Day 285: Psalms 99-101 | Read The Bible In A Year | Bible Study with Commentary by Dr. Manny Arango

Welcome to the Bible Department podcast, 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. (upbeat music) Family, welcome to day 285. We are looking at Psalms 99, 101 today. For the past couple of days, we've been in this mini collection of Yahweh reigns Psalms. Psalms that are really focused on the kingship of Yahweh, on the throne of Yahweh, on the reigning and ruling of Yahweh, the connection or the context really, has been David's re-centering of the presence of God in Jerusalem, the rebuilding or the re-establishing of the tabernacle and bringing the ark of the covenant back where it belongs. So today we are actually gonna end this kind of mini series about the Psalms that are all focused on Yahweh's reign. All right, we're gonna finish that section and we're gonna look at these final three Psalms. Now I'll give you a precursor, just kind of like a heads up. Psalm 101 is not technically a part of this little mini collection, right? Psalm 99 and Psalm 100 are, I think I told you a couple of days ago, everything from Psalm 93 to Psalm 100 are a part of this little mini collection.

However, Psalm 101 fits perfectly after this collection and there's a small part of me that would love, I kind of want it to get grafted in, but anyway, I get why it's not, but I'll make a case for that in a little bit. All right, if you have not done the reading for the day then stop the video, pause the audio, go get the reading done and then come back, all right? If you have done the reading, then let's dive in. Like every day, I'm gonna give you context clues to help you understand and orient yourself to what's being written or what's being read rather and then I'm gonna give you some nerdy nuggets, some things that you wouldn't have been able to know just by reading it on your own and then I'm gonna leave the episode and the episode with a timeless truth. I'm really excited about our timeless truth today. Let's dive into context, all right? The context is Yahweh's triumphal entry into Jerusalem to reign from his tent, from his tabernacle. These Psalms, Psalm 99 and 100, they make sense without context, right? You can read Psalm 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, and 100 and they'll make sense. Like they're reasonable, they're logical. But the moment that you know that, okay, these Psalms are most likely being sung as the Ark of the Covenant has been at Obadethum's house, the Ark of the Covenant has not been in its proper place

and David is putting the Ark of the Covenant back in the tabernacle so that worship like could actually begin to function again in all three areas of worship, not just the singing, but the service and the sacrifice, okay? So that tabernacle worship can actually do what it needs to do, okay? So that's the context. With no context, these Psalms are clear. Once you have context, they become even clearer. I want you to think about these Psalms as Yahweh's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Remember, in the Gospels, Jesus is gonna have a triumphal entry into Jerusalem. And once you realize, oh, wow, there was a triumphal entry into Jerusalem in the Old Testament as well, you can begin to make some connections between the Old and New Testaments or Covenants. All right, let's dive into some nerdy nuggets, okay? 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 gonna be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy. So I'm 99, immediately, you know, we kind of get that same theme that we've been getting in verse one, the Lord reigns, let the nations tremble. Okay, why do the nations need to tremble if the Lord reigns? Well, it's because he doesn't just reign as king over Israel. He reigns as supreme king over all the earth, okay? And if the nations have been in rebellion against God and have not been submitted to the lordship of God, then yes, they should be trembling with fear now that Yahweh reigns, okay? So the people definitely saw that putting Yahweh in his tabernacle didn't just have implications for how the people of Israel were to be affected by Yahweh, but how the nations are to be affected by Yahweh, okay? So the Lord reigns, okay, we've seen that, those words, those three words repeated over and over and over again in this collection of Psalms, this mini collection.

