In this sermon, Dr. Andrew Davis discusses the importance of teaching from poetic texts as part of preaching from different genres of scripture. He emphasizes the variety of ways in which God communicates with people through different genres, such as history, law, prophecy, poetry, gospel, and epistles. Dr. Davis argues that all scripture has a united goal: to make believers wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus and to thoroughly equip them for every good work. He also stresses the importance of finding Christ in Old Testament Hebrew poetry, while avoiding the dangers of allegorical interpretation. Through responsible interpretation, preachers can connect poetic texts to the central message of Christ's salvation.

My topic now is preaching from poetical texts. And one of the joys of being an expositor is you don't, I would hope, be just choosing from those passages that are your favorites, but you're going to preach from many different genres. And this genre is a powerful one in scripture, the genre of poetry. As we begin and you look at your outline just following along in Hebrews 1, 1, it says, In the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets of many times and in various ways. What does that mean to you in various ways?

As you look at it, I think you look across scripture and you realize there's lots of different ways that God talks to us. I don't know who first came up with this expression, but there are the right-brained people and the left-brained people. And I never get it right which is which. What does right-brain mean? Are those the analytical, logical, engineering types?

That's me. All right. And then your left-brained people are your more artistic, artsy kind of what? The other way around? See, that's what I, all right, that's fine.

Like I said, I didn't make any pretense of knowing, but I think we do know that there are different personalities. There are also different times in our lives. And God is wanting to speak to us clearly in a variety of ways. And he has. It's a fact.

It's just a fact. Hebrews 1, 1 just says what we can read and note just from reading the Bible. There's a big difference between reading Song of Solomon or Ecclesiastes or the Psalms than there is reading some of the other genres of scripture, certainly Paul's epistles. So God intends to communicate to every human being any situation that they could be across millennia of human history. And only God, therefore, could put together a book, the scripture, the Bible, that could do that efficiently and effectively, that people are in different places.

And to be honest with you, even we engineering types, we need some poetry from time to time. We need God to come at us in a different way and to speak powerfully in that way, and therefore I'm grateful for these poetical texts. Let's have an overview of genres. There are different ways of talking about genres, but a genre is just a kind of a type of scripture, a type of communication. History is one genre.

Genesis 1, 1, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, there really isn't anything about that other than it's a statement of what happened, what God did, or what this man did, or that person said. It's just history. Genesis 22 says, sometime later God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham, here I am, he replied. Then God said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering in one of the mountains I will tell you about.

Early the next morning, Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son, Isaac. And when he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. That's history. That's something that happened, narrative, that we were just learning about.

Judges 3.31, after Ehud came Shamgar, son of Anoth, who struck down 600 Philistines with an ox goad. Now, that would have been something to see. You know what I'm saying? As I've said before, how do you do that? How do you strike down 600 Philistines with an ox goad?

And the answer is simple. One at a time. It's the only way you can do it. And what a picture that is, without getting too spiritualizing here, but what a picture that is of us and temptation. We're supposed to take them on one at a time and kill them all.

Put it to death, put sin to death. And that's why I think these mighty men are there fighting their battles on our behalf so that we can realize, if you've got to kill 600 Philistines to make it through the day or through the battle and you kill 427 and say, alright, that's it. I mean, I've done more than any man can do. I mean, enough is enough. I've fought long enough.

Well, then you'll die when number 418 comes. Alright, We're supposed to stand firm. Jesus took on every single solitary temptation his whole life every day and killed them all. All of them. Isn't that wonderful?

On our behalf. And so therefore, here's Ehud. But this is just history. That's all it is. It happened.

It actually occurred. Or Acts 27. When it was decided we would sail for Italy. Paul and some other prisoners were handed over to Centurion named Julius, who belonged to the imperial regiment. We boarded a ship from Adrimidium, about to sail for ports along the coast of the province of Asia, and put out to sea.

Aristarchus and Macedonius from Thessalonica was with us. That's history, lots of details, proper nouns, history. Secondly, we have law of course. I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

Exodus 20, two and three, the Ten Commandments. Deuteronomy 6, four and five, hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Then there's prophecy. Micah 5, 2.

But you Bethlehem Ephrathah, although you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come from me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from old, from ancient times. Future tense, out of you will come from me, one who will be ruler over Israel. But by the way, not all prophecy in the Bible is written in future tense. I mean, look at Isaiah 53, for example, written centuries before Jesus. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, he did not open his mouth.

That's past tense, and yet it's a prophecy. It's really interesting how prophecies can sometimes be written in a past tense voice and yet it's written in years, centuries before it came. But again, it's still prophecy. You have to understand biblical history, redemptive history to know that it is, but it was. Isaiah 53, prophecy of Jesus.

