Please open with me in your Bibles to Psalm 22. I'm going to be passing out a short, rather skeletal outline to the talk tonight. If people want to take notes, they're welcome to do that on this. And while these are going around, I'm just going to read Psalm 22. We sang it. And as we take up the subject of Christ, Our Lord Jesus in the Psalms. Certainly, there's not a better place to start than to hear the words of Psalm 22 to open up the study. To the choir master, according to the Doe of the Dawn, a Psalm of David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me from the words of my groaning? Oh, my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yes, you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In our father's view, we trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you, they cried and were rescued. In you, they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breast. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God. Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me. A company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do not be far off. You owe my help. Come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword. My precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will praise you. You who fear the Lord praise him. All you offspring of Jacob glorify him and stand in awe of him. All you offspring of Israel. For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted and he has not hidden his face from him but he has heard when he cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation. My vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nation shall worship before you. For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship. Before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn. That he has done it. Psalm 22 was written by King David. But it's clear as soon as you start this song that David speaks of experiences that reach far beyond his own experiences. And certainly as the New Testament takes up this song, we see clearly that David, in the spirit of Christ, was prophesying of Christ, of his sufferings on behalf of God's people and on the victory over death and sin that Christ would accomplish through that crucifixion on our behalf. And so there's perhaps no better place to start to see the fact that the Psalms speak so clearly of our Lord Jesus Christ and that in the spirit of Christ, David and those writers of these inspired hymns looked forward to that day when Christ would come and truly fulfill all that was written therein. And so we can now take the Psalms on our lips knowing that Christ is the one who brings their truest fulfillment and in whose spirit we can sing them to the praise of the salvation that he has purchased for us. Please pray with me briefly as we begin. Lord God we pray for this study that it would be profitable to the edification of your church that we would learn to see the Lord Jesus Christ displayed for us in this altar and that we would be able to sing these songs knowing that in the Lord Jesus Christ they receive their fullest and surest fulfillment and that in union with him we can sing them with all our hearts is the expression of our faith and trust in you and we pray this in Christ's name. Well a couple of things about what this study won't be to sort of narrow down our focus over the coming weeks. It won't be an in-depth study on the arguments for exclusive psalmody. Pastor Reese excellently dealt with, I think it's one of those amazing little providences that this morning Pastor Reese dealt with Colossians 316 almost as a preamble to the discussions over these following weeks. We won't be discussing exclusive psalm but certainly that will be an issue that will come up for the more we see Christ in the Psalms the more we will want to take those songs on our lips. And it also not be a technical study of the Psalter dealing with you know forms of poetry structure and language. But rather I wanted to pick up on a point that pastor he spoke about later on in the sermon this morning and that is the spirituality of our worship. In other words worship is primarily an issue of the heart and not simply a matter of correct form. We sing the songs yes and and we sing them because we believe God has commanded us to sing them but that in and of itself is not sufficient reason to take up these songs on our our lips. It doesn't just singing the songs themselves doesn't give God pleasure. It's when those songs are sung from a heart that's overflowing with love and obedience towards the one who has redeemed us. Then those songs take up their fullest meaning in our worship. And so I hope this study of the songs to be encouragement for all of us as we sing the songs that we would understand more and more how our Lord is displayed within them and how we can take them on our lips as our own testimony of our faith and love for the Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas many see the Psalms as being unfit for the worship of the New Covenant Church, I hope to show throughout the course of this study that they are in fact the only songs that are sufficient, fully sufficient for New Covenant worship because they are the only songs in which we can take the words of our Savior, the inspired words of Christ, upon our lips in union with him as he leads us in our worship. And in terms of the apologetic for our practice of exclusive psalmody, I also hope to show that it's not simply a matter of a couple of texts that command us to sing the Psalms exclusively in worship, but rather that the entire flow of redemptive history is leading us to the point to see the Psalter as the messianic hymn book for God's people, the church. And so as we begin, I believe, does everyone have the sheets that does make it all the way around? I have an introduction and I actually, there's a phrase on there that may be hard to understand. I actually meant to write it in English, but must've done it quick enough that it came out in another language. Does anyone know what that phrase means by chance? Or has ever heard it in another context or might be able to guess at its meaning? Cantare amontis est. Keith, yes. Good job. It can be translated a couple of different ways but you could translate it only the lover sings or perhaps singing belongs to the lover. And I wanted to start out by just taking a brief look at why we sing in the first place. You know apart from singing the songs why is it that God has commanded his people to sing it all. Why do we sing in worship. And I quoted this phrase it's actually from. the church father, Augustine, singing belongs to the lover. And because we have a couple of young lovers in the midst of our congregation tonight, we have the privilege of more than one engaged couple in our midst, or at least halves thereof, especially with Matthew and Rachel here. I wanted to ask you guys a question. Did life change when you became engaged? Yes, of course it did. Are you happy to be engaged? Yes. All right, and my third question. Are you satisfied and content being in this state of engagement? Well, you just told me life changed when you're engaged and you're happy to be engaged. What do you mean you're not satisfied staying in the state of engagement? Matt, why not? Because you want to get married, right? It's a provisional state of affairs, right? You've got your pilgrims on your way to a greater state of existence. You don't want to stay there forever. I can testify to that as well. I was engaged a few weeks ago and My fiance lives on the other side of the country and we won't see each other again until days before the wedding. In many ways, it's a miserable state of affairs. I wish the wedding could simply be tomorrow and then we could be done with it and be married. Being engaged is a wonderful thing, but it's meant to lead to something far greater. Here's another question, Keith, maybe you can ask this one too. Does anyone know the