Says this, he sits enthroned between the cherubim, all right. So you may be wondering, all right, what does that mean? What does enthroned between the cherubim mean? Well, the ark of the covenant is going to have a mercy seat on it and there are cherubim that are facing each other on top of the ark of the covenant. So this is ark language, okay? When it says he sits enthroned between the cherubim, this is the presence of God that rests between the two cherubim on the lid of the ark of the covenant. Essentially this gold box that we know is the ark of the covenant, okay? And so Yahweh sits enthroned between the cherubim. This is the biggest clue that we are definitely talking about the ark being brought back into Jerusalem to rest in the tabernacle, okay? So this is called the mercy seat, okay? The mercy seat, the place where once a year the high priest goes with the blood of the lamb and sprinkles what? Sprinkles the mercy seat, okay? In the holy of holies and makes a tonement for Israel, the mercy seat, okay? Yahweh sits enthroned on the mercy seat is another way to say between the cherubim 'cause what's between the cherubim? The manifest presence of Yahweh on his mercy seat. In order for Yahweh to sit amongst us, it requires mercy, okay? He is holiness wants to heal anything that is not holy, but God in his mercy, instead of his wrath

being poured out on us, his mercy begins to abate that wrath so that we can experience the manifest presence of Yahweh. It's actually an incredible thing. Let the earth shake, great as the Lord in Zion, remember Zion is essentially Jerusalem, okay? Jerusalem, he has exalted over all the nations, let them praise your great and awesome name. He is holy, all right. The king is mighty, he loves justice, you have established equity and Jacob, you have done what is just and right. Exalt the Lord, our God and worship at his footstool. So now things flip. A moment ago, the ark was the throne or the seat of Yahweh, and now it's the footstool of Yahweh because Yahweh essentially declares the heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool. So what we have is that in the tabernacle, we have two realms overlapping. I love to use Narnia as an example of an overlap between earth and Narnia. Well, the wardrobe is both, it's both Narnia and earth. And then the same way the tabernacle and then later the temple is supposed to be like a Venn diagram where there's heaven on one side and earth on the other side, everything that overlaps is heaven and earth. And the temple is supposed to connect heaven and earth, is supposed to occupy or both spaces,

both heaven and earth occupy the temple. I was gonna say the temple occupied both spaces, but I guess that's also true, but that overlap is the temple. Okay, that space where I'm in heaven, I'm also on earth is the temple. And so it is both the throne, but it's also the footstool. And then we get this cool little part. Moses and Aaron were among his priests. Samuel was among those who called on his name. They called on the Lord and he answered them. Okay, so what's going on? Why do we get Moses and Aaron and Samuel mentioned in this psalm? Well, the big idea before I read it, the big idea is that Moses and Aaron were a part of establishing the original tabernacle, right? When God first gave instructions that he wanted to dwell amongst his people and they should build a matabernacle, AKA, a tent, okay? And so David is saying that same authority that was on Moses and Aaron is the same authority that I'm walking in by re-establishing that tabernacle, by rebuilding that tabernacle, by re-instituting a tabernacle worship system, okay? He's kind of saying, hey, like, I'm tipping my hat to Moses and Aaron and Samuel, because remember Samuel is this hinge leader. Samuel, like Moses, occupies three distinct spaces. He's a prophet, he's a priest, and he's a king figure, okay? And so Samuel, when the tabernacle is destroyed, he as a person acts as a mobile tabernacle. They can perform sacrifices any place Samuel goes as long as Samuel's presiding over the sacrifice. All right, let me kind of read it to you the way I've got it here.

David restoring the tabernacle and bringing the ark to Jerusalem connects him to a lineage of people that have prioritized the same elements, the tabernacle and the ark. Moses and Aaron, especially Moses, were crucial in setting up, in the setting up of the original tabernacle and placing the ark within it. So establishing Yahweh as king in the center of Israel. Samuel is mentioned alongside them as a Moses figure. He, like Moses, was a prophet, priest, and king figure. He therefore had the same authority and permission to establish a tabernacle and place the ark inside. He did it at a place called Shiloh. He had anointed David to rule, like Saul before him, but Saul failed in this task. So David rebuilding the tabernacle and placing the ark inside of it is sanctioned by Yahweh in the same way as the original, okay? So the authority of his chosen priest set up the original, okay? The authority of Yahweh's chosen priest set up the original tabernacle and now the authority of his new chosen priest, aka David, will set up the new tabernacle through his chosen priest, David, all right? So this song highlights Moses, Aaron, and Samuel in Yahweh's relationship and that David is continuing in that legacy, okay? That's really, really, really, really important. There's a nerdy little detail, but it gives us a clue about the context of what's going on. All right. Psalm 100, I spent so much time giving you nerdy nuggets for Psalm 99. All right. Psalm 100, since Yahweh is now back in his tabernacle seated on his throne, exalted as king over his people, they are encouraged and invited to enter his gates with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise. Psalm 100 verse 4, enter his courts with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.

