Psalm 30 - The Grave The Healing and The Lord

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Welcome back to the conclusion of another week in Tabernacle Talk. And today we are in Psalm 30, and this is a wonderful song. And we're going to go right into our study for today.

Psalm 30 is a dedication song for the house of David. Here, this is kind of a unique inscription. Many of the ones that we've been looking at over the past few days just say a Psalm of David, and that's about it.

For this particular one, this is a dedication song.

It's somewhat unclear from the context if it's meant for the dedication of David's palace, where even in kind of the cementing of David's role as king over Israel, he didn't want the focus to be on himself. He wanted the focus to be on God.

Or it could have been for the temple, that as David was gathering the materials that then his son Solomon would commission and have the temple built if David was looking forward to that day. But in whatever case, David here is exalting the Lord.

And that's how he starts off in verse number one. He says, I will exalt you, Yahweh, because you have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me. Yahweh, my God, I cried to you for help and you healed me.

Yahweh, you brought me up from Sheol, from the grave. You spared me from among those going down to the pit. Sing to Yahweh, you his faithful ones, and praise his holy name, for his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor a lifetime.

Weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning. When I was secure, I said, I will never be shaken. Yahweh, when you showed me your favor, you made me stand like a strong mountain.

When you hid your face, I was terrified. Yahweh, I called to you. I sought favor from my Lord.

What gain is there in my death if I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise you? Will it proclaim your truth?

Yahweh, listen and be gracious to me. Yahweh, be my helper. You turned my lament into dancing.

You removed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness so that I can sing to you and not be silent. Yahweh, my God, I will praise you forever. What a great portion of scripture.

I want to start first looking at verses 1 through 3. It's kind of one section. Where he says, I will exalt you, Yahweh, because you have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me.

I remember one of the earlier Psalms that we've gone through together where David is asking God, hey, God, don't let my enemies triumph over me. And here he's saying, God, you answered that request. I prayed it and you said yes.

Verse number 2, he says, I cried to you for help and you healed me. And I'm thankful for the healing that God brings to us. It's not always physical healing.

Many of you, I know that are even watching this, you're praying for some healing in your life and God has not granted it yet, not physical healing.

But I'm thankful that he has promised that he will eventually heal all of our diseases, all of our iniquities, all of our sins, all of our struggles. He will one day heal.

The only, I've heard it phrased this way, the only time that you have to trust God in your difficulties is right now. There will come a day where you will never again have to trust God to heal your sicknesses.

You will never again get the chance to believe God for what you don't see in heaven. You will not interact with sickness or disease ever again.

When we are resurrected and we live on the new earth, we will never experience the faith life that we get to live right now. God has given you an opportunity, even in your sorrow, in your hurting, in your sickness.

He has given you an opportunity to proclaim that you believe God, even though you do not see him right now. I think of Peter's words in 1 Peter chapter 1.

He says, talking to the believers there about God, and he says, who, having not seen, you love, and you are following him.

And I really love that thought that right now is the only chance we have to trust God for what we can't see, to believe him, to take him at his word, to believe by faith until our faith is made sight.

So I want to encourage you, even in your difficulties, even in what seems like hopeless circumstances, believe God because this is the one chance that you get to.

You'll never have quite this relationship with God again, but the results, the rewards of trusting God now cannot be measured for the wonder that will be displayed when he rewards you for the things that you've done and specifically for your belief

in him that leads to action. So, trusting God, he is looking out for you. If he hasn't healed you yet, if he hasn't helped you yet, he will. He has promised that he will heal all of the things that ail us.

Verse number three, he says, Lord, you brought me up from Sheol, from the grave. He says, I was on my way to death and you saved me. He says, you spared me from among those going down to the pit.

And here we can think of for our sakes and for our lives how God saved us. That through Jesus, that we who were far off have been brought close by the blood of Christ.

That we who were dead in trespasses and sins have been made alive together with Christ. And by grace, we have been saved. We can think about the fact that we were enemies, that we were still sinners, and yet Christ died for us.

That He made us His friends. That God brought us up from heading down to the grave, down to the pit, and He saved us and rescued us. What an incredible thought.

Verse number four, he says, Sing to the Lord, you His faithful ones, and praise His holy name. This is the continual call of the Psalms. God has been good to you, so sing.

Sing not because it's your favorite song. Sing not because you have the world's greatest voice. Sing not because singing itself makes you feel good.

Sing because God is worthy of it all. And whether it's out loud, whether it's in your heart, sing to God and he is worthy of all of it.

Verse number five, he says, sing to him, praise his holy name, for his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor a lifetime. How true that is that God's anger, he doesn't hold on to it forever. It comes down in terrible, amazing, holy justice.

But then he allows us to go free. He judges David for his sin.

And then he gives him his favor, continuing forever, still brings Jesus from David's family line, even after what David had done, that God exiled Israel, but then brought them back in and has been faithful to them and has kept them alive to this day,

despite many nations wanting to wipe them out. What an incredible thing that God's anger lasts for a moment, but his favor lasts for a lifetime.