So Jeremiah 31, the time is coming declares the Lord, again a future tense there, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, declares the Lord. This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I will put my law on their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.

No longer will the man teach his neighbor or man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, because they will all know me from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more. Quoted in Hebrews 8, the essence of the new covenant, a new heart, complete forgiveness of sins, and an intimate relationship with God. I will be their God and they will be my people. Those are the three aspects of the new covenant that set it apart from the old covenant. These are prophecies.

Poetry and wisdom, we'll get to that. Examples of that, that's what we're spending our time on. Gospel. Gospel is different than history. It's historically accurate.

I'm not saying it's not, but it's history with a direct purpose to make you believe in Jesus. It's a different kind of history. And so it's openly stated that way. Luke 1, for example. Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word.

Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught." So there the purpose of Luke's Gospel is to give believers a sense of certainty, of historical certainty of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John has a more evangelistic purpose. Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. That's gospel.

It's history with a purpose. The writing down of the history, The purpose is not just any purpose, but specifically that we might have life in Jesus. I think that's why Gospel is written. Epistle, many epistles are written by a number of New Testament writers. Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So many epistles begin in this kind of pattern. The tone and the feel of epistle I think is captured in this passage in 1 Corinthians 4. I'm not writing this to shame you, but to warn you as my dear children. Even though you have ten thousand guardians in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.

Therefore I urge you to imitate me. There's a, and I mean this positively, a patronizing tone, a sense of a father speaking to a child, an authority figure telling you how to live. That's how Epistle is written. It's not like, well, I don't know, what do you think? How do you think we should live?

Why don't we pool our ignorance? There's no feel like that. It's the apostle telling us what to do. It's a father sitting us down and saying this is how you need to be, this is how you should live. There's definitely a feeling of that with Paul's epistles and Peters as well and John's.

John writes as the elder, doesn't he? In 2 John, 3 John, and he's giving instructions in that way. Then there's Apocalypse, alright? Book of Revelation, It's its own category. I know because I've been going through it verse by verse.

I didn't want to do it. The men compelled me. They were like, what book do you want to do? They were all saying Revelation. I was like, oh, something else, something easier.

But it's been good. I've learned so much. But it's tough. The consistent question in interpreting the book of Revelation is literal or figurative. Are we talking about something that's actually going to happen in this way?

Or is this figurative language? You're always wrestling with that. And even people who say, oh, I take it all literally, as I said yesterday, it's very, very hard to sustain that through every line of the book of Revelation. It's a challenge. Though I believe it's meant to have a literal impact on us, and all of it is exactly true the way God intended, but that Jesus literally had a sword coming out of it, a two-edged sword coming out of his mouth.

I just believe that he uses his word as a weapon and when he says to the Antichrist, be dead or be gone or be whatever, it happens. It's the most powerful weapon there has ever been. I don't care what kind of thermonuclear devices we have, nothing compares to Jesus saying, Be this or whatever. You look at that account in Matthew 8, I love this in the red letter editions of the Bible, when Jesus is dealing with a legion. You've got to look this up if you have a red letter edition.

Go to Matthew 8, and he's dealing with that demon called Legion, and they beg him to come out and not be sent into the pit and instead to go into the herd of pigs. In the Matthew account he says one word in English, go. That's it. I mean there's only that's the only thing he says in the whole Matthew account. There's more in the other accounts but that's all he says and they go.

Man is at power. Right? I mean, this is a powerful demon. This man is breaking chains, and Jesus just says, go, and they're fleeing from Jesus. That's a great thought, isn't it?

All those demons fleeing from Jesus? Okay, they're afraid of him. Anyway, those are the different genres I thought it was worthwhile to go through and for you to refresh your memory on what they sound like. They just sound differently than the poetry that we're going to be looking at today. Now there's a variety of patterns within these major categories.

Things aren't so simple, are they? Yes, there are major divisions. They have law, and they have prophets and writings. Well, what do they call law? The books of Moses, right?

But within that, isn't there poetry? Isn't there poetry within the books of Moses? Sure, there's the song that they sang after the horse and rider thrown into the sea. That's right there. That's poetry.

There's all kinds of poetry in Moses. There's definitely law in Moses, of course. But there's history, definitely history in Moses. So it's not that simple. Historical narratives, law and statutes, prophetic calls, prophetic oracles, genealogies, songs of many kinds, taunts, parables and fables, riddles, proverbial wisdom, instructional wisdom, hymns of praise, thanksgivings, laments, apocalyptic visions and many other genres are flowing around there, and within one book you can get many of these.

And frankly, even with one passage of preaching, it can go from history right into a poetical thing and then back to history again, et cetera. No one book is all one thing. Old Testament law books, as I've mentioned, still have much history, and prophetic books have history, poetry, etc. However, having said that, all of Scripture has a united goal. 2 Timothy 3, 14-17, I think, gives us a sense of that goal.

