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Scripture Reading: Psa. 73:1-3, 12-17, 25-26; 74:2-3, 7-8; 75:2, 4-7; 76:2-4
Now with Psalm 73 we begin Book Three of the Psalms. Book Three indicates how the saints, in their experiences, realize that the house and the city of God with all the enjoyments thereof can be preserved and maintained only with Christ properly appreciated and exalted by God’s people. This means that if we would have a consistent experience of the house and the city of God with all their enjoyment, we must appreciate Christ and know Christ in a proper way. Only when we exalt Christ adequately and properly will the enjoyment of God’s house and God’s city be preserved and maintained. Otherwise, we will lose the enjoyment of the house, and the city of God will vanish. By keeping this in mind, we may realize how Book Three is a further improvement in the progression of the Psalms.
By the end of Book Two we have reached the climax, the highest peak. But such a glorious situation, such victory, such ascension, and such wealth of blessing does not often last long. Because we are lacking in our appreciation of the exaltation of Christ, there is a real problem associated with our enjoyment of the house and city of God. God would even allow the enemy to intrude and destroy the enjoyment of His house and city. This is exactly why we have Book Three.
Some may think that all one hundred fifty psalms are just individual, unrelated pieces. That is not true. Not only are all the psalms related one to another, but there is a marvelous sequence in the progression of the books into which the Psalms are divided. Why is Book Three not in the position of Book One, and why is Book One in the first position, followed by Book Two and then Book Three? In Books One and Two the house is built gradually, step by step, to the highest level. Book One is the beginning; then Book Two brings what was begun in Book One to a conclusion, even to the highest level. Now in Book Three we find mainly the desolation and even the destruction of the house of God. Something which has been built up, something which has already existed and become so wonderful, has been brought to desolation and destruction. This is a strong proof that this book must be in the third position. Book Three could never take the place of Book One, for without the building already established, there could be no desolation.
There is always the problem of maintaining and preserving any good situation. It is not so easy to perpetuate such a condition for any length of time. When we reach the highest peak in the local churches, we usually do not stay on the mountaintop very long. Too often some kind of desolation intervenes and brings us down. Bear this in mind.
As we turn to Psalm 73, we must recall again Psalm 1. I know that by now you are very well acquainted with our case concerning Psalm 1, but allow me to expose it again in the light of Psalm 73. Psalm 1:1 says, “Blessed is the man / Who does not walk / In the counsel of the wicked.” Verse 3 says, “He will be like a tree / Transplanted beside streams of water, / Which yields its fruit in its season,... / And everything he does prospers.” According to Psalm 1, it is not the wicked and the ungodly who will prosper, but the godly saints, those who keep the law. Now turn to Psalm 73:3: “I was envious of the arrogant, / When I saw the prosperity of the wicked.” Psalm 1 says that the godly will prosper and the wicked will perish. But Psalm 73 tells us that the psalmist saw the riches of the wicked. In verse 12 he says, “Behold, these are the wicked; / And always at ease, they heap up riches.” Therefore, Psalm 73 proves conclusively that there is a problem with Psalm 1. He says, “Surely I have purified my heart in vain, / And I have washed my hands in innocence” (v. 13). In other words, he is saying, “I have kept the law all the time; I have purified my heart in vain and washed my hands in vain, because I did not prosper.” Verse 14 reveals the experience of this godly saint: “I have been plagued all day long / And chastened every morning.” What can we say? Here is a godly saint who is plagued all the day and chastened every morning. We must be exceedingly clear now concerning the position of Psalm 1.
Then he continues by saying, “If I had said, I will speak thus; / Behold, I would have betrayed the generation of Your children” (v. 15). The psalmist was really perplexed when he considered the situation from the standpoint of material blessing and profit, good and evil; he had a real problem. If he would utter publicly, “I have purified my heart in vain, / And I have washed my hands in innocence,” he would not be faithful to God’s children. What should he do, and what should he say? The psalmist replies, “When I considered this in order to understand it, / It was a troublesome task in my sight” (v. 16). The whole dilemma was entirely too difficult for him. How could you reconcile Psalm 1 and Psalm 73? According to the traditional teachings of Christianity today, there is absolutely no way to reconcile these two psalms. This is a strong case set forth to expose the present pitiful situation of Christianity’s teachings.
There is only one way to reconcile Psalms 1 and 73, and it is presented to us in Psalm 73:17: “Until I went into the sanctuary of God; / Then I perceived their end.” The sanctuary of God is the place where we may obtain the revelation we need. The sanctuary here undoubtedly signifies the dwelling place of God. Our spirit today is God’s dwelling place. Even more, the local churches are God’s dwelling place. Hence, we must turn to our spirit, and we must turn to the local church; then we will be clear. Our spirit and the local church are the places where we receive divine revelation, where we obtain the explanation to all our problems. When “I went into the sanctuary of God; / Then I perceived...”
