Psalm 34 - The Angel of Yahweh and Unbroken Bones

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Today, we are in Psalm 34. Just while it's kind of on the top of my head, I wanted to mention we are only two short weeks away from completing this particular series through Book 1 of Psalms.

And so that's Psalm 1 through Psalm 41.

And so because that's coming up so quickly, I wanted to write on the onset of this episode, mention to you that I want to hear from you if there's a particular topic or Book of the Bible that you would like us to go through, let me know.

I've got a couple of ideas of ones that I'll do, but I wanted to wait and see if any of you had a Book of the Bible that you would like us to travel through together. So putting that bug in your ear that we are about a week and a half away.

So we're going five at a time. Tomorrow, we will finish Psalm 35, and then there will be only six episodes left that we are in Book One of Psalms. So if you have something that you'd like us to go over, let me know.

Let me know in the comments. Let me know by email, pastorattbcsx.com, or you can just DM the Facebook page, Instagram page. Technically, if you want to DM the Threads page, you can do that as well, which is Facebook's cheap Twitter knockoff.

You can also do that. We have a Threads page. So I wanted to put that bug in here.

Now let's head into God's Word in Psalm 34. The inscription of this Psalm says this, Concerning David when he pretended to be insane in the presence of Abimelek, who drove him out and he departed.

So this was during a very, very dark time in David's life. He was on the run from Saul. Saul was trying to kill him.

He couldn't really go anywhere in Israel and be safe. And so he kind of thought to himself, all right, Israel hates me. Maybe the Philistines will take me in.

And obviously these were the enemies of God's people that they bore a deep hatred for Israel and consistently threw out some of those beginning books of the Bible.

They were really a physical plague on Israel, attempting time and time again to kill and to enslave them. And David said, all right, I think I'll try my luck with them.

And as he went to this particular Philistine city, there was a king named Abimelech. And David, instead of saying like, hey, you know, I'm really pleading for some mercy. Saul doesn't like me, so therefore, you know, maybe I can be your friend.

He decided that I'm going to act like I'm an insane person. And he let spit and everything drip down his beard. And he just acted completely out of his mind.

And the people that had kind of brought in David had had, we can kind of read through the passage, some sort of expectation of, oh, man, he's going to be so happy with us that we captured this person that they sing songs.

David has slain his ten thousands. And so they seem to be very excited about the possibility of having captured David. And Abimelech was like, goodness, this guy is insane.

He is crazy. Why are you bringing him in here? Like, I don't want anything to do with him.

And so David's kind of delivered out of Abimelech's hand that there's no danger there. He's safe. And he's safe from Saul for the moment being.

And he's safe from the Philistines, despite kind of some of his foolish actions in going to them. And he says this, I will bless Yahweh at all times. His praise will always be on my lips.

I will boast in Yahweh. The humble will hear and be glad. Proclaim Yahweh's greatness with me.

Let us exalt His name together. I sought Yahweh, and He answered me, and rescued me from all my fears. Those who look to Him are radiant with joy.

Their faces will never be ashamed. This poor man cried, and Yahweh heard him, and saved him from all his troubles. The angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear Him and rescues them.

Taste and see that Yahweh is good. How happy is the person who takes refuge in Him. You who are His holy ones fear Yahweh, for those who fear Him lack nothing.

Young lions lack food and go hungry, but those who seek Yahweh will not lack any good thing. Come children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of Yahweh.

Who is someone who desires life, loving a long life to enjoy what is good. Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from deceitful speech. Turn away from evil, and do what is good.

Seek peace, and pursue it. The eyes of Yahweh are on the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry for help. The face of Yahweh is set against those who do what is evil, to remove all memory of them from the earth.

The righteous cry out, and Yahweh hears, and He rescues them from all their troubles. Yahweh is near the brokenhearted. He saves those crushed in spirit.

One who is righteous has many adversities, but Yahweh rescues him from them all. He protects all his bones. Not one of them is broken.

Evil brings death to the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished. Yahweh redeems the life of His servants, and all who take refuge in Him will not be punished. Man, what a great psalm.

The song that I'm including in the show notes today is Psalm 34, which is called Taste and See. This is done by Shane and Shane, one of my favorite music groups.

They have just an incredible version of this psalm that has really encouraged my heart and been a source of constant reminder of who God is.

And for David here, that he had in one sense seemed to kind of forget about God, forget about God's safety that he provides. And he tried to kind of go his own way and make his own safety through going to the Philistines.

And yet God didn't say, all right, I'll let you see what happens when you go to the Philistines. Instead, God rescued him even from his own foolishness. Let's go through the Psalm and we'll kind of look at each of the pieces.