You could really look at it in two parts. It says in verse 15, From infancy you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. So that I would think would be the primary goal of scripture, to make us wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Is that still an issue for you? Do you still need to be made wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus?

Are you done being saved? Not one of us is done being saved. Salvation is a big work with various component parts. And you need wisdom for all of it, don't you? And so you keep needing scripture.

You need to continually be made wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Scripture therefore feeds your salvation. You're to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. Work out your sanctification. Keep growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ, and Scripture makes you wise for that.

14. That's its primary purpose, I think. 15. But then it goes on from there. Of course, as you know, we already heard just recently, all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that, in other words, teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness are subordinate to a purpose, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So there you have salvation in Christ Jesus, and then good works that flow from you as a human being, as a man of God. Scripture is sufficient for all of that. Isn't that marvelous? So for yourself, for everything you need in your walk with God, it's sufficient, and it's there for that. And then for everything you'll do for others, good works, evangelism, discipleship, ministry of any kind, scripture sufficient for that.

Those things are the twin purpose of scripture. Alright? What I call the internal and external journey. Internal sanctification, external missions, good works, spiritual gifts, all the things you do for others. Both of those things scripture is sufficient for.

All scripture is wise for salvation, and all scripture thoroughly equipped for every good work. So we need all these genres of scripture. We need poetry and history and all of these things to help do those twin goals. Does that make sense? So as you're looking at a genre scripture, just say this thing is here so that I can be wise for salvation, do faith in Christ Jesus, or this thing is here also, that I may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

Now in the middle of all of that, we're going to be looking for Christ. This point has been made and I think it needs to continue to be made. There's been some changes in my preaching ministry, especially in the last two years. I know who really was the one that God used to affect the change. It was Charles Spurgeon that he used.

We were doing some biographies, I think last summer, and going through just great heroes of the faith. And so it's a Wednesday evening activity and people come and we would do these biographies. Those things just about killed me. I mean, I love the scripture. I've been saturated in my mind in it for years.

I probably can speak productively and helpfully without a lot of preparation at this point, if somebody gives me a text, we'll at least get some good things going. But not a biography. You know, I can't speak for a full hour on anyone in church history without some preparation. And the less I know somebody, the more preparation is needed. Like, how would you guys do if you had two hours on John Bunyan?

Could you go two hours? Right now, just stand up and talk for two hours about Bunyan or anybody. So we were working hard on these biographies, and they were wonderful. They were a lot of work, but wonderful. But Spurgeon, I was just so convicted by his evangelistic zeal, specifically, and convicted by how much he desired to make plain every time he preached how a lost person can be saved.

Because of his own experience at age 15 when he would go from place to place and hear many good sermons by good men who were doing a faithful job with the text but wouldn't tell him how to be saved. And I said, okay, I resolved before God that there will be at least some part of every time I preach that someone can know how to be saved. Lest there be a 15 year old Spurgeon sitting there, desperate to know how he can be saved and I didn't tell him how to do it. Though I was God centered and textual and brought out all the major and minor points, but I didn't find Christ. And so it was this quote from Spurgeon, you know, he says, I take my text and make a beeline to the cross.

That's not entirely true. I mean, he did work with the text. Let's give the man credit. But this next quote on page four, I think, is even more poignant. I really like this.

Aspergent said this, let your sermons be full of Christ from beginning to end, crammed full of the gospel. As for myself, brethren, I cannot preach anything else but Christ and his cross. For I know nothing else and long ago, like the Apostle Paul, I determined not to know anything else save Jesus Christ and Him crucified. People have often asked me, what is the secret of your success? I always answer that I have no other secret but this, that I have preached the Gospel, not about the Gospel, but the Gospel, the full, free, glorious gospel of the living Christ who is the incarnation of the good news.

Preach Jesus Christ, brethren, always and everywhere. And every time you preach, be sure to have much of Jesus Christ in the sermon. You remember the story of the old minister who heard a sermon by a young man, and when he was asked by the preacher what he thought of it, it was rather slow to answer. That's not a good sign, by the way, when they're thinking about what to say. But at any rate, slow to answer.

But at last he said, if I must tell you, I did not like it at all, because there was no Christ in it. No, answered the young man, because I did not see that Christ was in the text. Did you see that? Oh, said the old minister, but do you not know that from every little town and village and tiny hamlet in England, there is a road leading to London? Whenever I get hold of a text, I say to myself, there is a road from here to Jesus Christ.