What did he perceive? Verse 25 says, “Whom do I have in heaven but You? / And besides You there is nothing I desire on earth.” He realized that God was working to deprive him of all material things so that he might enjoy God in such an absolute way. This is the revelation. Why do the wicked prosper and their riches continually increase? It is because God has given them up; He simply lets them go on their own way. They have nothing whatever to do with the enjoyment of God. But God’s intention with the seeking saints is to remove all material blessings and all physical enjoyments in order that they may find everything in God. Nothing in heaven or on earth can be their enjoyment but God Himself. It was by the psalmist’s experience, as recorded in the first part of Psalm 73, that he could eventually assert, “Whom do I have in heaven but You? / And besides You there is nothing I desire on earth.” He received revelation. He learned why God would not allow the seeking saints to prosper as the worldlings do. God intends that nothing should distract us from the absolute enjoyment of Himself. Eventually, it is not a matter of merely keeping the law, but of seeking God absolutely. It is not a matter of doing good or evil, right or wrong — if you are concerned about that, you are still occupied with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is a matter of seeking God, obtaining God, possessing God. It is a matter of experiencing God to the extent that you also can say, “Whom do I have in heaven but You? / And besides You there is nothing I desire on earth.” In other words, “I do not care for anything but the tree of life; I do not care for anything other than God Himself.” This is Psalm 73. When the psalmist went into the sanctuary of God, he received this revelation and took God Himself as his all. How may we too have the experience of the psalmist in these verses? We must be in the spirit and in the local church, the sanctuary of God. Just by this one psalm we may see the difference between Book Three and Book One. There is a great improvement. It is not a matter of keeping the law or of being right or wrong, but of having God and of keeping God as everything.
Let us look briefly at Psalm 24 in the light of Psalm 73. Psalm 24:1 says, “The earth is Jehovah’s,” and verse 3 asks, “Who may ascend the mountain of Jehovah?” Verse 4 answers: “He who has clean hands and a pure heart, / Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood / Or sworn deceitfully.” Some may think that this verse refers to those who keep the law. But if we read Psalm 73, we have these very matters mentioned: “I have purified my heart in vain, / And I have washed my hands in innocence” (v. 13). Vanity is anything beside God. Idols are vanity; worldly prosperity is vanity; anything but God is vanity. A pure heart is one that is set on nothing but God. Only one who has a pure heart can say, “Whom do I have in heaven but You? / And besides You there is nothing I desire on earth.” If you are still seeking anything other than God, your heart is set upon vanity. God Himself is the reality. Do not imagine that Psalm 24:4 signifies the keeping of the law. Not at all. It refers to one whose heart is set upon nothing but God. The one in Psalm 24:4 is the one in Psalm 73. This is the one who has washed his hands and purified his heart. He has a pure heart. Psalm 73:1 says, “Surely God is good to Israel, / To those who are pure in heart.” Psalm 24:4 refers not to the law-keepers but to the God-seekers. “Who may ascend the mountain of Jehovah?” The God-seekers!
The way to see all these things is to enter into the sanctuary of God. So many of us can testify that before we came into the local churches, we were ignorant of many things. It was not until we came into the sanctuary of God that we understood.
Now we must go on from Psalm 73 to Psalm 74. In Psalm 73 we had the sufferings and deprivations of the saints themselves. In Psalm 74 we have the desolations not of the saints but of God’s dwelling place. To so many God-seekers, their personal sufferings mean very little, but the desolation of God’s dwelling place affects them greatly. The psalmist is troubled to a certain extent in Psalm 73 by his own personal affliction, but the desolate condition of the house of God in Psalm 74 troubles him more. By reading Psalm 74, we partake of the feeling of hurt suffered by the saints for the desolation of God’s house. The first part of this psalm (vv. 1-11) records the psalmist’s grief concerning the enemy’s work of destruction upon God’s house. The second part (vv. 12-23) is his cry for the recovery of God’s house.
Why does God allow the desolation to His house? The answer is not in this psalm, nor in the following psalm. We must go through the entire third book of the Psalms to obtain the answer. It is that Christ did not receive the proper appreciation and adequate exaltation. The saints appreciated the house of God, but to a certain extent they neglected Christ. They paid more attention to God’s house than to Christ Himself. Since Christ was not properly appreciated or afforded preeminence among the saints, desolation was wrought.
Because of this desolation the psalmist prayed, “Remember Your assembly, which You have purchased of old, / Which You have redeemed as the tribe of Your inheritance, / And Mount Zion, where You dwell. / Lift up Your steps unto the perpetual ruins; / The enemy has damaged everything in the sanctuary” (vv. 2-3). For an extended period of time God allowed His house to lie in desolation. Verses 7 and 8 tell us: “They have set fire to Your sanctuary; / They have defiled the dwelling place of Your name to the ground. / They said in their heart, Let us oppress them completely. / They have burned down all God’s assembly places in the land.” What desolation God allowed! Keep these verses in mind. They will help in understanding some of the following psalms, for the following psalms are the answer to this. God allowed such desolation in His house because the position due to Christ was surrendered. How careful we must be! The local church is wonderful and indeed glorious, but the enjoyment of the local church can only be maintained and preserved by Christ being properly appreciated and exalted among us. If we concentrate on the local church but neglect Christ Himself, we are in danger of allowing God’s house to suffer desolation. Christ must have the proper position in the local church: He must have the preeminence. If He is not adequately appreciated and exalted, we will lose the enjoyment of God’s house. This is a warning lest after reaching the highest level of enjoyment in Book Two, we lose this enjoyment and experience the desolation recorded in Book Three. May the Lord be merciful to us so that we may heed this warning and give Christ His due honor, appreciation, and exaltation.