There's some really cool things that we'll notice as we go through. It says, I will bless Yahweh at all times. His praise will always be on my lips.

That specific line in there is one of the lines in the song, Ever Be. And that was one of the songs that was sung at mine and my wife's wedding. And your praise will ever be on my lips and love that truth.

God is always worthy for us to be singing about him and talking about him. He says, I will boast in Yahweh. The humble will hear and be glad.

Here, humble is not just being used in the sense of, yes, those who aren't proud will hear and be glad about what God has done with David, but it's also those in lowly estate.

These are those that are poor, that are needy, the destitute, that kind of humble.

While it is true that those that are not proud will be glad when God does something in others' lives, here, that specific statement being made is those that are destitute will hear that God rescues those in great need like David, and they will be

glad as a result. He says, proclaim Yahweh's greatness with me, let us exalt his name together. This is one of the reasons why we would have a great importance placed on singing together, singing corporately.

When we sing on a Sunday morning or when we sing during some other time. We were at men's conference this past Saturday, and hearing a couple hundred guys sing out to the Lord is an incredible thing.

And every Sunday, we get the chance to sing the praises of the most high God and to exalt him. And that should be something that we take full advantage of because he's worthy.

Verse number four, I sought Yahweh and he answered me and rescued me from all my fears. God cares about your fears. You might fear many different things here.

David feared death. David, no doubt when he went to the Philistines, feared torture or imprisonment. David feared being caught by Saul.

David feared many things as you read through the stories of 1st and 2nd Samuel, lots of troubles that David went through. But he says, God rescued me from all of my fears.

And whatever fears that you have today, you can go to God and know that he will rescue you. He will put you in a safe place. We're going through 2nd Timothy 1 in our Seniors Bible Study.

And I love the verse, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love and of a sound mind. And God wants to rescue you from your fears. He says in verse 5, those who look to him are radiant with joy.

Their faces will never be ashamed. You will never regret having staked your life on Jesus. Verse number 6, this poor man cried and the Lord heard him and saved him from all his troubles.

God notices when you cry. God notices when you are destitute. God notices when you are in trouble and he will save you.

He will rescue you. It might not be that he rescues you from circumstances. It might be he rescues you inwardly.

He rescues your perspective on how you view your trials so that you see it through the lens of your loving Heavenly Father conforming you to the image of Christ or God working in you in order to be a blessing to others.

God might deliver you from the circumstances. I don't know, but God will save us from our troubles. He is the Savior.

And yes, that is true of our souls in an eternal sense, but it's also true of us many times in our life that he saves us from our troubles. Verse number seven, the Angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear him and rescues them.

The Angel of Yahweh. This is used oftentimes in the Old Testament to refer to the pre-incarnate Christ, that Jesus' first appearance, at least as far as the writers of the Old Testament are trying to communicate with us.

The first time Jesus showed up was not simply to the Virgin Mary, but he existed.

And he walked and talked and communicated with mankind in several different occasions, that he spoke with Abraham and reinforced to him the promise that him and Sarah would have a child together who would be the father of a great nation.

He was the one that spoke to Samson's parents. He was the one that spoke with Joshua and reassured him of God's victory over the land of Canaan and the many battles that would be fought.

He was the one that was the fourth man in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or if you will, Hananiah, Meshiel, and Azariah, these are Hebrew names. He's the one that in many instances shows up the physical manifestation of God himself.

We would, as we look at the fuller picture of scripture, we can see that God is a spirit. Scripture would tell us no one has seen God at any time. The only begotten, the one and only, one of a kind son who is in the presence of the Father.

He has shown him. And so Jesus, God the Son, is the one that shows up physically and interacts with people physically and speaks with them in the Old Testament. And we can see that many times.

And sometimes it's just God speaking out of a burning bush. It's sometimes God speaking in a vision or in a dream.

But what the writers of the Bible seem to be communicating to us through the angel of the Lord, this one that is worshiped by those that interact with him. And he doesn't denounce their worship.

He doesn't say, no, don't worship me like angels do in other places when people try and worship regular angels. But instead, this angel of the Lord, the angel of Yahweh, is the pre-incarnate Christ in here. Jesus encamps around those who fear him.

I think of the story, I believe it's of Elisha, that he has foiled the plans of the king of Syria several times. And so now the king of Syria has brought an army to come take care of Elisha.

And Elisha's servant looks out and he sees surrounding their town, their city. He sees this army and he goes and he is very fearful and talks to Elisha. And Elisha asks God to open his servant's eyes.