And I mean to keep on His track until I get to him. Well, said the young man, but suppose you are preaching from a text that says nothing about Christ. Then I will go over a hedge and ditch, but what I will get at him. So we're going to find a way to get to Christ. And isn't it striking how I'm preaching from Romans 11, 33 through 36, and there's not a single mention of Christ.

But if you can't find Christ in that doxology, you probably ought not to be a preacher. I mean there's got to be Christ even though it's not technically mentioned there. You don't see the word Jesus or Christ. You must get to Christ. I got that out of this quote.

Then I'll go over hedge and ditch, but what I will get at him. So must we do, brethren. We must have Christ in all our discourses, whatever else is in or not in them. There ought to be enough of the Gospel in every sermon to save a soul. So that's from his talk, The Soul Winners, Sermons Likely to Win Souls.

So as I look at that I think, okay, that's especially an issue with Old Testament Hebrew poetry. Okay? Can we find a way to get to the cross of Christ? And we're going to do some work on Psalm 84 and see how that can be done. And I think it can.

But when you come into poetry, find a way to get to Christ. Now you could say, well, aren't there illegitimate ways to get to Christ? I think there are. I think there is a right way, or a number of right ways and there are a number of wrong ways. All right?

I don't like what the Origen and his Alexandrian church fathers did with their approach to scripture. They're finding symbolic language about Jesus and they're finding other things. It's called allegorical interpretation And it's really quite amazing to read. It's like a balloon with no string. And it's just floating away from the text.

It has no connection whatsoever to the text. And I think that, and we'll see in Psalm 84, there's a way to do it that's connected to what the author is writing. And that it's connected to the flow of the Bible, and isn't irresponsible. Because if you're cutting all connections, then you can say anything you want at that point, and it's not really preaching, I think, at that point. Dangerous.

All right, so this includes Old Testament poetry. When you read Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, let's at least think, please, Jesus is my shepherd, and go on to John 10 and think, Jesus is my good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. Is that illegitimate interpretation? I don't think so. I think it's accurate.

Don't you think now, at this particular moment, King David would say, Jesus is my shepherd. Wouldn't he say that? Wasn't he writing about Jesus? You know how Jesus said Moses wrote about me? Well, didn't David write about Jesus too?

And so I would say, yes, the Lord is my shepherd, Jesus is my shepherd, whose death and resurrection is my only provision through the valley of the shadow of death. There's got to be a way to get to the cross. I think you can get there from Psalm 23, don't you? I would hope so. Or Psalm 1, He will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit and season, and whose leaf never withers.

Whatever he does, prospers. Isn't there a kind of a picture of that with I am the vine and you are the branches? If you remain in me and I remain in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. I think you can get from Psalm 1 to John 15 and Jesus.

So there's responsible ways to do it. Or Job 40. Do you have an arm like God's and can your voice thunder like His? Then adorn yourself with glory and splendor. Clothe yourself in honor and majesty.

Unleash the fury of your wrath. Look at every proud man and bring him low. Look at every proud man and humble him. Crush the wicked where they stand. Bury them all in the dust together.

Shroud their faces in the grave. Then I myself will admit to you that your own right hand can save you." Wow. Imagine having God say that to you. That's convicting. But a God who can speak out of the whirlwind and who can make every single living and non-living thing in the universe, He deserves our praise and worship.

Also, we should fear Him and seek refuge from His wrath. And Jesus Christ is the one that's revealed very plainly, through whom God made all things. So when God's boasting about the ostrich, He made them through Jesus. When He's boasting about the Pleiades and the stars, you know, up in Orion and all that, it was through Jesus He made those things. I think you can get there.

And when you talk about wrath here in this passage, and Jesus is the refuge that God provided to protect us from wrath. So let's get to Christ. Another statement I want to make about poetry is that it's easy to not look for precepts anymore. I mentioned this yesterday. Precepts are facts about God, truths about life and God, and things that are true spiritually about us.

Can we get that out of poetry? Absolutely. There's always some truth that the poet is wrapping around Exquisite language. Truth is like the skeleton and the exquisite language is like the beautiful flesh and skin and hair and eyes on it that makes it beautiful. But there's a structure of truth underneath.

And so we have to look at the precept. What is this poetry saying about God? What is true about God? Frankly sometimes in a poetical passage it just straight out says it, the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. And it's in the middle of a poetical passage, but it's just a straight out precept that the things that are true about God.

So we should look for precepts. I have not forgotten that image that the city of truth, like Rome, not built in a day, step by step, you're just excavating marble blocks that are getting set up beautifully inside your heart of truths about God. And they're going to come from Song of Songs or from Ecclesiastes or Job or Proverbs or Psalms as much as they're coming from Paul's epistles. 13. Just because a psalm or prophecy contains poetry doesn't mean it isn't true.

