Day 273: Psalms 63-65 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

powered by ARMA. We are walking through the entire Bible in a year. You can go to the description or thebobledepartment.com to download a reading plan and join the journey. Hey Emily, welcome to day 273. Today we are going to look at three of David's Psalms. We've got Psalms 63, 64 and 65. If you've already done the reading and we are going to dive in, I think that the content today is going to be super helpful. These Psalms definitely minister to me in my alone time, in my private time as I was reading through the Psalms. These Psalms personally resonate with me. I've been reading Psalm 63 specifically since I was like a teenager. So I really, really love Psalm 63. I've got a lot of things to share with you regarding all these Psalms but definitely Psalm 63 in particular. So if you have not done the reading, hey, go do the reading for the day. Honestly, it should take you less than 10 minutes. I mean, Psalm 64 is really short. Psalm 63 is short. Psalm 65 is the longest of the three but it shouldn't take you long to get the reading done. How about you go get the reading done so that you have context for everything that we're going to talk about on today's episode. I like every day, we are going to start with context clues. We're going to look at the historical cultural linguistic literary context of the Psalms. We're going to try to situate these words or this content inside of some context. And then I'll give you as many nerdy nuggets as I got and we'll leave with a timeless truth. All right, let's dive into context. All right, Psalm 63, we're actually going to get a heading that's going to give us a little bit of context. It says this, Psalma David, when he was in the desert of Judah in the desert of Judah. Now, there are two possibilities for when David was in the desert of Judah. The first possibility or the first option is when David was hiding in the cave with Saul. Remember, that's 1st Samuel chapter 24 verses 1 and 2. And that is the context of Psalm 57. So about six Psalms ago, probably a couple of days ago, Psalms 57, David was out in the desert. Okay, but the desert that he was in meant that he was in a cave where he could have killed Saul, but he chose not to. And then the second option for context, because again, the heading only says when he was in the desert of Judah. Well, there's multiple times in David's life was in the desert. So we're trying to narrow it down to figure out which context fits the scenario, the best. And the second option is actually going to be 2nd Samuel chapter 15 verse 23. When David is forced out of Jerusalem by his son, Absalom, who's trying to usurp the throne. So the context is either that David is out in the wilderness on the run from Saul,

or that he's on the run from Absalom. This is either early in David's life or later in David's life. We're going to figure out which one it is. All right, Psalm 64 has no context that is clearly discernible. All that we have as a heading is for the director of music, a Psalm of David. That's all we got for Psalm 64. Now, most people are going to see a lot of similarities between Psalm 64 and a lot of the other on the run Psalms. Okay, I would say the on the run Psalms are these Psalms from early in David's life where he's fleeing from King Saul, and he's out in the wilderness or out in the desert and just running for his life. And we're going to look at the clues as to why that could be the context of Psalm 64. And then lastly, Psalm 65, we don't have a ton of context for. However, we've got literary context. We don't have historical or cultural context, but we've got literary context. And this is a Psalm of praise. This is a hymn of praise. This is, I love Psalm 65. And so we've got a Psalm where David is clearly on the run, scared for his life. It could be that he's on the run from Saul. It could be that he's on the run from Absalom. We'll look at both. And then we've got probably another on the run Psalm from David's younger years where he's running from Saul. And then we've got a hymn of praise for our three Psalms today. All right, let's dive into some nerdy nuggets. We're just going to kind of move through the text. Okay, I'll start it. Psalm 63. And you, God, oh my God, earnestly, I seek you. I thirst for you. So the first metaphor we get right out of the game. The context for where David is at this point is huge because David is out in the desert. And I love this, that David's response to being out in a dry, barren desert land is not I thirst for water. It's I thirst for God. Okay, David is definitely using the context that surrounds him to inspire him on how to communicate with the Lord, okay? So the words that David is speaking cannot be disconnected from the context in which David is sitting, okay? He is in the desert.

And once you begin to realize that makes all the difference in the world, okay? I thirst for you. Many of us would assume he's about to say I thirst for water, no, no, no. I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you in a dry and parched land where there is no water, okay? So right there, he lets us know where he's at. He's in a dry and parched land where there is no water. And in the middle of the worst situation, what am I longing for, God? What am I thirsty for, God? Then I could move into a timeless truth right there because how many times are we in situations where there's no provision and the thing we're longing for is provision. That there is no protection. The thing that we're longing for is protection. But actually in moments where there's lack, God is saying, how about you long after me? Because if you get me, you get everything else that you need, okay? And now I just wanna kind of give you a barrage of how much of a sensory descriptive episode we're getting, okay? I have seen you in the sanctuary, okay? Seen and beheld your power and your glory. Seen beheld, so we're activating the eyes. Because your love is better than life. My lips will glorify you.

