 16th centuries began to observe the solar system correctly. The sun, rather than the earth, was at the center, and the planets orbited the sun. But even to them, the stars did not appear to move. Stars were pinpoints of the light of heaven coming through holes in a sphere.
Today we understand the nature of our galaxy, where billions of stars like our sun orbit around a massive black hole at the center of our galaxy. Following the discoveries of Hubble in the 1920s, we know of the existence of billions of galaxies. The visible universe extends on the order of billions of light-years in every direction.
So how high are the heavens above the earth? Much, much, much higher than anyone at the time of David could imagine. The comparative extent to which the Lord's lovingkindness towers over those who fear Him is on this scale. It is more than we can picture in our wildest dreams.
2) How far is the east from the west? (verse 12)
For those who thought the earth was flat, there were limits on how far one could go to the east and how far to the west. One could only go to the edges. But as the understanding of the nature of the earth changed, the knowledge of east and west became only relative positions on a sphere and lost any sense of measurable distance.
Then to expand that concept into a universal one, simply recall that there are no absolutes of direction in space. There is no up or down, no east or west. Positions are all relative to other bodies. There is a planetary plane in the solar system to which we can refer objects, and there is a solar plane to the galaxy to which we can refer objects such as other stars and their planetary systems. But beyond that, there is no absolute point in space (at least none of which we are aware) that fixes other galaxies. Their positions are only relative to one another. There is no “up," no “down," and there are no absolute “north, south, east, and west." Space is three dimensional (four counting time, and possibly more if string theorists are correct in describing the universe in eleven dimensions), and there does not appear to be any fixed reference point.
We compare the removal of our sin against this incredible vastness. Our sin is impossibly far removed from us, meaning gone. Perhaps at God's final judgment, there will be a reference to our sin in declaring the payment of Christ to have canceled it out. But in terms of how God sees us today, Christ's sacrifice cancels out the debt of sin. God sees us in those terms: wholly forgiven. God still sees our sin, but not in terms of His eternal relationship with us.
3) How much compassion does a father have for his children? (verse 13)
There is no comparative expression given for this example, as there was in verses 11 and 12. So the question is rhetorical - the answer is obvious.
Perhaps not all fathers have compassion for their children, but by definition, a “good” father would be one that fathers well. He takes his responsibility seriously for his children, makes wise decisions on their behalf, and loves each of them with his whole heart. Was David a good father? Interesting question, because there are many examples which would argue that he was not. Perhaps there is no comparative phrase accompanying this statement because David recognized his failures as a father.
There are no perfect fathers. Every father can reflect on the mistakes they have made in being a father. It is embarrassing and humiliating to think about that. Why did we make those mistakes? Why were we selfish and react with anger? Couldn't we have been more compassionate? We see that we did not make enough time to see things from their perspective. We didn’t listen to them. We didn't help them understand things.
Imagine what a perfect father would be like for you. Imagine a father who was just what you wanted and needed when you were young. Imagine a father who loved utterly, who maintained perfect justice and yet judged with mercy and compassion.
Our Heavenly Father is the perfect Father. When Jesus taught his disciples to pray in Matthew 6: 9-13, He began by addressing God as “our Father who art in heaven." We are His children and even joint-heirs with Christ. We have a seat at his table in His household. He is our father, who gives good gifts to His children.
There is a caveat here - “to those who fear Him." He is a good father to those who fear Him, meaning that if we are submissive to Him as our Father, then we experience the depths of His compassion. If we do not fear Him, we will miss out on the blessings that He would otherwise choose to give us. This is a conditional statement, make no mistake about it. Those who fear him, who have respect for Him and choose to walk with Him will experience His compassion in ways which those who do not fear Him will miss.
So what are we to God? 7.8 billion people are living on earth right now. How important is one person? How does God look at us?
First, he knows us. He is mindful of us. He knows that we are just dust. We are so vulnerable, so easily destroyed. We are susceptible to disease, to accidents, to acts of aggression. We are just dust. Even relatively mild velocity changes will bring our death as our internal organs turn to mush. Tiny unseen viruses can make us sick to the point of death. We only live such a relatively short amount of time when compared with timescales of the universe.
We are like grass, which will look good for a while after the seeds have been planted, the fertilizer applied, and a good amount of watering and rain allows the seeds to germinate and grow. But then the weather turns hot, and no matter how much water we seem to provide, the grass begins to turn brown and goes dormant and dies. And once it dies, it is gone. The lush, green lawn is now dry dirt, as though it was never there and never was alive.
Remember His promises. (verses 17 - 18)
We are temporary, and our time here is limited, but this is not so with God. He is unlimited by time, and He is not limited in resources to provide, now, and forever.
But the lovingkindness of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him,
And His righteousness to children’s children,
To those who keep His covenant
And remember His precepts to do them. Psalm 103: 17-18)
Again we have the caveat, the condition, “to those who fear Him." The blessing of God is promised to everyone but is delivered to those who respond in faith. For salvation and eternal life this is true, and it is equally true for experiencing the blessing associated with walking daily with God. The faith decision for eternal life is a "once-for-all" decision, just as God's payment is a "once-for-all" payment. God writes our names into the Lamb’s Book of Life; they are not erased and not crossed out. If that were possible, then it would mean that there is a sin for which the blood of Christ would not be sufficient, and that is impossible.