14. Look for example what Peter does with Psalm 16. I mentioned this yesterday. This is in Acts 2. David said about him, I saw the Lord always before me.

Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. This is Peter's Pentecost sermon. So he's preaching, And he's quoting Psalm 16. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. My body also will live in hope, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your holy ones see decay.

You have made known to me the paths of life. You will fill me with joy in your presence. Is that poetry? It is. That's a poetical passage.

That's Psalm 16. Does that mean there's no precept in it? No, there's a very important precept. That God the Father would not let Jesus decay in the grave. And frankly, brothers, I think this is the only clear, open prophecy to the resurrection of Jesus in the Old Testament.

There are others that are not so clear, and they're there. I'm just saying that this is the best prophecy of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. If you give me Jonah three days and three nights, you know you can read Jonah and not see Jesus in that. All right? Inside the whale and out.

It's still the sign of Jonah and that's fine. But I don't think there's anything you can do with Psalm 16 other than say this has got to be referring to the resurrection of Jesus. Because the point that Peter makes right here. Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and he knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne.

Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we're all witnesses of the fact. What precept did Peter find in Psalm 16? This is the part where I wake you up from the post-lunch slumber, okay? All right?

What precept is there in Psalm 16? What does he find? What thing is true of Jesus based on Psalm 16? That he would rise from the grave, okay? I'll get you more specific than that.

The Holy One, okay. What? He will not see decay. Decay is a very striking word, isn't it? What is decay?

Rot. Rot. It's the stuff that happens to a body once you die. You ever wonder how they get the time of death? You don't want to know.

It really has to do with what happens to a body once it dies and how long that process goes. It has to do with parasites and bugs and gross stuff. There's a way that they can tell. That didn't happen to Jesus. And that's really quite remarkable when you think about it, that God preserved his body from decay.

That's a precept, it's a point of truth that's in Psalm 16 and yet in the middle of poetry. So yes, there is preceptual truth in poetry. Look what the early church does with Psalm 2 after Peter and John are released. Remember when they healed the lame beggar in Acts 3, and they get arrested for it? What perversion is that?

If we were being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple, and are asked how he was healed. Don't you love that? Then know this, You and all the people of Israel is by the name of Jesus. I mean, they're on trial for healing somebody. I mean, that's really amazing.

It's just about as ironic with John 9 when the man's on trial for being healed, right? The guy's like, he was blind and now he can see and he's on trial for being healed. Is that a crime to be healed? But anyway, maybe they thought it was. But anyway, after they release Peter and John, they go to their own people and they have a marvelous prayer meeting.

I often say to my church, by the way, Acts 4, the end of it, it's like, don't miss the prayer meeting. You may miss something like this. After they prayed, the place where their meeting was shaken and they're all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. You don't want to miss that prayer meeting. Never can tell when it's going to happen.

All right? So you need to show up. You don't want to hear about that from those that were there. And I was scaring people straight, you know. I came to the prayer meeting.

I had to after what the pastor said. I didn't want to miss it. But here they're quoting Psalm 2. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one. That's Psalm 2. And then they apply it. Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided ahead of time should happen.

Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness." They get Psalm 2 and they draw precepts out of it, don't they? Like what? What are some precepts they get out of Psalm 2? Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one.

Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus. They did what your power and will determine ahead of time should happen. Alright, what precept do they get out of Psalm 2? Sovereignty of God. God is sovereign, He rules over all things.

What else? Omniscience. Omniscience, God knows all things. Very good. How does the world treat Jesus?

How do the leaders of the world deal with Jesus? They're enraged, they plot, they plan, they fight. So don't expect an easy time in the propagation of the Gospel. This is exactly what we knew would happen. We're not surprised that we got arrested for healing a beggar.

We're not surprised. This is exactly what you said would happen. So they go back to the Scriptures and comfort themselves with poetry. But it's precept that comforts them, not just the poetry. It's the truths that God is sovereign over the raging of nations, and that they can go ahead and boldly proclaim the Gospel.

So, just because it's poetry doesn't mean there's not precepts. That's what I'm getting at. Okay? Each line of poetry, look at each line of poetry and uncover its perceptual truth, knowledge of God and of ourselves as Calvin said in the Institutes. Those are things we're looking for.

All right, what is poetry? I'll never forget my English teacher in high school gave a definition I still remember. Poetry is something that is, and when it isn't, you know it. He's saying you really can't define poetry very well. OK?

It's not that cheap kind of da-da-da-da-da-da-da with a little rhyme at the end. And that's, I guess, that. Is that poetry? Maybe it is. I don't know.

But like the kids' books with the little simple rhymes and then everything works out. I actually like to stop and leave off the rhymed word and see if my kids can predict what the rhymed word is. They usually get it pretty well. But that's not poetry. From secular definitions, Wordsworth said, Poetry is the spontaneous outflow of powerful feelings.