So if you go from eyes seeing a beheld to my lips, I will praise you as long as I live. And your name, I will lift up my hands. This is, think about how many body parts are involved here. Okay, David is saying that true worship, all true worship encapsulates all the senses. It's taste, touch, feel, see, it's all of it, okay? And sometimes I think we can get this understanding that God is to be only experienced spiritually. But David is actually saying, no, God isn't to only be experienced spiritually, but there's a physical experience that should accompany a spiritual reality, a physical experience that should accompany a spiritual reality. And what is that physical experience? God, I wanna see you, I wanna behold you. I want my lips to praise you. I wanna lift up my hands. It's funny, I was actually in a conversation with my therapist and they were talking through just how transformation happens in a person. And they kind of drew this diagram for me that there's this triangle between your feelings, your thoughts and your behavior, feelings, thoughts, behavior. And they said, you can introduce change to any of those three. That it's our feelings that really begin to produce our thoughts

and those thoughts produce behaviors, okay? But they said, a lot of times people want, if they're struggling with anxiety or depression, they will want to, you know, enter new thoughts, okay? Get new thoughts, which then are gonna have an impact on the feelings. And then ultimately, it's gonna change behavior. But my therapist is saying, you could actually do the opposite way. And instead of just waiting to feel better, you just start going to the gym. So you introduce a new behavior. You introduce something that makes your body do something different. And my therapist is saying, it's just as effective to introduce a behavior because that behavior, believe it or not, is gonna begin to release dopamine and serotonin and all kinds of good chemicals, which are gonna give you different feelings, which are gonna lead to new thoughts that sometimes in the Western world, which is so heavily dominated by the transformation of the mind that we can sometimes think the only way that transformation can happen by introducing new thoughts, which changes our feelings, which changes our behavior. But my therapist is saying, well, really, you could change behavior,

which change feelings, which change thoughts. And I recently told the entire worship team at our church. I said, in the cool that on Sunday mornings, we actually get to do both. We're asking people to lift up their hands But then in the sermon, what we're doing is we're trying to change people's minds. We're trying to cause them to repent. We are teaching people to reach their minds, but we're preaching to them to reach their hearts. And worship is kind of top-down. It's saying, no, let's get people to do a different behavior so they could feel different and think different. And then the preaching is getting people to think different so they could feel different and behave different. And I told the worship team, we're a tag team duo, okay? I'm gonna tackle the thoughts and the feelings and then ultimately challenge people to change their behavior. But guess what? You guys get to do. And before I ever get up to stage, your challenging behavior would ultimately gonna challenge feelings and thoughts. And one way is not better than the other. We are a team. And so I just want you to see how physical of a reality this spiritual moment of worship is, okay? I wanna see you. I wanna behold you. My lips are going to praise you. My hands are gonna be raised. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods. That's a metaphor, right?

That this is like the presence of God is something I'm consuming. With singing lips, my mouth will praise you. It's very, very physical. On my bed, I remember you. So now I'm activating the mind, okay? I think of you through the watch of the night because you are my help. I sing in the shadow of your wings. I cling to you. Your right hand upholds me. So what does liturgical corporate worship do? It causes people who have had an experience congregationally with God's presence to remember the Lord, to think of Him through the watch of the night. So it says, "Those who wanna kill me will be destroyed. They will go down to the depths of the earth. They'll be given over to the sword and become food for jackals. But the king will rejoice in God." All right. Now, the big million dollar question is which king? And I would say that when we get to chapter 63 or Psalm 63 verse 11, that king that's being talked about there is not Solomon. But the king that's being spoken about there is David, which means I would make the context for this psalm when David was fleeing from Absalom, okay? Because of this verse, but the king will rejoice in God, which king? I don't think he's talking about Saul. I think he's talking about himself, okay? All right, Psalm 64.

This is a good on the run psalm, okay? Let's get some nerdy nuggets out of here. Why do I think this is good on the run psalm? Well, because David is literally complaining about his enemies. Listen to the first words of the psalm. "Hear me, my God, as I voice my complaint." He's like, "Hey, look, man, I got some complaints." All right, "Hear me, God, as I voice my complaint. Protect my life from the threat of the enemy. Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked and the plots of evil doers," right? We've already read multiple psalms where people are stitching on David. They are reporting him to king Saul, okay? So I think now Psalm 64 is back in the past. So I think Psalm 63 is about absolute when David's old. I think Psalm 64 is about Saul when David is a young man. So again, this is a reminder. The psalms are not organized based on any kind of chronology, okay? They sharpen their tongues like swords and anchor words like deadly arrows. I just think that's amazing imagery. That's a good lyric, man. That's strong. They sharpen their tongues like swords. It's the words that people are using. They're sharpening their tongues like swords. They encourage each other in evil plans. They talk about hiding their snares. They say, "Who will see it?" They plot injustice and say, "We have devised a perfect plan. Surely the human mind and heart are cunning." So verse 8 says this, and I think this is the law of sewing and reaping like right here in Psalm 64.

