So the last time we talked about King David, specifically God's promise to him that a son of David would rule and reign on David's throne. So now it's probably a good time to stop for just a minute and talk about the Psalms. How do the Psalms fit into this big story of Scripture? Because the Psalms are generally thought of as the work of David, right? He's that warrior poet king who's musical talent was first seen playing for King Saul, but then ends up displayed through his whole life as the author of numerous songs. And that's what the Psalms are, they're songs, but while David is a major contributor, he's far from the only one. We have psalms from a variety of sources. There is a psalm attributed to Moses. There's one that's by Heman the Ezraite, and then Ethan the Ezraite, a couple of by Solomon. There's several by the sons of Korah, several by Asaph. Before we get to the anonymous psalms that we don't know about, there's about 50 of those, And then David wrote 73 according to the Psalms themselves, and then we find a few more shown in the New Testament. It gets to about 75. So David is credited with about half of the Psalms. While a third of them are anonymous, we do have a good idea who wrote some of those. The interesting thing is, if you take the Psalms and you put them out on a timeline, it spans a very lengthy period of time. The earliest psalm is Psalm 90, written by Moses, and that puts it in the area of 1450 BC. The latest is almost certainly Psalm 137, which appears to be written during or after the Babylonian captivity, so it puts it in the area of roughly 550 BC. So we're talking about a collection of poetry and songs from almost a thousand years of Israel's history. So in that story of God's work in human history, humanity has been expressing themselves toward God poetically, musically, throughout that time. And there's a lot of self-expression in Psalms, especially as they record the writer's laments, the feelings of mourning, grief over sin and oppression. There's also a lot of expression of a righteous man's thoughts toward God, especially in the Psalms of praise for who God is and what he's done. We find throughout the Psalms God described by the Psalms as creator, deliverer, a fortress. a healer, a judge, a king, a shepherd, a shield, a redeemer. Really, the list could go on. God is represented in his relationship with humanity as everything from protector to avenger. And as the story of God's plan of redemption unfolds, our understanding about a personal relationship with him is also unfolding through these Psalms. Now, a lot of these Psalms are going to be from one specific period around the life of David, but many of them aren't. And while they're not arranged chronologically, we find the collection of Psalms as far from haphazard. Since they span so many years, so many centuries of Israel's history, it's very likely that the Psalms were collected into different groups over time. But then after all of them are written, someone had to come along and collect those into the 150 songs that we have today. Now, if I handed you printed sheets of 150 songs, and I asked you to compile them into a hymn book, how would you do it? You probably never thought about such a thing. And I doubt the compiler of our Psalms had ever considered it either until he was faced with it. But it's evident that a lot of thought went into the process. Very likely, that work was done by a man named Ezra. And by the way, I think he's a good suspect as author for several of those anonymous Psalms. But Ezra was a man of God who lived after the Babylonian captivity when the nation is returning from slavery and rebuilding the temple and starting worship life over again. And so it's probably him who's the one who went about collecting these psalms from throughout history, a few new ones as well, and put them together into this Hebrew hymnal to be used in that temple worship. But he didn't just take them and sort of slap them together. Whoever did this work, whether it was Ezra or not, I'm going to stick with Ezra, whoever did it made some very thoughtful calculations about the order of the Psalms. This is where I want to nerd out for a few minutes and talk about different types of Psalms and different formats of Hebrew poetry, all the different literary devices that get used. It's a little more in-depth than we're trying to do for this series. So, for now, at least, let's just focus on the structure of how these were assembled into a big collection of 150 songs. You may not have noticed before, But the Psalms are actually broken into five groups, into five books. If you open your Bible and look at it, you'll find headings over Psalm 1 that says Book 1, and another heading over Psalm 42 that says Book 2, and on it goes. So here's the structure of how that worked. Book 1 includes Psalms 1 through 41. In the general topic, and this is generally speaking, The topics are man and creation. In book two, Psalms 42 through 72, you have a lot of songs of the history of Israel and redemption of that nation by God. In book three, which is Psalm 73 through 89, deals a lot with worship and the temple of God and God, how he manifested himself there among the people. In book four, Psalm 90 through 106, it deals with our sojourn on earth. We're strangers, we're pilgrims, we're travelers. And then in book five, in Psalm 107 through 150, most of those psalms are about praise for God and a commitment to God's word. Now, if you think about those five books and the general topics, It seems like the compiler of these Psalms, if it is indeed Ezra, was compiling them in a way to correspond to the first five books of the Bible, the books of Moses. When you think of man and creation, it corresponds to Genesis. And book two of Israel and redemption would correspond to Exodus. And then when you deal with worship and temple life, it would be with Leviticus and the wandering, the sojourn on earth was