answer to question 94 in the shorter catechism? What is baptism? I won't put you on the spot again. Baptism is a sacrament wherein the washing of water in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ and partaking of the benefits of the covenant of grace and our engagement to be the Lord's. As Christians, We have a certain engagement to the Lord Jesus Christ as well. He has accomplished salvation on our behalf. He has united us to himself by the work of the Holy Spirit and applied redemption to us. But we look forward to a greater state of affairs don't we. We are not satisfied fully and content being apart from him. It's one of the chiefest desires that the spirit works in us upon regeneration. that we long to be with the Lord not simply by faith as we await him but in that eternal state of affairs when he will bring us to himself and ask his church he will consummate that relationship that he began with us by sacrificing himself on the cross and rising up to the right hand of God for the glory of his people. We're pilgrims in this world. And as we think about singing to the Lord, there's, I believe, a theology of longing and engagement in the Bible. And the psalms are given to us as psalms that we sing to God as we express our desire to be with him in the fullness of salvation, not simply believing upon him by faith as we do in this life, but looking forward to that day when not only will we embrace him by faith, but we will embrace him by sight as well, as we will see him as he is in our glorified and resurrected bodies. The Psalter you could call the inspired pilgrim's hymnal. They shape and sanctify our piety as we learn to walk with Christ more and more throughout the pilgrimage of this life. The Psalms are first and foremost the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, as they are inspired by his spirit And they speak of him and his work, and they become our words through our union with him as we take them on our lips. And they are more than anything, a way that we exercise our spiritual affection for Christ as we await the day when he comes to take us to himself. Singing belongs to the lover. I'm going to read a short passage from First Peter, chapter one. There in in verse six Peter says in this you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ though you have not seen him you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. It's a ridiculous thing in the eyes of the world. Faith is a glorious mystery that you would love this savior whom you've never seen. And that you would rejoice in his work that you were not there to witness. And yet that faith and that love and that rejoicing in his work is no more shown than in that example to be the work of the Holy Spirit in your hearts. And we take the Psalms upon our lips as testimony to our longing to be with Christ. We sing because Christ first loved us. And as Pastor Reese said this morning, When you are loved as much as Christ has loved us even to the sacrificing of his own body on our behalf there is no more proper outcome than to lift praise and glory and honor to him through song. Lovers don't simply speak about their love but their hearts sing. That's that's the great example that God has woven into the very fabric of creation. to show what happens when the Spirit gives us these spiritual affections for Christ. We can no longer simply talk about salvation, but we sing about salvation because singing belongs to the lover. We often miss a simple but profound fact about the Psalter. Whereas most of Revelation constitutes God speaking to men and women, the Psalter is a book filled with men speaking to God. We have a book of the Bible that constitutes God's people lifting their praises back to God as they think about this great salvation from which they have been purchased from death and sin. God gave us the Psalms so that through faith and love they would be the words of our praise that we would lift to him. Another church father Athanasius of Alexandria. You may know him. He lived in the fourth century A.D. as a theologian who was involved in defending the deity of Christ against the Arians, a group of early heretics in the Christian church that denied the eternal divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. He wrote this about the Psalms in a letter to a fellow minister. Do not let anyone amplify these words of the Psalter with persuasive phrases of the profane and by profane he means uninspired. And do not let him attempt to recast or completely change the words. Their expressions are superior to those we construct for it is the spirit who speaks in the saints to render assistance to us. See God has not left us to our own imaginations to construct songs of praise to lift to him. But rather, through the Spirit of Christ, he has given us the very words of our Savior, inspired by the Spirit, that through our union with him, we might unite our voices with him and sing praise back to the one who has saved us. And so, as we continue on in our study this evening, there are two primary questions that I want to ask concerning the Psalter. One, what role does the Psalter play in the canon, and what is its relationship to the rest of the Bible? And two after we've answered that question are the songs appropriate vehicles of praise for new covenant worship. And so I think the next heading on your outlines be something like the development of Messianic expectations in the Old Testament. First thing I want to do is if we're ever to understand how to see the Lord Jesus Christ in the songs. We have to understand what exactly were the messianic expectations of God's people at this time. And so very briefly, we're actually going to walk through the Bible, beginning in the garden and going all the way up to Christ's incarnation and look briefly and hopefully build a robust case for the way in which the Old Testament saints knew about the Lord Jesus Christ and had a very clear idea about the work that he was coming to do. In a lot of modern scholarship, there's, I think, a fear of anachronism when we talk about the messianic expectations of Old Testament believers. We look at the New Testament and the way in which it interprets the passages of the Old Testament as clearly being messianic. But then a lot of people will say, well, we can't really know for sure that that's exactly the way that the Old Testament believers took it. And so there becomes a greater and greater gap between our knowledge of the Messiah and then how we look back upon the Old Testament saints and wonder about what it was they knew about the Messiah. And if we're to understand how Christ is in the Psalms and why it's appropriate for us and fully sufficient for the new covenant church to sing these songs. We're going to look at exactly what it was that the Old Testament saints knew about the Messiah. So turn with me in your Bibles back to Genesis and we're going to go to chapter three all the way back to the beginning. Okay, now some time for some participation. When God created Adam in the garden, we're going to start with Adam. What was it that Adam was created to be? When you look at chapters two and three of Genesis, and also taking into account all of revelation concerning Adam, what was Adam created to be? There's actually not a black, maybe a dark green? Any ideas? What else? So, strangely, we put a bit of a vice-regent. He was the ruler in the name of God. You could say, King and God's right hand. Vice-regent, is everybody familiar with that term? Matthew's genealogy, or is it Mark? It's Mark's genealogy. Luke, son of God. Adam was created as a son to be the father of many sons. He was the son of God so that there would be many sons who would be image bearers, who would spread the glory of God over the face of the creation. What happens next? It's bad. The fall, right? The fall. And what happens to what Adam was created to be because of the fall? The image is shattered. The