Yeah. Actually, one of my earliest memories as a kid, maybe five, six years old, is I went to a church that said that every single Sunday. Let us enter into his gates with thanksgiving and enter into his courts with praise. And so one of these days, maybe when we're done with our year-long trek to the Bible, I'll kind of do a lesson here on the podcast of how I pray, because part of the way that I learned to pray a couple of years ago was walking through the tabernacle. And so when we think about enter into his gates with thanksgiving, when Jesus taught us the Lord's prayer, it starts out with hallowed be thy name, it starts out with thanksgiving and praise. And man, I can get into a timeless truth here, but I won't, but I'll give you like a many timeless truth that a lot of times, gratitude, thanksgiving and praise, if you start your prayers with thanksgiving and praise, you'll find out that the things you are going to ask God for by the time you're done thanking him and praising him, you begin to realize I don't even need the thing that I thought I needed. Thanksgiving and praise should always frontload your prayer. We don't want to thank God after we've asked him for stuff. I guess the formula that I've always given people is praise should precede petition, praise should precede petition. Of course, I can petition God for all kinds of things, of course, I want to, there's things that I need, there are things that I want, but man, I want to enter into his gates with thanksgiving. Actually, the formula that I always use is praise and then petition and then prophecy. I wanna prophesy that thinks things are gonna happen and then I always end with praise. So praise, petition, prophecy, praise. And then the last, the final praise is a praise in advance. I believe that everything I've asked you for is already done.

All right, Psalm 100, I want you to put this verse that you're probably very familiar with. "Enter his gates with thanksgiving, enter his courts with praise." In the context of now that the tabernacle is set up, now that the art has been placed inside of it, now let us shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth, worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God, it is he who made us and we are his, we are his people, the sheep of his pastor. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise give thanks to him and praise his name for the Lord is good in his love and dress forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. Okay, now that this whole process from Psalm 93, all the way to Psalm 99, all of this work has been established to bring the ark back to the tabernacle, to put it within the tent of meeting in Jerusalem. Now that that's all done, Psalm 100 is the culmination or the response. And then we get to Psalm 101. And all these Psalms from Psalm 93 to Psalm 100 is all about how Yahweh reigns. It's all about the reign and the rule of Yahweh. Well, guess what Psalm 101 is? Psalm 101 is almost like, it's a royal psalm, so you need to know that. But it's not royal in like, it's messianic

that it prophesies about Jesus, the Messiah. It's royal in that this is a psalm of David that functions like a royal oath of office. This is what the king of Israel would swear to do in his role as king. This a promise that King David is making. That is this, these verses is what he promises he will do. Some scholars even think that this was an oath put to song by David, but aimed at his descendants. So they would swear this as they ascended to the throne to be coordinated as king. This psalm then is what it means to be a king of Israel under the authority of the true king Yahweh. So Psalm 101 then is also like a response to everything we've read from Psalm 93 to 100, or really from Psalm 93 to 99. If Yahweh truly is enthroned on the mercy seat, if he truly is enthroned between the cherubim in the holy of holies in his tabernacle, intrusalim, and since his rule in reign is the center of life for the people of God, then I should be leading in light of his leadership. I should be ruling in light of his rule. I should be reigning in light of his reign. I should be governing in light of his governance. Okay, so this is the oath. We'll read Psalm 101 together. I will sing of your love and justice to you Lord. I will sing praise. I will be careful to lead a blameless life.