told in numbers. And then finally, Deuteronomy was that book of commitment to God's word and praise of God. And so the structure is so well put together that each of these first four books ends with an extremely similar statement of praise. The end of book one Psalm 41 verse 13 says, blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting into everlasting, amen and amen. And then book two ends with, blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only does wondrous things, and blessed be His glorious name forever. Let the whole earth be filled with His glory, amen and amen. Book three ends, blessed be the Lord forevermore, amen and amen. The end of book four is, Bless me, the Lord God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting, and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the Lord. The fifth book ends with five entire Psalms, known as the Hallelujah Psalms, Psalms 146 through 150. all begin and end with the words, praise ye the Lord. Now that doesn't seem like a coincidence, right? So much thought is put into the structure of the Psalms, and then when we look at that structure we're going to see that Ezra, or someone else, we're going to see what it is that they thought was important. From the structure we see that the revelation of God to Moses was clearly a big part of it. How they correspond, these five books of the Psalms, to the five books of Moses is clear. And those books of Moses tell us about how God revealed himself to Abraham and created a nation and rescued them from Egypt and called them to covenant faithfulness. That's a big deal. It can't be overlooked. But the other thing we see as important is going to be the covenant with David. Now, that shouldn't be shocking given how important it was to David's life and the fact that he wrote over half of these psalms. But even the way they're assembled is pointing us toward the fulfillment of that promise God made with David. Again, if I just dropped 150 loose sheets of printed songs in your lap and I asked you to put them together in a book, what would you put first? Well, here's what Ezra chose. The first two psalms set up the rest of what follows. Psalm 1, go read Psalm 1. It could be called the Song of Two Ways. And what we find in those two ways is there's a blessed way for a man who contemplates and obeys God's word. He's going to be like a tree that's planted right by rivers of water. He's always provided for, always prospering. His way, his path is known by God. But then the other way is that the ungodly aren't like that. They're like the useless chaff after the grains have been harvested. It's driven away by the wind. Their way, it says, their path is the path of perishing. And so that song of two ways in Psalm 1 is telling us you're one of those people. You're righteous or unrighteous, blessed or cursed. You're preserved or you're perishing. The first psalm is a call to personal accountability in relationship with God. Then the second psalm, I would call the second psalm, Peace with the Son. Now, remember the promise to David, that a future son of David is going to rule as king forever. God had said, I will be his father and he will be my son. So read Psalm 2 with that in mind. It tells the the prophetic story of nations that are raging against the Lord. In verse two, it says, against the Lord and against his anointed, literally against the Lord and against his Messiah. The kings of the nations are rebelling against God, but God, laughing in derision at that rebellion, says in verse six, look, I've set my king right there. He's not going anywhere. When we ask, well, who is this king? We find out in Psalm 2, verse 7, as the king speaks. Psalm 2, verse 7, he says, I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Now remember, In the covenant with David, God had said, I will be his father and he will be my son. That's who this is. It's that son of David who was promised to rule eternally. And as you read the rest of the psalm, he reigns victoriously. The nations are called to make peace with him because they can't hope to stand against him. It ends by saying, kiss the son. lest he be angry, and you perish from the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. Now the writers of the New Testament pick up that psalm, as well as many others, and show how it's pointing to Jesus. He is that son of David who will rule and reign forever. And he's also the son of God, just like God promised to David. And while you can't hope to stand against Him, you can find peace by repenting of your sins and trusting Him for salvation. So let me give you a quick example to show you what I mean. As Hebrews opens, it shows how Jesus is better than, well, it shows Jesus is better than everything, but specifically I'm referring to the section that talks about Him not being just an angel, He's better than the angels. Here's what it says, Hebrews 1.5. For unto which of the angels said he at any time, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. And again, I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. There's two references there in that verse, two things that God the Father is saying to Jesus. The first is, you are my son, this day have I begotten you, right from Psalm 2 verse 7. The other reference is, I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son. That should sound familiar. It's from the Davidic Covenant in 2 Samuel 7, specifically verse 14. So the writer of Hebrews is showing how those coincide together, and it's proven that the Psalms, as wonderfully various and beautiful as they are, span all the range from lament to praise, the Psalms are also advancing that story of redemption. And that's why the Psalms are important for us today. We're even commanded three times in the New Testament to sing Psalms. They are the divine revelation of God that's teaching us more and more about the Son of David, the Son of God, who is to rule and reign forever.