creation now rebels against Adam, even though he was created to exercise dominion over it. That kingship is lost. And the son of suns going back to, instead of producing image, fully glorious image bearers created in knowledge, righteousness and holiness to cover the earth with God's glory. Adam can only bear sons who are now at enmity with God, wherein the image of God is broken. and instead of spreading this perfect image of God's glory of the creation, it's spreading this image that is broken and shattered and at enmity with God and in rebellion against Him. Okay, so the fall happens, but then something else happens, right? Look with me at Genesis 3.15. God doesn't leave humanity in this wretched state that humanity has plunged itself into because of the fall. Read with me in verse fifteen of chapter three. And this is God speaking to the serpent and cursing the serpent. God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This verse is often called the very first evangelical promise of the Bible, because it's that first promise where God says to his people, sin and death is not the end of the story. Something else intervenes into the fall into the darkness of humanity. And it's promised here in chapter or in verse 15 of chapter three. And so look at this promise, and I want to list exactly what it is, the contents of this promise and what it says about salvation. And so go ahead and raise your hand when you're ready. Just things that are promised here in verse 15 of chapter three. Okay, great. So there's, there's going to be conflict. Between which two parties? Between Satan and the woman. It's kind of reversed. Yeah, seed of Satan. This is kind of rickety. Now, some translations may have offspring. The Hebrew there is specifically seed, which is important. So seed of Satan, seed of woman. Great. Conflict. What else? So not only will there be a conflict, and I guess along with that comes the destruction of Satan as well, right? The destruction of the serpent. Not only will the serpent be destroyed, but the one who will destroy the serpent will do so at great personal cost to himself. How do you know that's the case? Right. Now, when your heel gets crushed, I mean, that's a very painful injury, debilitating injury. But what happens when your head gets crushed? They die. Right. It's destruction. So, we know that the seat of the woman... Sorry. The seat of the woman will destroy the serpent. And he will do so at the cost of great personal suffering. Now, I'm going to stop writing on the board for right now. Not the most efficient way to do this. But I wanted it to be visual. And I will write that up on the board. Destroy serpent at great personal cost. What else do we know about salvation? from these facts that we have compiled so far from Genesis 3.15. You know, one thing we know is that there is going to be salvation, that the gods aren't going to scrap everything. Exactly. Are you going to accomplish salvation for yourself? No. Who's going to accomplish salvation for God? The serpent. Yeah. Did Genesis 3.15 say anything about any of us in this room accomplishing salvation to strike the seed of the serpent? and thereby saving God's people. No, from the very beginning, God's promise of salvation terminated on a person who would come to destroy the serpent. And we had no part to play in that serpent-destroying procedure, so to speak. It will be entirely the work of this promised seed who will do so at the cost of great personal suffering. We must therefore receive the work of this promise. Savior by faith. It's not a matter of us accomplishing it through our own designs through our own efforts or through our own words but rather it is faith as we look to the one who does it on our behalf. Do you see why we're going through Genesis 315 what a robust expectation of the work of salvation that they have from the very beginning. The very first evangelical promise included the knowledge that there would be a conflict between the seat of the woman and the seat of Satan, that this promised seed would destroy the serpent, that he would do so at great personal cost and suffering. and that it would be a work that is done outside of ourselves that we must therefore believe in if we are to partake in its benefits. Even from the very beginning, it wasn't simply Christ as this glorious political figure, but it was Christ as the suffering servant of God who through his own personal suffering would destroy Satan. And we find this very clearly echoed in the book of Hebrews, just to jump all the way forward to the New Testament, briefly, and chapter two. Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, seed of the woman, that through death, great personal cost and suffering, he might destroy the one who has the power of death. That is the devil. the serpent and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. Now that you might want to write that verse down where Hebrews chapter two in verse fourteen. We're going to be coming back to that verse in a second. And so we haven't even gotten out of Genesis three fifteen and we already know that there will be a messiah who will destroy Satan at great personal cost and suffering to himself. And that, therefore, the object of faith is not what we can do to save ourselves, but it's faith in the one whom God has promised to do the work of salvation on our behalf. I mean, that's a that's a robust knowledge of who Christ, who the coming Christ would be. The theologian John Owen said this about the passage we're looking at now, Genesis 315. This, then, was the essence of the Adamic or post-lapsarian theology. When he says that, he's speaking specifically about this promise of Genesis 3.15. Within it lay, as it were, the embryo of the whole doctrine of salvation for sinners. Subsequent clarifications would all be matters of degree. The whole was founded on divine promise, which, being clarified during the journey of the church, at length was fully revealed in the gospel. So what Owen is saying is that basically we get the whole shebang in Genesis three fifteen in embryonic form and that is God reveals his covenant subsequently throughout the history of the Old Testament. It will only be building upon what has been established from the very beginning and giving greater and greater clarity to God's people as they await the promise who would destroy the serpent. Well, let's move ahead now to Genesis chapter 12, flip there with me. And in Genesis chapters 12 and 15, we have God coming to another great father of our faith, Abraham, and adding these clarifications to the covenant promise. And as we look at Genesis 12, and we'll move a little more quickly now. What is it that's added to this promise of Messiah given in Genesis 315? What does God promise to do for Abraham? Right, there's a reiteration. Okay, remember now, everything that Adam lost and that's promised again in Christ, we now see it being rebuilt throughout the subsequent covenant relationships. Because God promised Abraham a son, right? Through whom he would be the father of many nations. So you have a, maybe to use a different quote, you have a reiteration of this, of what Adam was created to be. And it's being re-established in Abraham. Abraham's promised a son. And he's given the promise that through you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. What else does Abraham promise? Has he maybe promised a little arid plot of land in the Middle East? He's given a promise of land, right? God is rebuilding the creation over which he purposed his image bearers to have dominion. Abraham is given a promise of land, and he's also given the promise of universal blessing, that through that nation that he has promised, and through those sons, all the families of the earth would be blessed. So, you see, God is continuing to expand this promise. and the expectation that through this Messiah, all that Adam lost would be regained a thousandfold by this