And if there's a moment in which you've genuinely felt like, okay, God really is bringing this judgment on me for what I've done, no, his anger only lasts for a moment.

It's only a brief time in which God exacts justice, but his favor lasts for a lifetime. And his favor goes to murdering, kidnapping, persecuting blasphemous people like the Apostle Paul. It goes to adulterers and murderers like David.

It goes to the weak and cowardly like Gideon. It goes to the disobedient like Moses. It extends to those that swear and deny him like Peter.

There is no one that God's favor and love doesn't extend to. So God loves you. I'm very confident that of those listening to the podcast right now, if those watching the podcast, none of you have done all of the things that I just mentioned.

And if God loves them, then God loves you. And his favor is on you for a lifetime because you are joint heirs with Jesus. Everything that belongs to Jesus belongs to you.

And we can read about that in Ephesians 2 and Romans 8 among other passages. And it's a precious truth that I love this line at the end of verse 5. He says, weeping may stay overnight, but there is joy in the morning.

And I don't know about you if you too have spent nights in tears, crying, worrying, stressing, but the weeping, it ends. And in the morning, there comes God's joy. And you might be in a season right now of the night, a season of weeping.

But you can know from God's word that just as his anger is only for a moment, the weeping, the sadness, the tears of this life are only for a moment. And then comes joy. Thinking back to Psalm 16, at God's right hand, there is fullness of joy.

There are pleasures forevermore. I think about in Revelation, in the last chapters, where God talks about that future, new heaven and new earth, and he tells us that there will be no more crying because God will wipe away the tears from our eyes.

And what an incredible thought, that weeping may stay overnight, it may endure for the night, but joy comes in the morning. See verses 6 through 10, then. When I was secure, I said, I will never be shaken.

There it goes. Yeah, God, I can do anything. It continues in verse number 7.

Yahweh, when you showed me your favor, you made me stand like a strong mountain. And then he looks at another time in his life where he didn't feel like a strong mountain. He says, when you hid your face, I was terrified.

Lord, I called to you. I sought favor from my Lord. And he praised that same prayer that he praised many times throughout Psalms.

He says, who's going to praise you if I'm dead? How can I praise you from the grave? There's much that could be said about the Old Testament and the fact that heaven was not open to people yet because Christ had not yet died.

He had not made that way available for them that he then would. That as Jesus died, went into Sheol, went into the grave, went into the pit. The New Testament would phrase it with the Greek word Hades.

The Hebrew word is Sheol. As he went into the grave and he rescued those, or rescue is a strong word. He went to those in Abraham's bosom that we would read about in the story of the rich man and Lazarus.

Went into Abraham's bosom where those Old Testament saints were. And he took them to heaven. From 1 Peter 3, he preached to the spirits in prison.

Basically gave the holy sentencing to those who had died without faith in God. And he took those that had had faith in God that were in Abraham's bosom, also called Paradise when he was talking to the thief on the cross.

This day, you will be with me in Paradise. So then with those from Abraham's bosom, then he ascended to heaven, ascended to the father and brought them into his presence. We only get to God through the righteousness of Christ.

And that was true. That's true for us today. It was true for those in the Old Testament that the only way they could go to be in the presence of God was through what Jesus had done.

If you have any more questions about that, please let me know. Email pastor at tbcsx.com. Would love to dive more into some of those discussions with you if you have any questions about that.

So David here says, Hey, God, how am I going to like praise you if I'm dead? So then verse 10, Yahweh, listen and be gracious to me. Yahweh, be my helper.

And God is our very present help in time of trouble. And there that word helper again, if I'm correct in my memory, should be again that word easer. It's that one who comes alongside to help with everything that's going on.

It's not just someone that comes once and then goes. It's someone that's with you. Verses 11 and 12, we sing the song at our church, the song Graves In The Gardens, where the bridge of that song goes, you turn morning to dancing.

You give beauty for ashes. You turn shame into glory. You're the only one who can.

You turn graves into gardens. You turn bones into armies. You turn seas into highways.

You're the only one who can. And verse 11 kind of has those same thoughts. You turn my lament.

You turn my morning into dancing. He says, you remove my sackcloth, those ashes, what they would sprinkle on themselves and the type of clothes that they would put on themselves when someone had died.

He says, you remove my sackcloth, my morning clothes, and you clothed me with gladness. And then he says, so that I can sing to you and not be silent. He says, Yahweh, my God, I will praise you forever.

Today, will you choose to praise the God who loves you, who has saved you from everything that you have experienced in this life, that every difficulty you have ever gone through, He has brought your way through.

For every time where you didn't know if you could make it another day, He has brought you through so many days. So to you today, if you're wondering, God, where are you? I need your help.

You can pray the same prayer as David. God, who's going to praise you if I'm God? Save me and I will praise you forever.

Let's pursue the Lord. Let's love Him. Let's call out to Him.

He wants us to cry out in our desperation for our Heavenly Father. Hope that be an encouragement to you today. Thank you for tuning in and look forward to Monday.

Diving into Psalm 31. Health allowing. I'll have connected a song from Psalm 31 that I've written and look forward to diving into many wonderful chapters with you next week.