It says, "He will turn Yahweh, okay, will turn their own tongues against them." That they are seeking to destroy other people with their words. But really what they are doing is they're destroying themselves with their words, okay? He will turn their own tongues against them. And so seriously, this isn't my time of truth for the day. But if you struggle with gossip, just know that you're not actually tearing another person down. You're tearing yourself down. And if you sharpen your tongue like a sword, to reap what you've sown and you're sowing words all the time and you can't sow negative words and think that other people are going to reap it. You're not primarily just hurting them. You're actually hurting yourself. Family, the weight is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere books are sold. Literally today, I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So, you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a books a million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy if you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective. If you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book and if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. Okay, let's go to Psalm 65 and kind of look at our last couple of nerdy nuggets. Okay, Psalm 65, it's going to start. I love this psalm. Praise awaits you our God in Zion. To you, our vows will be fulfilled. You who answer prayer right there, and not a good verse. You who answer prayer, like if there's something you need to know about God, he answers prayer. Okay, when you pray, the Lord answers. He hears, he answers. You who answer prayer to you, all people will come. Okay, people flock to God. Why? Because he answers prayers. When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our transgressions. God, you're forgiving God. You hear prayers, you forgive people. You hear prayers, you forgive people. When we were overwhelmed by sins, we didn't know how we were going to find any kind of freedom or deliverance or forgiveness. Okay, you forgave our transgressions. All right, now I want to skip all the way down.

Okay, I actually want to skip to verse seven. There are two things that I'm going to highlight from verse seven, all the way to verse 12. Okay, verse seven. You still to the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their ways and the turmoil of the nations. All right, so this is also like a creation Psalm. Okay, so, so the writer is going to go into detail on how Yahweh tamed the chaos with the Tohuvavohu of Genesis chapter one, and over the course of seven days created order where there was chaos. Now, there's a nerdy nugget. If you see the creation account in Genesis chapter one, primarily as a story or narrative whereby God creates something out of nothing, then there's a bunch of Psalms that actually are going to display or talk about God in language that is not consistent with God turning nothing into something, but which is very consistent with God taking chaos and molding it, making it, shaping it into order. Okay, and so we see this, you who still the roaring of the seas, okay, this is what every deity has to do in every creation myth, whether it be Babylonian or Mesopotamian or Canaanite, okay, they have to tame or conquer the chaos that's always found in the form of a raging sea and a sea dragon, who's still the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves in the turmoil of the nations. The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy. All right, so, so the first thing I want you to see is that one of the things that Psalm 65 is telling us is that God takes chaos and turns it into order. So God's a God, Yahweh is a God of order, as opposed to chaos, okay, second, okay, what's the second thing that we see? You care for the land and water it, okay, so God cares for it. So this is a God number one of order, not chaos, but this is also a God that is nurturing, that's careful, not wrathful. It's not that God's wrath is never on display, but God is being the earth is God's garden, okay? You care for the land and you water it. And now I love this next word, it's going to give us the third image I want us to hear. You enrich it abundantly. So number one, God's a God of order, not chaos, he's a God of care, not destruction. He's a God of creation, not destruction. He cares for the creation, he doesn't destroy the creation. And then last, God is a God of abundance, not lack, abundance, read this, okay? The streams of God are filled with water.

That word filled, that's an abundance word, okay? To provide the people with grain for so you have ordained it, you drench its furrows, drench, okay? So we got filled, we got drench, okay? And level is ridges, you soften it with showers and bless its crops. You crown the year with your bounty and your carts overflow with abundance. The grasslands of the wilderness overflow, the hills are clothed with gladness, the metals are covered with flocks, the valleys are mantled with grain, they're shout for joy, they shout for joy and sing. Like you hear all those abundance words? Overflow, bounty, abundance, drench, fill. I mean, my gosh, the psalmist here, David, sees God as a God of order, not chaos, a God of care, not destruction, but ultimately a God of abundance, not lack. And let me say this, prosperity gospel preachers get a really bad rap. It's like top 10 kinds of people that people hate, prosperity gospel preachers. And I get why, but the Bible talks about prosperity. Like when God created the Garden of Eden, God did not create a place of lack. He created a place of abundance. And my timeless truth actually for today is that I always want to have an abundance mindset. Everywhere I go, it's funny, you know, me and my wife, I challenge her with this a lot because there are years I said I wanted to plant a church in Charlotte, North Carolina. I lived in North Carolina. I want to plant a church in Charlotte. And then my best friend Brian Bullock planted a church in Charlotte. And I just went, "Oh, you're the other cities." And my wife's like, "That was our city!" And I was like, "Why do you have such a scarcity mindset? Who cares, man? There's other places. This Boise, Idaho, this San Francisco, this Portland, this Seattle, this Houston." And we ended up in Houston.