Okay? Wordsworth said that. Emily Dickinson said, If I read a book and it makes my body feel, my body so cold no fire can ever warm me, I know that is poetry. Okay? That sounds like poetry itself.

Okay? Dylan Thomas defined poetry like this, poetry is what makes me laugh or cry or yawn, what makes my toenails twinkle, what makes me want to do this or that or nothing. Alright? After a while you read enough of these definitions and you're like, huh? I mean, ironically, defining poetry is like what poetry is itself designed to do.

Capture in words what cannot really be captured in words. OK? Like Psalm 88 is a good example. Psalm 88 is a very, very tough Psalm, because there's like no hope in it at all. And it ends, darkness is my closest friend.

That's a tough final line of a, you like the thing resolved. I guess the way it resolves is the fact that there's a Psalm 89, you know. It's not the last psalm, There's more to come. But in a way, do you see the genius in it of having one Psalm that has nothing but seemingly darkness in it? Because there are times you feel like that, aren't there?

And you just can't see any light in the present situation. And to know that there's a Psalm that speaks for you almost like a lawyer representing you at a trial or an advocate, the Psalm 88 will stand up and say what you're feeling. And just that it's there can be comforting. Darkness is my closest friend. No, darkness is not your closest friend.

God is your closest friend. And the psalmist wrote this to let you know that even in the middle of darkness, there's still a friend closer than that, and that's God. But anyway, darkness is my closest friend. That's Hebrew poetry. There's a sense of poetry there.

So basically, poetry is designed to capture something that's not easy to capture. And so we use poetical language. Poetry is artistically rendering words in such a way as to evoke intense emotion or an aha experience from the reader, said one definition. Wikipedia, I like this. Poetry from the Greek poiesis, a making or creating, is a form of art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to or in lieu of its ostensible meaning.

So we're choosing language that has a provocative sense. You're choosing pointed words and big words and words that sound like something because you're trying to craft the meaning out of the words. That's the best I can do, friends. I'm an engineer. Listen, I did the best I could.

All right. One thing, by the way, with the Wikipedia quote that led me to something I'd considered before but had forgotten, poiesis is related to that thing that God calls us in Ephesians 2.10, which is poiema. Poiema is we are God's workmanship. We are his poema. Created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.

We're his crafted, we're like his poem, we're his masterpiece. We're what he's working on. And he's shaping us all the time. Isn't that a marvelous thing? Through sanctification, through the work of the gospel, preaching, through experiences, he's just crafting us for good works.

And that's a beautiful thing, isn't it? All right, well, what are some biblical examples of poetry? The first one that you find is in Genesis 2. Remember at the end of that chapter when God, after waking Adam up, presents him his wife? And what can he do but say poetry?

I mean, what else can you do at that moment, you know? It's amazing what a woman will do to a man and the way that she's going to bring a poem up out of him. This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man. It's Hebrew poetry.

And what makes it poetry? You know what makes it poetry? In the English edition of the Bible, it's kind of tabbed over and in italics, okay? That's how you know it's poetry, okay? All right?

All you have to do is just go through and find those places. It's either an Old Testament quotation or it's poetry, one or the other, all right? But it has to do with the rhythm in the Hebrew. It has to do with parallelism and the way it's set up. It's not as simple as a rhyme scheme.

Sometimes it can be as simple as an acrostic, and we'll get to that, but usually it has to do with the content and the rhythm and the feel of the Hebrew words. And therefore it doesn't usually come across in English just right. How can you translate a poem from one language into the next? And therefore, frequently you're left with precept more than you are left with poem. But even so, some of the words they do come across, and it's feeling poetical in English too.

And I think it can be that way. But sometimes it's lost. Call of Abraham strikes me as poetical. Look at that in Genesis 12. And again, it has to do with parallelism, the parallel construction, the sound of the words.

I'll make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I'll make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. There's just a rhythm to it. There's a sense of parallel constructions, a little bit like a wedding ceremony.

There's a serious commitment being made to Abram here and his call and it's a very significant moment. Another one I was reading this morning, I wonder if it's poetry, but look at Ruth chapter 1. Reading this morning, that's why I mentioned about Boaz's kindness, because I was just struck by that. I just think Boaz is probably one of the best examples in the whole Bible of a good husband. I just think he's a godly man.

I think he's a good provider. He's gentle. He's strong. He's a leader. He takes initiative, tender with a woman, with his wife.

He's just a good man. I would just like to be like Boaz. I just would. I just think he's a... He's not a superstar, he's not a great hero, whatever.

He's just a godly man. He's just a solid man who deals with people well. Good businessman. He's a good neighbor. He's a good leader in the community.