When will you come to me? I will conduct the affairs of my house with a blameless heart. I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. I hate what faithless people do. I will have no part in it. And that's not just faithless like. I don't believe that's faithless like. Unfaithful would be a probably a better word there. The perverse of heart shall be far from me. I will have nothing to do with what is evil. Whoever slanders their neighbor in secret, I will put to silence. Whoever has hardy eyes and a proud heart, I will not tolerate. My eyes will be on the faithful of the land. They may dwell with me. The one whose walk is blameless for minister to me. No one who practices to see will dwell in my house. No one who speaks falsely will stand in my presence. Every morning, I will put to silence all the wicked in the land. I will cut off every evil door from the city of the Lord. All right, that right there is David's oath of office. That's his promise. Yahweh, since you reign, since we have enthroned you on your, in your tabernacle, aka your palace, where you govern, I now must govern in light of that. And these are the things I'm oathing.

I don't even know if that's a word. Promising oathing to you, declaring what I'm gonna do. And this moves effortlessly. Because this is actually just a good blueprint for leaders everywhere. No one should be leading as if God is not the leader. I can only shepherd the people that God's asked me to pastor in light of how he shepherds. Like I can't be a shepherd with different character or different values than the chief shepherd. I'm shepherding in light of the shepherd. And I've experienced this even when I was a youth pastor, I wouldn't give people advice that I didn't think my senior pastor would give them. My job is to lead in light of how my leader leads. And for David, he's saying, well, there's no one above me in the org chart, but Yahweh himself. And so since Yahweh leads a certain way, I'm gonna lead that way. And I think it's good for all of us to practice that same principle. I wanna lead like God leads. I wanna lead like Jesus. And let's even look at this, okay? I will sing of your love and justice to you Lord. I will sing praise. That's what I know as a senior pastor. It doesn't matter who I eventually recruit

or hire to be a worship leader. I'm the worship leader 'cause I'm the pastor of the church and I don't have to sing to be a worship leader. I just have to be a leader who worships, okay? Next, I'll be careful to lead a blameless life. When will you come to me? Like, hey, I'm gonna live a pure life, clean hands, pure heart. I will conduct the affairs of my house or the blameless heart. What good am I to lead God's people if I can't lead my own home well? I will not look with approval on anything that is vile. Whoo, that's good, man. That's self-explanatory. I hate what unfaithful people do. I will have no part in it. If you read through Psalm 101, you begin to realize, this isn't just a good oath of office for David. This is a good oath of office for every leader. It's a good oath of office for anyone who's in leadership and the bigger time of truth here is that in the same way that David needs to lead in light of how God leads, you need to lead in light of how God leads. I need to lead in light of how God leads. And I don't wanna lead in such a way that I'm actually leading people away

from the one who I'm supposed to be leading them towards, which is the king of kings and the Lord of lords. He's king and he's king of this king. I'm not a literal king, but I'm a leader. And he's the leader of leaders. And we lead in light of his leadership style. And that's not just true for David. That's true for you. That's true for me. That's timelessly true. I don't get to lead in his name, but not lead the way that he's asked me to lead. I follow his example as I lead his people. We got a lot of leaders who somewhere along the way forgot to follow. And I'm not able to lead until I am able to follow. It's my ability to follow God's lead well that actually enables me to lead others well. And that is the blueprint that David is outlined here in Psalm 101. And I think it's a good blueprint for you and I. Tomorrow, we've got day 286. We're gonna be looking at Psalms 102 and 103. I can't wait, I'll be right here. Same time, same place. We're gonna be looking at two more Psalms tomorrow. If you're on a streak, I'm so proud of you. I love you guys so much. 285 days down. And I don't know, what's that?

80 days to go or something like that? Something, something. My math isn't good. I didn't get a doctor to math, I got it in Bible. Ah, I 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 thebobledepartment.com. We'll see you right back here tomorrow. (upbeat music) (keyboard clicking) [BLANK_AUDIO]