Psalm 75 apparently has nothing to do with Psalm 74, but it is in fact the answer to the saints in Psalm 74. In Psalm 74 the psalmist was troubled by the desolation of God’s house and cried to God for remedy, for judgment upon the wicked one, the desolator of the house of God. The answer is in Psalm 75: Christ will come in to deal with the situation; He will come to judge the desolator. On the one hand, the people of God have not properly appreciated and exalted God’s Anointed, but on the other hand, the desolators have gone too far; so Christ will intervene and judge. Christ says, “When I choose the appointed time, / It is I who judge with equity” (v. 2). In 74:10 the psalmist asks, “How long, O God, will the adversary reproach?” The answer is in 75:2. When the appointed time arrives, Christ will judge. He has established the pillars of the earth (v. 3). When the appointed time comes, He will exercise judgment on the earth for God.
In verses 4 through 6 Christ says, “I said to the boastful, Do not boast; / And to the wicked, Do not lift up the horn. / Do not lift your horn on high; / Do not speak arrogantly with a haughty neck. / For neither from the east nor from the west, / And neither from the south, does exaltation come.” From where then does the exaltation come? From God, from the north. By reading Ezekiel 1, we discover that God comes from the north. The north is upward, the south is downward. Whenever we go north, we go upward; whenever we go south, we go downward. God is not in the south but in the north. Psalm 48:2 tells us that Mount Zion, the city of the great King, is on the sides of the north. Many places in the Bible indicate that God is in the north and comes from the north, the upper part. Exaltation comes not from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south, but from the north, because God is in the north.
Psalm 75:7 says, “God is the Judge: / He puts this one down and exalts that one.” This is the answer to the psalmist in Psalm 74. Christ will come in to deal with the desolation. He will make people know God’s rights and submit themselves to God’s rule.
I do believe that now, in the day in which we are living, the appointed time has been reached. The desolation of the church has continued long enough. So many dear saints in past generations have prayed, “How long, O Lord, how long? When will You come to judge?” Christ answers them in Psalm 75. He says that when the appointed time is reached, He will judge the desolators. He speaks to the foolish ones and tells them that exaltation comes not from them, nor from any other direction, but from the One who is in the north, from God. He will declare His judgment and praise God (vv. 9-10). We must all claim in our prayers today, “Lord, You must come in now to deal with the desolators, that the desolation of Your church might be forever past.”
Psalm 76 tells us that God’s dwelling place is where God defeats His enemies. According to the arrangement of all the psalms, this signifies that the defeat of the enemies of God follows the desolation, just as Psalm 76 follows Psalm 74. This certainly fits today’s situation. Today, after the desolation of the church, God is defeating His enemies in the local churches.
Psalm 76:1-2 says, “God is known in Judah; / His name is great in Israel. / And in Salem is His tabernacle, / And His dwelling place, in Zion.” Salem means “peaceful, perfect, and complete.” That is where God’s tabernacle is located. It is marvelous! Zion means “a fortress,” or “safety.” Therefore Salem signifies peace, and Zion speaks of the safety of a fortress. Here in God’s dwelling place we have peace, and here we have safety. Verse 3 says, “There He broke the flashing arrows of the bow, / The shield and the sword and the battle. Selah.” You must underline the word there. It is in God’s dwelling place, in the local churches, that God defeats and destroys His enemy and smashes all his instruments of war. Verse 4 says, “More glorious are You, / More excellent than the mountains of prey.” The desolators of God’s sanctuary are the mountains of prey, but Zion is more excellent and more glorious than all the desolators. Do not forget that all these psalms are written in poetic form; hence, we must understand them in a poetic way.
Now let us put all these four psalms together. In Psalm 73 we see the personal sufferings of the seeking saints, then in Psalm 74, the desolation of the house of God. Psalm 75 speaks of Christ’s intervening to judge the desolators, and Psalm 76 declares the victory of God in His dwelling place. First, God strips His seeking saints of material things to a certain extent. Second, they have seen the desolation of the house of God. Third, they have come to know God’s intention so that they may enjoy Him in an absolute way and then enjoy the house of God. God’s house has lain desolate for so long because they failed to give God’s Anointed the proper and preeminent position. Fourth, at the appointed time God’s Anointed will come in to deal with the situation. Fifth, God’s victory is in His dwelling place. It is in the church as the city that God defeats all His enemies. We must still come back to the dwelling place of God, to Salem, to Zion. Salem is peace, and Zion is safety; so it is there that we have peace and safety.
Altogether, in these four psalms we see that the enjoyment of the house of God depends entirely upon the position Christ is given among God’s people.