I just think there's a lot there at Boaz. But I'm thinking more of the statement made by Ruth. Don't urge me to leave you or turn back from you. Where you go, I will go. Where you stay, I will stay.

Your people will be my people, and your God, my God. Where you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord deal with me, be it ever so severely, if anything but death separates you and me. There's just a rhythm to it, there's a beauty to it, a parallelism. Where you go, I go, where you stay, I stay, your God will be my God.

There's just a connection, you and me, we're together, you know, and it's beautiful there. I just think there's lots of examples of poetry. There are many others. Of course, Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in passive righteousness for his name's sake. It's poetry. What makes it poetry?

I think it's the imagery. There's a sensory feel to the words, isn't there, as you read this. A feeling like you can almost smell the green grass, you can hear the rippling brook. You have a sense that you can look up and see the shepherd's staff and his rod and you feel comforted there. There's just a strong feeling.

And do you get the feeling David actually was out there at one point leading and taking care of sheep and so out of that experience he could write this? Oh, absolutely, I think so. But then there's the Song of Solomon. I had to be careful what quote I gave you folks, but You can read the whole thing in your own time. But, uh, my lover spoke and said to me, arise, my darling, my beautiful one, and come with me.

See, the winter has passed. The rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth. The season of singing has come. The cooing of doves is heard in our land.

The fig tree forms its early fruit. The blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. So that's the way a husband should talk to his wife from time to time. Not all the time.

She'll wonder what's gotten into you. And there are still some practical issues that do need to be discussed. And so if you talk like this when she's wanting to know about balancing the checkbook or, you know, who's going to pick up the kids, she'll get frustrated. So it's got to be, You've got to choose the right times. Job 38.

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle? What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain and a path for the thunderstorm? To water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass? Does the rain have a father?

That's a poetical question, isn't it? That's poetry. I mean, it doesn't have to rhyme or anything. It's just the image. Does the rain have a father?

Well, what's the answer to the question? Yes, it's God. God is the Father of the rain. It's just an interesting way to put it. Who fathers the drops of dew?

From whose womb comes the ice? Who gives birth to the frost from the heavens when the waters become hard as stone and when the surface of the deep is frozen? It's very sensory, isn't it? You get a sense of the sights and the sounds and the feeling on your skin of frost. It brings you there and puts you there.

That's language, it's poetry. All right, what are some elements of Hebrew poetry? Well, there's visionary elements. What do I mean by that? When you close your eyes, an image comes in your mind.

I think the most visionary scripture, perhaps in the whole Bible, is the book of Isaiah. Isaiah saw things. I think the apocalypse of Revelation also is that way. But if you read an average passage of Isaiah, you close your eyes, images are going to come up in your mind. Just listen to the beginning of Isaiah.

The vision concerning Judah and Jerusalem that Isaiah son of Amos saw. Now what does that tell you? The vision that he saw. It's like he first saw it and then he wrote it. So it's a picture.

He's trying to put a picture into words. Well what do you use to put a picture into words but poetry? You're describing it as best you can. During the reigns of Uzziah, Jothamahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, Hear O heavens, listen O earth, for the Lord has spoken. I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me.

The ox knows it's his master, the donkey its owner's manger, But Israel does not know, my people do not understand. Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption. They have forsaken the Lord. They have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him. Why should you be beaten anymore?

Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted. From the sole of your foot to the top of your head there's no soundness. Only wounds and welts and open sores not cleansed or bandaged or soothed with oil. If you look at that, what image is in your mind?

If you just were to close your eyes and listen to that, what do you picture? Why should you be beaten anymore? Why do you persist in rebellion? Your whole head is injured, your whole heart afflicted from the sole of your foot to the top of your head. You're covered with wounds and welts and open sores.

What picture do you get in your mind? All right, Christ to the cross. Ultimately, he's the one who takes that for us. I get a picture of just a man who's beaten up, Like a car wreck, a guy who's been in a car wreck. And what is the picture of?

Here in Isaiah 1, not ultimately in redemptive history, as our brother reminded us of Christ and the cross, but here, who's the one that's beaten up? The nation of Israel. The nation of Israel, Why? Because they've been in rebellion and God's been beating them up. Now this is no permission for child abuse.

I'm not saying that. What I am saying is that this is the image that you have in your mind here. Your country is desolate, your cities burned with fire, your fields are being stripped by foreigners right before you laid waste as an overthrown by strangers. That is the beating up that Israel has been enduring. You see, invasion.

People have been coming, invading. I like this, the daughter of Zion is left like a shelter in a vineyard, like a hut in a field of melons, like a city under siege. And it's really amazing how that's written. Isaiah 1.8, you get the picture of a hut in a field of melons. I was in Romania and I saw a perfect example of a hut in a field of melons.