And when God does so, so that the servant can see the spiritual side of things, the spiritual reality that's also there, he could see angels far outnumbering the physical army of Syria.

There was a spiritual army of angels that was surrounding that smaller Syrian army. And so there was no need to fear the physical because he could see that there were angels, the host of heaven, the armies of heaven that were encamped around.

And if angels are to be feared because of their incredible might, you can look back in the stories of the Old Testament of the angel of death that went through and slew all of the firstborn in Egypt as the final plague met on Egypt.

Or you can look at the one angel that annihilated much of the Assyrian army when they had Jerusalem surrounded. But I'm going to plug in real quick my phone. We'll see if we can get a little steadier signal there.

And that one angel killed several thousand Assyrian soldiers.

So when we think about little angels and angel that's not Jesus, how much more terrifying is it to the enemies of God, to Satan and his work that we have the Son of God surrounding his people? It's just such an incredible thought.

That's one line that's mentioned in the Shane and Shane version of Psalm 34. The Son of God surrounds his saints. He will deliver them.

And I love that line. Verse number eight, taste and see that Yahweh is good. This thing of know him experientially.

This is one of the things actually that we're going to be talking about. This coming Sunday at Tabernacle, knowing Christ experientially, not just a head knowledge about him, but live it out, like live your life with Jesus and see what happens.

Live your life diving into his word. Live your life praying to him. Work your existence, realizing that he wants to make a difference in your life.

Obey his word and see what he does. I think of the verse, believe it's in Malachi, where God's encouraging Israel to obey and he tells them, he says, listen, try me and see if I don't pour a blessing out of the windows of heaven on you.

And there's that same thought. How happy is the person, continuing now in verse 8, how happy is the person who takes refuge in him. Says, you are as holy ones, fear the Lord for those who fear him lack nothing.

He says, young lions, those ones that can, they can hunt and they're fast and they're not tired. They're not weighed down by a bunch of things. He says, even young lions lack food and go hungry.

He says, but those who seek Yahweh will not lack any good thing. We've mentioned it often, Philippians 4, my God will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.

Verse number 11 through verse 14 is actually a section of scripture that Peter quotes in 1 Peter 3. He says, come children, listen to me, I will teach you the fear of the Lord. What does it mean to fear Yahweh, to respect him?

It says, who is someone who desires life, loving a long life to enjoy what is good? Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech. Turn away from evil and do what is good.

Seek peace and pursue it. That's what it means to fear the Lord. To fear the Lord isn't to consistently be afraid of God.

It's keep your tongue from evil, your lips from lying. Turn away from evil, do what is good, seek peace and pursue it. That's what the fear of the Lord is.

Because of verses 15 through 18, the eyes of Yahweh are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry for help. The righteous aren't those that never have to cry for help. The righteous are those that are crying for help.

It says the face of Yahweh is set against those who do what is evil, to remove all memory of them from the earth. And then he says 17, the righteous cry out, and the Lord hears and rescues them from all their troubles.

Then verse 18, the Lord is near the brokenhearted. He saves those crushed in spirit. And then verse 19, one who was righteous has many adversities, but the Lord rescues him from them all.

He protects all his bones, not one of them is broken. I believe it's Matthew takes that verse in Psalm 34, 20, it could be Luke. One of them takes that verse as a messianic promise of Jesus on the cross, that all of his bones were still together.

They were not broken, that all of the crucifixion, all the things that were taking place, he had drastic blood loss. He was stabbed in his side, but none of his bones were broken in what was done.

And the fact that none of Jesus' bones were broken was a sign that he was the Messiah.

It was a promise here from Psalm 34 that then signaled to the people, hey, you know how it was interesting that Jesus, when he was on the cross, they didn't have to break his legs to make sure that he stayed down and suffocated to death on the cross.

He had already died from blood loss and different things before they had to break the legs of the thieves that were next to him on their own crosses.

That that was a fulfillment of a promise that was made several hundred years prior here in the time of David, says, Evil brings death to the wicked and those who hate the righteous will be punished.

And then it says, Yahweh redeems the life of his servants. He buys them back. And he says, And all who take refuge in him will not be punished.

God's servants are not those who do not deserve punishment. God's servants are those who take refuge in him and they find no punishment in his arms.

What an incredible thought that in the arms of Jesus, there is no punishment left for you because he took it all on himself. He took he took the blame. You get the grace and love that thought.

Thank you for being with me as we read through Psalm 34 together. And it was encouragement to my heart today. Pray that it would be so for you as well.

Tomorrow we close out this week in Psalm 35. I right off hand don't know a bunch about Psalm 35, so I'm looking forward to studying that with you tomorrow.