promised Savior. Thinking forward again to Moses and to the covenant made with Israel at Sinai, how is this promise expanded even yet further? What is Israel given that is an expansion of these promises? Maybe let's say in relationship to the promise of Well, first of all, that promise given to Abraham is realized. Worship is once again localized on the earth. They are brought into the land and given dominion over the land of Israel as the promised land. How about relative to image bearer? As you think about righteousness, what is Israel given at Sinai that would be an expansion the concept of an image bearer as the display of God's righteousness. Yes the royal law of God and that's huge because that law that Israel was given in Sinai would be the very law that the seed of the woman would come to fulfill perfectly and so be the fulfillment of all righteousness on behalf of God's people. The land promises fulfilled God once again is dwelling with his people. in the tabernacle. Remember that in the garden, we left one thing out of the original list here with Adam. He's image bearer, he's king over creation, he's the son of God from whom many sons will come, but he's also a covenant creature. And that sounds like somewhat of a dry phrase. What I mean by that is, he was created in covenant with God to have intimate fellowship with him. God made man differently than he made rocks and trees and animals and fish and everything else in creation. He made man to be in intimate covenant with him. And that again was something that was lost, and something that was promised in the Messiah to be restored. And so this is in part restored at Sinai, when God promises once again to dwell in the midst of the people in the camp, in the tabernacle of the Holy of Holies. And then later on when the temple is built, this will be expanded even further. And now we get to David, and this is sort of Where we've been heading this whole time because the Psalms are what they're the songs of David and so understanding the messianic expectations at the time of David is crucial to see the way in which they saw Christ exhibited in the Psalter. Turn with me then to 2 Samuel chapter 7. This is the great chapter where God comes to David. David is desiring to build a house for God. But God comes to David through the prophet Nathan and says to David, you will not build a house for me, but I will build a house for you. What else? From your guys' knowledge of 2 Samuel 7, how again are these promises expanded in the Davidic covenant? When God makes covenant with David, What exactly is promised to David in this covenant that we find in chapter seven. Let's read together beginning in verse twelve. Actually, the sentence that begins halfway through verse 11. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. Remember, covenant creature intimacy. God is promising David a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring. After you. Who shall come from your body and I will establish He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father and he shall be to me a son when he commits iniquity. I will discipline him with the rod of men with the stripes of the sons of men. But my steadfast love will not depart from him as I took it from Saul whom I put away from before you and your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me, your throne shall be established forever. So when this promise is made to David, it promises a succession of sons after David who will continue the line of kingship in Israel and that God will never take away the steadfast love that he's promised to David. But it looks beyond Solomon, who of course is the temporal fulfillment of this promise. He's the son of David who continues the messianic line in the kingship of Israel. It looks far beyond Solomon and all the sons who would come after David because it promises an eternal throne, not a throne that would last for a generation and then be forfeited by disobedience, by idolatry, but rather a throne that would be established forever. And so we have in the Davidic covenant, this messianic promise that was given in Genesis 3.15 becomes very specific. You could maybe say static in the sense that it becomes localized on one particular family. The family of David now becomes the vehicle by which God will bring about this seed of the woman who will be the king over God's creation. The Son of God who will bring about many sons to God's glory. The one in whom the image of God will be restored and who will restore the intimate covenant relationship with God that Adam was meant to have in the garden. What don't we know about Christ up to this point in history except that he hasn't yet been revealed to God's people. But all of our soteriology, the fact that salvation will be accomplished outside of ourselves, that we will have to trust in this seed who will accomplish salvation, not through our obedience, but through his obedience, through his suffering, he will destroy the seed of the woman. And throughout Old Testament history, this promise is being built and expanded and clarified until we get to the point of David when we find out that this seed of the woman will come from David's line. And now turn with me briefly to Luke chapter one to follow up our discussion of the Davidic covenant. There's the most beautiful expression of how this is fulfilled when the angel Gabriel comes. Verse twenty seven of chapter one to a virgin. betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the House of David and the Virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. But she was greatly troubled at the saying and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son. And you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and he will be called the son of the Most High and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David. And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom, there will be no end. All that's left by the time Christ comes is for Gabriel to say to Mary in your room, by the power of the Holy Spirit will be conceived the one whom the faithful of Israel have been waiting for, the one to whom the eternal throne that was promised to David will come to reside in perfection for all of eternity. If you think about the time between David and the coming of Christ, all the prophetic literature and how these promises are expanded, what you see in the prophets is that They have all of these earthly types and shadows to work with the temple in Jerusalem, the Davidic kingship, the sacrifices, all of these symbols that were pointing forward to Christ, and they begin to pull and bend and stretch that imagery as far as the earthly types will bear. You have at the end of Ezekiel, that description of the temple. And Ezekiel, as he thinks forward to the building of God's kingdom through Christ in the Church of the New Covenant, he can only describe it as this grand temple that exceeds feasible construction schematics. He's overwhelmed as he thinks forward to the church and all he can do is take this earthly type and and bend and stretch it. When Isaiah speaks about Jerusalem he says all the nations will flow into Jerusalem to praise God. Well Jerusalem was a rather small city at the top of a rather small hill in a rather small country in the Middle East. And yet as Isaiah thinks forward to the new covenant he sees all the nations of the earth pouring on all the kings pouring into Jerusalem to praise God. And so they're taking these earthly types and they understand that they're pointing forward to something greater, but they only have the language of the types to work with. And so they're bending it and stretching it. It's almost like birthing pains of the types and shadows as time gets closer and closer to the coming of Christ. And then, of course, Christ is revealed to Israel. He's born of Mary and he is the fulfillment of everything that has been promised to Israel up to this point. I turn with me