I have an abundance mindset. One time I was talking to a couple of guys at the church, I kind of walked by them and they were talking about immigration. They were like, "Yeah, because they're taking our jobs." And I was like, "Whoa, the scarcity mindset is just who? The scarcity mindset is here in abundance." What do you mean they are taking our jobs? God owns a cattle on a thousand hills. There's an unlimited amount of jobs. There's not a limited amount of jobs. There's an unlimited amount of jobs. I just operate my life from an abundance mindset. It's actually the thing that's made me very, very generous. I'll give thousands of dollars away. Why? Because there's always more. I'm generous with ideas, I'm generous with cities, I'm generous with opportunities. You know, somebody came up to me recently and was like, "Yo, thank you for recommending me for those speaking engagements. Obviously, I provide for my family by going to churches and speaking." But there's millions of churches to go speak at. I'm not in competition with anybody. Somebody came up to me recently at an event here in Houston. And they said, "Yeah, you know, you got a lot of competition here. There's a lot of churches." And I looked up and said, "The only competition I have is Satan." I'm not in competition with any church. What kind of scarcity mindset do you have? You think I'm competing with other churches for Christians? Man, you want to know what's going to happen with our ministry?

Thousands of people are going to get saved. Thousands of people are going to get saved by the tens of thousands. I'm not competing with anybody. In the fact that that's how people really think. People are really like, "No, these are my jobs. These are my opportunities. These are my speaking engagements. These are my people." It's like, "Wow. God's a God of abundance. Abundance. There's more than enough money for everybody. More than enough homes for everybody. There's more than enough jobs for everybody. More than enough opportunities for everybody. There's more than enough revelation for everybody. I don't have to steal anybody's sermons. I just have an abundance mindset. You know, I came up with a really cool book idea and then a friend of mine wanted that book idea. I was like, yeah, take it. I come up with more ideas. The same brain that came up with that idea can come up with 10 more ideas. It's an abundance mindset. And clearly David has an abundance mindset in Psalm 65. And he has an abundance mindset because he believes that God is a God of abundance. By no means am I trying to push prosperity gospel down anybody's throat, but the opposite would be what?

Like, poverty gospel? Like, were you saying God's a God of lack? I don't see God as a God of lack. I see him as a God of abundance, which then should make me have an abundance mentality. But if I see God as a God of scarcity, I'm gonna have a scarcity mentality. And a scarcity mentality creates poverty and a prosperity mindset or an abundance mindset creates prosperity. And if I prosperity gospel, you mean, I don't have to do anything and God just blesses me? Of course, I don't believe in that. But if you mean that by prosperity gospel, that God does have an abundance supply and then he puts conditions in place whereby I become a diligent, excellent, hardworking person that is operating according to the laws of reciprocity so that I can flow in the current or in the stream of God's provision? Absolutely. I believe that God has got a prosperity. When I look at Eden and when I look at heaven, those don't look like places of lack, which means God's ideal is not lack. It is abundance. And if there's a truth that I think is relevant for David's context and for our context, say God is not a God of lack or scarcity. He's a God of abundance.

He's a God of provision. And if you struggle with scarcity mindset, you're gonna have to dismantle that thought process. And you're gonna have to genuinely deconstruct that idea and reconstruct a prosperity mindset or an abundance mindset. 'Cause honestly, it'll change everything about your life. I cannot stress this enough. An abundance mindset will change everything about your life because you'll stop operating based on fear. You'll actually start to operate based on faith. I have an abundance mindset. Therefore, I can create opportunities for others. I can be generous with ideas and opportunities. And I can walk through the open doors that God's provided for me. But I have an abundance mindset and I think you should too. And I think David did. All right, tomorrow we got day 274 and we got Psalm 66 to 68. I can't wait to dive into the content with you. I love you. If you're on a streak, I am proud of you. Hey, how about this? Practicing abundance mindset. Share this podcast with somebody that you know needs it. Love you guys. See you tomorrow, peace. Thanks so much for joining us

on the Bible Department podcast. If this episode was helpful, how about you leave a comment, share with a friend and subscribe so that you never miss an episode. To learn more about the show, head to thebobbledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]