Is there a sin for which there is no forgiveness? Yes, there is - the sin of not accepting the payment for sin, which covers all sin. God gives us choice, and if we choose not to accept that payment for our sin, He does not force it upon us. That is a function of the choice which He gives us. We can choose to accept that payment, or we can choose not to accept it. If we decide not to accept it, then that payment will not apply to cancel out the debt of our sin. But if we do accept that payment, then it applies to all sin we have ever committed, still do commit, and ever will commit. There is no sin that it does not cover because being guilty of one point of the law means that we are guilty of the entire law.
For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in one point, he has become guilty of all. For He who said, “DO not commit adultery,” also said, “DO not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but do commit murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. (James 2: 10-11, NASB)
Similarly, in our daily walk with God, we live in blessing when we make good choices, and we live without blessing and possibly even with cursing when we make bad choices. So it is true that “fearing God” is necessary to receive the blessing of God.
To those who do “fear God” and accept His plan for His creation, there is no reason for His love ever to stop, nor lag, forever. We will never have a power outage in terms of His love for us. Not even death will stop His love. We will continue to experience His love without pause for all eternity - from everlasting to everlasting. Our children can experience the same thing, and our grandchildren and their children continuously into eternity.
God has made promises, His covenants, and God can never break those promises. Some of the promises are unconditional, meaning that they are not dependent on anyone else to be fulfilled. Others are conditional, meaning that they require our agreement and the fulfillment of our part of the contract. When we remember to keep our part, He is faithful to keep His. Our continuing walk with Him begins with our need to continually confess our sin to be regularly cleaned up by the Lord.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9, NASB)
The principle of forgiveness is "once-for-all" for salvation and also works in everyday life of walking with God.
Remember His Kingdom. (verses 19-22)
There are times when each of us begins to think of ourselves as the masters of the universe. We start to feel that our rules are the essential rules and that we determine what is best for our lives.
But this is not true. We live in the Kingdom of God, whether or not we acknowledge it. He is the King, and there is no other. He rules the heavens and the earth, whether we believe He does or not. Our belief does not change the reality of His rule one bit. His dominion is continual, whether anyone acknowledges it or not.
The Lord has established His throne in the heavens,
And His sovereignty rules over all.
Bless the Lord, you His angels,
Mighty in strength, who perform His word,
Obeying the voice of His word!
Bless the Lord, all you His hosts,
You who serve Him, doing His will.
Bless the Lord, all you works of His,
In all places of His dominion;
Bless the Lord, O my soul! (Psalm 103: 19-22, NASB)
The sovereignty of God is expressed in three realms by David.
1) In the realm of the angels.
There is a seen world and an unseen world. There is the realm of humans, and there is the realm of angels. Occasionally the realm of angels is made known to humans. But angelic appearances are rare in the Scriptures, and only occur when God wants that revelation to occur.
The angel spoke to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. The angel spoke to Joseph. The angel spoke to Zechariah, the husband of Elizabeth, the parents of John the Baptist.
Angels are around us, but we may be unaware of their presence.
Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. (Hebrews 13:1, NASB)
2) In the realm of His hosts.
Perhaps this is speculation, but it appears that there are other kinds of created beings in the Kingdom of God.
Ezekiel describes being visited by beings whose characteristics he describes in detail in chapter one.
Within it there were figures resembling four living beings. And this was their appearance: they had human form. Each of them had four faces and four wings. Their legs were straight and their feet were like a calf’s hoof, and they gleamed like burnished bronze. Under their wings on their four sides were human hands. As for the faces and wings of the four of them, their wings touched one another; their faces did not turn when they moved, each went straight forward. As for the form of their faces, each had the face of a man; all four had the face of a lion on the right and the face of a bull on the left, and all four had the face of an eagle. Such were their faces. Their wings were spread out above; each had two touching another being, and two covering their bodies. And each went straight forward; wherever the spirit was about to go, they would go, without turning as they went. In the midst of the living beings there was something that looked like burning coals of fire, like torches darting back and forth among the living beings. The fire was bright, and lightning was flashing from the fire. And the living beings ran to and fro like bolts of lightning. (Ezekiel 1: 5-14, NASB)
What kinds of beings were these? The text does not say. From where did they come? The text does not say. What kind of transportation were they using? The text does not say. Were these angels? The text does not say. Were these aliens from another part of the galaxy? The text does not say.
Are there other beings on other planets? Only God knows at this point. Every effort man has attempted to find out has not shown results. (See: Wikipedia: SETI - “Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_for_extraterrestrial_intelligence)
But that might only mean that other intelligences are simply too far away for us to receive signals. If light and radiation, such as radio frequencies, can travel no faster than the speed of light, then since the development of the first radio signals broadcast into space (about 1920 or so?) has only been 100 years. That means that man’s furthest reach into the universe is only a tiny bit of the way into our galaxy. The diameter of the Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light-years. And any reply to an outgoing signal would take just as long to return with a reply.
Keeping civilizations separate from each other would only require God to create them sufficiently distant from each other.
For God to create other worlds of life would seem to be a reasonable expectation.
So in Revelation 5 we are introduced to other kinds of beings.
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne and the living creatures and the elders; and the number of them was myriads of myriads, and thousands of thousands, (Rev. 5:11, NASB)
What kinds of “living creatures” is John describing? The text doesn’t say.
There are many answers to look forward to in heaven, wouldn’t you agree?
3) In the realm of His works.
Whether we are alone in the universe or share it with others, all creation is under the dominion of the King. There is no question concerning planet Earth - every one of us lives in the domain of the King who rules over His kingdom. The kingdom of God is at hand!
Bless the Lord, O my soul!