again to 2nd Corinthians. As Paul thinks about the promises that God made to his people in the Old Testament. He says this verse 19 and 20 of 2nd Corinthians chapter one. For the son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we proclaimed among you, Sylvanus and Timothy and I, was not yes and no, but in him it is always yes. For all the promises of God find their yes in him. That is why it is through him that we utter our amen to God for his glory. With the work of Christ, his birth, his suffering on the cross and his resurrection, salvation was accomplished. Everything that God promised from the very beginning of redemptive history and had clarified and expanded throughout the history of Israel was fulfilled in Christ. Every promise received its yes in the coming of Christ and his work on our behalf. Thinking back to David, why are we talking about all this when we're supposed to be talking about Christ in the Psalms? When we think about David and the Davidic covenant as the most fully developed type of the Messiah in the Old Testament in terms of his kingship and his dominion over God's people as messianic king. It is essential to understand David's conception of who Messiah would be to understand the messianism of the Psalms. Because we find we find song and we're going to look at the history of psalmody in the old covenant in a moment. But we find its institution as a fixed practice in the history of Israel in the construction of temple of the temple under the kingship of David and of Solomon. And so let's now we're going to look at that now the relationship. Do you see the second point on the outline the relationship between hymnody and kingship in the ancient church. Having seen the way in which the Old Covenant believers thought about Christ and anticipated the fullness of his work. We're going to look now at the relationship between the inspired Psalms of the Old Covenant and the kingship. Turn with me to Exodus chapter 15. Rewriting rewriting back the clock for a moment. In Exodus 15, Moses and the people of Israel have crossed the Red Sea. The Exodus event has taken place. Pharaoh has been destroyed by God. And yes, it has been at the cost of personal suffering on behalf of Israel. But nevertheless, Pharaoh and all those who sought to destroy the church have been destroyed in the sea by the mighty hand of God. And in Chapter 15, how does Moses respond to this event? As the first ruler of God's people, Israel, he responds by singing a song. And we have that recorded for us in Exodus 15, and we know it as the Song of Moses. And so on this occasion of the Exodus, which is the typical event for salvation in the Old Covenant, embodying all of the typical principles of salvation, Moses responds to this event by penning and singing this song for Israel in Exodus 15. And now look with me at Deuteronomy 31. And we come to another crucial moment in the history of Israel as a young church being saved by God out of slavery in Egypt. Joshua is going to succeed Moses as the ruler of Israel and in thirty two what happens. Then Moses spoke the words of this song until they were finished in the ears of all the assembly of Israel. There's another song being sung in verse forty four of chapter thirty two. Moses says that Moses came and recited all the words of the song in the hearing of the people. He and Joshua the son of none. So as Moses is about to transfer leadership of Israel to Joshua, they sing a succession duet as it were. Moses writes the song and Moses and Joshua sing a duet as leadership is being passed from Moses to Joshua as they're about to enter the promised land. And so just as Moses was Israel's first leader, he was also Israel's first hymn writer. And he passes this to Joshua, as Joshua prepares to take over leadership of Israel as they enter the promised land. In Joshua chapter 10, when Joshua wins that crucial battle at Ai, and the sun stands still as a sign of God's salvation, Joshua pens a lyrical expression of this victory, and another song is sung by the leader of God's people. In the period of the judges, in Judges chapter 5, The next time we meet with song in the Old Testament is when Deborah and Barack claim victory for God's people. And again, they sing a duet as the leaders of Israel in response to God's salvation. And the next time we come to song is and if you'll turn with me there, the first Samuel chapter 10. Saul is anointed as king of Israel. And one of the first thing he does. as he prophesies with instruments and with singing in response to being anointed as the king of God's people. You see the pattern up to this point, psalmody and hymnody in the Old Testament is intimately connected with the leadership of God's people. Every time we sing, we see psalms and hymns being sung and written. It's by the leaders of Israel as they respond to the salvation that God is accomplishing on behalf of his people. And then, of course, after Saul, who is the next king of God's people? David. And what is the first thing that David does after Saul is killed in battle and he takes the throne? as Israel's king. Second Samuel chapter one. Right. He sings a song. He sings a song lamenting the death of Saul and Jonathan. And not only that, verse 17 of Second Samuel chapter one, David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and Jonathan, his son, and he said it should be taught to the people of Judah. So, not only does he sing a song in lamentation, but he commands that it be taught to the people of God as well. His first act as king is to sing a song, continuing this pattern of hymnody being closely and intimately connected to the leadership of Israel. And just as the messianic promises become fixed in David's house in 2 Samuel chapter 7, so too does the kingly office of inspired hymnody just as we see songs being written by the rulers of Israel throughout the history of the church. So to now with David this practice becomes institutionalized as it were turn with me to first Chronicles fifteen and sixteen. If any of you were present last week when I preached in the morning it was on second Samuel chapter six when David leads God's people in worship as the Ark is being brought into Jerusalem. And 1 Chronicles 15 and 16 is the parallel passage to this event. And it focuses especially on David's leadership of the Levitical priests as he organizes them to sing and to play music on the occasion of the Ark of the Covenant being brought in to the city of Jerusalem. Look with me at verse 16 of First Chronicles 15. David also commanded the chiefs of the Levites to appoint their brothers as the singers who should play loudly on musical instruments on harps and lyres and cymbals to raise sounds of joy. So the Levites appointed Heman the son of Joel and of his brothers Asaph the son of Barakiah and of the sons of Merari their brothers, Ethan the son of Cushiah and with them their brothers of the second order Zechariah, Jaziel and then on and on this list of people appointed to sing and to play instruments. And then verse 19 the singers Heman, Asaph and Ethan were to sound bronze cymbals. Do those names ring a bell to anybody? Heman, Asaph, and Ethan. Why are they familiar? Right. The Psalter has psalms written by each of these people. And so we see them being appointed under the direction of David to be the psalm writers for the temple as the ark is being ushered into Jerusalem. Well, the temple's not built yet, but we'll see shortly that psalmody will be intimately connected with the temple worship. It may seem strange to find David so intimately involved in the actions of the Levites. He's appointing them, he's directing them, he's commanding them. Usually we think about the office of king as being separate from priests, but it's important to remember that the kingship of Israel was not a purely political office, it was a sacred office, and it's this office over which God is reestablishing man as king over his creation. And so David is acting as it were the worship leader of God's people, directing the Levites in their praise of God on this occasion. To look into this further, turn with me back to 1 Chronicles in chapter 25. In chapter 25, there's a much more detailed description of David's organization of the musicians. Now, this comes in a flow of chapters, beginning in verse 22, as David is preparing for Solomon to build the temple. If you look with me quick in chapter 22, verse 5, David said Solomon my son is young and inexperienced and the house that is to be built for the Lord must be exceedingly magnificent of fame and glory throughout all lands. I will therefore make preparation for it and then Solomon or David charges Solomon to build the temple in twenty three. David organizes the Levites for the temple service in twenty four he organizes the priests And then in Chapter 25, David organizes the musicians who will praise God at the temple. And let's read verses one through seven. And we'll end looking at this passage as it sort of constitutes the high point in Old Testament revelation as we learn about why it is that God instituted psalmody and under what conditions it was brought into the life of God's people. So let's look at First Chronicles 25. beginning at the first verse. David and the chief of the service also set apart for the service. The sons of a staff and of human and of Jettison who prophesied with liars with harps and with symbols. The list of those who did the work and of their duties was of the sons of a staff Zach who are Joseph Nethaniah and Asher Asher a lot sons of a staff under the direction of a staff who prophesied under the direction of the king of Jadath and the sons of Jadath get a liar very just shy and she she may have to buy it and not a tire six under the direction of their father Jadath and who prophesied with the liar in thanksgiving and praise to the Lord of human the sons of human of Bukkai, Mattaniah, Uziel, Shabuel, and Jeremoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Elithah, Gadolati, and Romanti-Ezer. That's a lot of really hard names in this verse. We'll go to verse five. All these were the sons of Heman, the king's seer, according to the promise of God to exalt him. For God had given Heman fourteen sons and three daughters. They were all under the direction of their father in the music in the house of the Lord with cymbals, harps, and lyres for the service of the house of God. Asaph, Jeduthin, and Heman were under the order of the king. Okay, so there's a lot of details in these verses, and it could be very tempting as reading through 1 Chronicles in your devotion to sort of have your eyes glaze over You know you're reading through all these names and you just want to get through the chapter and you know and be done trying to pronounce all of these really difficult names. But there's a couple of really important details in this chapter as it relates to psalmody in the period of David as the Psalter is being brought into the life of the church in the in the worship of the temple specifically. And there are two things that anything stand out as being especially important. in these verses as you're going through the names of all of these people that David is. Exactly. So the first thing we need to take away from this is they're not writing their own pious musings in praise to God. They're prophesying they're under divine inspiration. The text is very very clear about this. three times, actually four times. They prophesied with light, liars and with harps and with symbols. They prophesied on the direction of the king. They prophesied with the harp in thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. We spoke a little bit about Augustine earlier. I wanted to read a quote that he wrote as he was in theological combat with another group of heretics in the early church called the Donatists, Augustine wrote, the Donatists reproach us for our grave chanting of the divine songs of the prophets in our churches, while they inflame their passions in their revels by the singing of psalms of human composition, which roused them like the stirring notes of the trumpet of the battlefield. Augustine was going through the same worship wars that you could call them that we experience in the modern church and here in First Chronicles twenty five. There's nothing clearer than the fact that these men are writing songs not of their own imagination but under the direct inspiration of the Holy Spirit as they are prophesying in this act of praising God and writing hymns to his glory. And is there anything else. Another very crucial fact in these verses that it's a phrase that's repeated at least two or three times in this passage. And it's in reference to the relationship between these men who are appointed to serve and the king. Do you see that phrase is repeated under the direction of the king. Verse two. Asaph's sons prophesy under his direction and Asaph prophesies under the direction of the king. And it's repeated again with Heman and also further down Asaph, Jeduthin and Haman were under the order of the king. Does anyone else have a slightly different translation there? Direction, order, supervision, The Hebrew literally says they were under the hand of the king. They're prophesying under the hand of David the king. This is a really crucial point that is often overlooked. Yes, the Psalms were written under divine inspiration of the spirit, but they're also written under the direction of David as he stands in the messianic office as king over God's people. All the Psalms were either written by David or they were written as they were being subcontracted out under his supervision, under his hand, so that they all might come under that rubric of the Psalms of David as they were known throughout the history of the church. Turn with me now to 2 Samuel 23. We'll gain a little clearer light over why this is the case. And I've been going through all these passages connecting the singing of psalms and hymns in the history of the church with the leadership of Israel because there's a pattern being established. The hymnody is particularly the office of the king and that becomes institutionalized in David as he is now overseeing the preparations for the temple worship. And as it were, gathering together under his direction, the Psalms that will be sung in praise to God in the temple. So second Samuel twenty three. These are the last words of David and there is an absolutely fascinating group of appellations that are used to describe who David was before he dies. He actually says himself in chapter or verse one of chapter twenty three. Now, these are the last words of David, the Oracle of David, the son of Jesse, the Oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. And again, we might be tempted to see that last phrase, the sweet psalmist of Israel, as sort of an off comment about some of David's musical proclivities, but notice Notice this sequence of phrases that is used in reference to David, the oracle of the man who was raised on high, the anointed of the God of Jacob, and the sweet psalmist of Israel. There's a connection between all three. I think the inspired author is recognizing that psalmody is properly the office of the king. The phrase right before that, the anointed of the God of Jacob, Pastor Reece spoke about the Septuagint this morning, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. That verse says the Christ of God in the Greek, that that word anointed it's Mashiach in Hebrew from where we get Messiah and the Greek translation of the Old Testament says the Christ of the God of Jacob, the sweet psalmist of Israel. Psalmody is particularly associated with David. As he stands in the messianic office as that type of Christ, the most fully developed type of Christ in the Old Testament, as God's people are looking forward to the coming of Messiah. And so if we can draw a principle from this, if it is this, that it's the king who leads the congregation in worship and that it is the king's own songs that the people take upon their lips as they worship God. This may seem odd. How could it be that as David is writing all of these songs about his own personal experiences that they can then be taken upon the lips of God's people as their own praise of God. Does anyone have any ideas as to how to resolve that. How could it be that as David is describing these events that are so intimately particular to his struggles in his life that God's people can then take those songs as their own praise and their own expressions of faith. It's an important question for us as we sing the songs. How can we take these songs on our lips as our own expressions of faith when they were written by by someone else who had different experiences than we do? How can we take them as our own? Maybe a leading question to that was, what was the relationship that the king stood in towards the people? In the sense that the Psalms speak of Christ through David, and that is the Christ that we follow. And so, even though David was writing in his context, in his experience, It still speaks to us and our experience and where we are with Christ. Yeah, I'm not sure. No, that's good. It's not what you were referring that that's the difference too, that Christ is made in every respect. So David, it's the common experience of him. So David's experiences are our experiences that he's in the type of Christ made like him in flesh. Yeah, that's very true and specifically in the office of King. What happened when David took a census of God's people. You guys remember who was who was punished. The people right. Thousands of Israelites died because David. And then you go ahead. And not only that, the whole nation rejoices. That's a great example. I mean, nowhere do you see federal headship demonstrated in modern terms any clearer than at the World Cup. You know, we won. You won? Really? I thought, you know, those 11 guys, you know, playing thousands of miles away won. But that's exactly right. The king stood as the federal representative of the people. He stood in a unique position to the people so that his experiences, through his representation of the people, became their experiences. When David sinned that was intimately connected to the lives of the people and when he was victorious and when he was blessed by God that too was poured out onto the people because of the unique relationship that the king stood in to the church. Both his triumphs and his sins bore great consequences for God's people. I should note at this point that throughout the Old Testament there's a rich tradition of private songs being sung. You see many occasions where people in either personal or private worship are singing songs and praising God. But when it comes to the public worship of God's people, it's uniquely the songs of the king that are being sung in praise to God, precisely because of this unique relationship that the king stands before the people as the head of God's people. His experiences become the experiences of the people, and so they can take those words on their lips as their very own. There's a story that I read about as I was studying for this class. There's an Anglican bishop named Samuel Patrick, and this would be in the year 1692, and Bishop Patrick began to replace psalm singing with the singing of hymns that were written by fellow ministers in the Anglican Church. And during worship one day, he noticed that one of the servant girls was not singing along during the singing of these hymns. And so afterwards, he takes her aside and asks her if she was well. And this is her response. I am well enough in health. But if you must needs know the plain truth of the matter, as long as you song Jesus Christ songs, I sang along with you. But now you sing songs of your own invention. You may sing by yourselves. Maybe a bit of a radical response, but she understands the heart of the matter that the songs as David is writing. In the spirit of Christ testifying to the Messiah that will come, those words became the Psalms of Christ. And as we take those songs upon our lips through his representation of us and through our union with him by the spirit, they can truly become our expressions of faith and properly as the words of Christ. They are the only words that can fully and sufficiently express our faith. because they are the only words of praise that were inspired by Christ and given to his church for worship. Thinking about all these things, I want to read again the verse that Pastor Reese preached on this morning, Colossians 3, 16. That the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom. How? singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your heart to God, living the word of Christ dwell in us richly through the singing of songs and hymns and spiritual songs. Again, not just the form of singing the songs, but seeing them with thankfulness in your hearts to God, because they are the words of Christ We can take them upon our lips and thankfulness to God and have them truly be our personal expressions of faith to him because of our union with Christ. And think with me also about Hebrews chapter 2 beginning in verse 11 for he who sanctifies and those who sanctified all have one origin. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers saying I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. Does that last Old Testament quotation sound familiar? So the author of Hebrews is saying Christ is not ashamed to call us brothers and Christ says about us, quote, and then there's an Old Testament quotation. I will tell of your name to my brothers in the midst of the congregation. I will sing your praise. Yeah, hint, we sang it already tonight. It's from right smack dab in the middle of Psalm 22. So as the author of Hebrews thinks about our relationship to Christ as he being our elder brother and we being those sons who through spiritual regeneration come to have a recreated image of God being united to the king over creation and restored to that intimate relationship with God. Christ says, and the author of Hebrews puts the words of the psalm in Christ's mouth as his very own words, in the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. And so what I want to gather from this large amount of information is that just as David, as the federal representative of God's people, led the congregation in worship using The songs of his experiences as representative of the faith and trust of the people and also of their great travail of faith as well. So too we are still led in worship by our king and it's still the words of our king that we take upon our lips as we sing back our praise in thankfulness to God through the spirit. Perhaps one last fact to consider tonight is. something I think has profound implications for the use of psalmody in the New Testament Church. And that's the late date of organization of the Psalter. So we followed psalmody up through David and then of course When David's line effectually apostatizes and the exile removes God's people from the land and they return to the land of Israel. It's mentioned in Ezra chapter three that they reinstitute singing and they're very specific. The Psalms of David in the temple worship when the foundation is built. There's an interesting fact at play here that the Psalms as we have them in our present Bibles were not organized until after the exiles returned from Babylon. There had been collections of Psalters. We read about a book of Jasher in which some of these songs were recorded in. Obviously, some of the songs date as far back as Moses, but the final organization of the Psalter in that divinely inspired structure of five books and specific order did not occur until the exiles had returned back to Israel out of Babylon. I mentioned that I think this has profound implications because the church is on the verge of the intertestamental period where there would be 400 years of prophetic silence. Why is it that it's at this point in time that the Psalter is organized into its final form and gathered together as this canonical book filled with the Psalms of David used by God's people in praise of the Lord. Now, I think if we connect it to this pattern that it's the king of Israel that leads the congregation in worship using the songs of his lips as the praise of the people. I think there's a very good case to be made that here on the verge of the intertestamental period, the Psalter is organized in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. The people know, you have the latter prophets who are saying the next event on the horizon is the coming of Jesus Christ. And it's at the same time that the Psalter is finally organized into its final form. Not when Israel was organized as a nation, not when David was organizing Psalms in the temple, not before the exile, but it's here, right on the verge of the coming of Messiah, that the Psalter is organized into its final form. As if to say, here is coming the one seed of the woman in whom all the promises of God will receive their yes and their amen. And the Psalter is being organized in preparation for his coming, so that when he comes, when he accomplishes salvation, when he ascends to the right hand of God, he will lead the congregation of God's people in worship, using his own psalms as the words of praise that his people will take up on his behalf and in praise of his finished work. As we think about this again, turn back to 2 Samuel 23. David's last words are an intense longing for the Messiah. We read the first verse, and I want to read the rest of those verses there. More than perhaps anyone else, David understood his office to be a pale reflection of the coming Messiah. And he longed with all of his might for the day when that greater son would come and be the perfect fulfillment of all that his office stood for and all that he prophesied about. Everything David did was with an eye towards Jesus Christ, including his composition of Psalms. You read the Psalms and there are moments when David speaks so far out of his own experience that he can he can be thinking of nothing except that greater son who was coming to fulfill all of which he spoke of. So pick up with me in verse two of Second Samuel 23. The spirit of the Lord speaks by me, his word is on my tongue, the God of Israel has spoken, the rock of Israel has said to me when one rules justly over men ruling in the fear of God. He dawns on them like the morning light, like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning, like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth. For does not my house stand so with God, for he has made with me an everlasting covenant ordered in all things and secure, for will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire? Even in the composition of Psalms, David, the anointed of God, the sweet psalmist of Israel, had the spirit of Christ in him, preparing those hymns to be perfectly fulfilled in the coming of Messiah. One last quote to end us this evening, and this is from John Calvin in his commentary on Psalm 2. As he thinks about the way in which David understood his messianic office to be prophetic of Christ. Calvin says this, but it is now high time to come to the substance of the type that David prophesied concerning Christ is clearly manifest from this that she knew his own kingdom to be merely a shadow. And in order to learn to apply to Christ, whatever David in times past saying concerning himself, we must hold this principle. which we meet with everywhere in all the prophets, that he with his posterity was made king, not so much for his own sake, but to be a type of the redeemer. I would briefly inform my readers that as David's temporal kingdom was a kind of earnest to God's ancient people of the eternal kingdom, which at length was truly established in the person of Christ. Those things which David declares concerning himself are not violently or even allegorically applied to Christ but were truly predicted concerning him. So what Calvin isolates for us is that whatever David speaks concerning himself in the Psalter and remember David's hand is over all of those who are instituted to write psalms in the temple period to be added to the soldier. Whatever David speaks concerning himself, he understood to only come to perfect fulfillment when this seat of the woman would come and assume the eternal throne of God's kingdom, which was promised to David in Second Samuel, chapter seven. And so as we think about our period of engagement with the Lord and as we yearn to be with him when he comes to bring us to himself, There are surely no better songs and songs that we can take to our lips than those that constitutes the word of Christ. The words that he both wrote as its primary author, the words that he fulfilled as the object of prophecy, and also those words that are applied to him and that he leads us in as the worship leader of God's people sitting at God's right hand in the office of messianic king. There are no more sufficient songs that we can take to our lips than those that Christ has fully fulfilled in himself and that we can sing is truly our own as we think about our union with him and as we long to be with him in heaven when he comes to bring us to himself. And so we'll we'll end there. Does anyone have any questions about anything we've gone over probably should have stopped a couple of times along the way. But any outstanding questions that anyone would like to ask before we end. Melodies for men as opposed to... I mean the chanting would have been human composed melodies as well. There were never tunes that we have had recorded for us as inspired along with the words. We would consider the words of the Psalms inspired elements and the melodies would be circumstances that unique to every age can be composed suited for the use of God's people in every age. And it's one of the reasons the Psalter is so universal. It unifies all of God's people as we're all singing. I mean, think about it. We're singing psalms that Moses composed millennia ago, that David composed millennia ago. The same psalms that God's people have been singing in unison for centuries upon centuries, but at the same time having the freedom to use melodies unique to every generation. Any questions. OK, good. I'll end with short prayer and then we'll sing another song, but let's pray briefly. Gracious Father, we praise you that in Christ, all of your promises to us receive their yes. That Christ is truly the fulfillment. Of all redemption. and of all salvation that he has accomplished it for us that we have not to work in ourselves but we have but to look to Christ the one who has done all the work on our behalf who is bore the unmitigated fury of your wrath for our sake. And it was defeated sin and death that we might have eternal life. And we praise you Lord that when we sing the songs Sometimes they can feel like songs written far away and long ago and foreign to us. But Lord truly they are the words of Christ that we can take upon our lips in union with him. And as he is our king and as we are his people they can become truly the words of our faith and trust in you. As he goes before us as our king and our redeemer the author and perfecter of our faith. Help us, Lord, as we sing, not simply to sing because we're supposed to. We are supposed to, but it is with joy and love as we think about the salvation that Christ has purchased for us. And as we think about Christ is the one who truly leads our worship and in whom we can sing with all of our hearts, knowing that his righteousness has become our righteousness. Even as our sins became his on the cross, we praise you for these great truths and the privilege to sing your word back to you in union with our great King, the Lord Jesus Christ. And we pray in his name. Amen.