I said, I've got to get a picture of it. And it's like this flat thing with this vine, it was not seasoned for melons. So the whole ground is flat and there's this hut, all by a little self, you know, just hut right there. And everything else flat. And you get the image also then of Jerusalem where the entire country has been laid waste and is conquered by the Assyrians.

Everything's gone. There's just Jerusalem left, like a city under siege. That's exactly what he's talking about. There's an image in your mind. This is poetry.

It's visionary poetry is what it is. Isaiah uses it better than anyone, I think. Another aspect of Hebrew poetry is repetition with restatement. In other words, they say the same thing again and again with slightly different words. Oh, Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath." Just look at that.

What's the difference between rebuke me in your anger and discipline me in your wrath? Well, you'd be splitting hairs to find much of a difference. Okay? I mean, there is a difference, I guess, between being rebuked and disciplined. I don't think there's much of a difference between anger and wrath except a matter of degrees perhaps.

He's just restating it. Do you see? Do not rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your wrath. Be merciful to me Lord for I am faint. Oh Lord heal me for my bones are in agony.

So again there's restatement but there's an improvement here, more information. My soul is in anguish. How long, oh Lord, how long? So this is the sense of repetition and a prayer for help. Psalm 150, this is very clear.

This is the final psalm. Praise the Lord. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty heavens. Praise Him for His acts of power.

Praise Him for His surpassing greatness. Praise Him with the sounding of the trumpet. Praise Him with the harp and lyre. Praise Him with tambourine and dancing. Praise Him with the strings and the flute.

Praise him with the clash of symbols, praise him with resounding symbols, let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord. That's repetition. Do you not see it? I mean, he's urging you to do what? Do you get it?

What is he urging you to do? Praise the Lord. Okay. You know, that's pretty obvious. And he's really driving it home.

You need to praise the Lord. But it's poetry. There's that repetition. Then there's acrostics. Do you have that rightly dividing thing I gave you?

This thing got stuck with it. All right, one of the things that Hebrew poets like to do are acrostics. Like you did when you were a boy. For Mother's Day, you spell out M-O-T-H-E-R. M stands for something, and O stands for something.

Did you do that, Scott? Maybe you didn't do that. No? Nothing like that, probably? All right?

Anyway, that's acrostics. You take the letter, and it spells something out. That's really good preaching. I'm just kidding. I've seen people do that kind of thing.

It's always interesting. I don't know. Like in my denomination, they have something, the evangelistic campaign. What is that? Starts with faith, the faith, F-A-I-T-H.

And they start with forgiveness. That's strange, a strange place to start. I think you'd want to start with God and go from that to man and in that talk about our sin and then the need for forgiveness and then get to Christ. And you start with forgiveness because that's the first letter in the word faith, and you want people to remember the outline. So acrostic's bringing it to difficulty.

But when you are inspired by the Holy Spirit, you can do them. And so there are many acrostic poems in the Bible. They do not translate at all. Understand that. They cannot translate.

Why can't they translate? This is after lunch. I'm trying to see if you guys are still awake. Because they're acrostics, and that's the point. You have to take the letters in Hebrew and make something out of that.

That's right. I mean, they're different words in English. And so they're not going to begin all with the same letter. They can't. It's impossible.

God just ruined acrostic translation at the Tower of Babel. I mean, that just can't happen. So, what do the editors do? They just tell us. This poem is an acrostic poem, in which every little, you know, that's what they tell you.

And it doesn't do us any good, but it's just good to know that they were trying to do that. So, Psalm 119 is the best. Did I give you that? I'll give you Lamentations and Psalm. All right, Psalm 119.

Psalm 119, yeah, here it is. All right, basically there are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each letter gets eight verses worth. So they get eight verses that all begin with the same letter, Aleph, the first one, and then Beth, and then Gimmel, and then Daleth. And so eight verses, eight, eight, eight, eight.

And you might think, wow, how did they do that? And it really is an intellectual achievement. It really is quite remarkable to be able to pull something like that off. And here the Hebrew poet did it. And in most English Bibles, you even get the Hebrew letter printed on the page.

Do you ever wonder about that? Why does it say olive here, you know, with the little thing, thingy? Looks like an X. Why do they put that? Because each one of those eight verses began with that letter.

Alright, what about Bathe? Same thing. You see this even more though in the Book of Lamentations. The whole book is an acrostic. The whole thing.

Chapter one, we go through 22 letters. Olive, Bathe, Gamel, Doth. Chapter two, same thing. He does it again. Chapter three is 66 verses long.

So what does he do there? He's like, it's not hard enough. He's going to triple it. And so the first three verses in Lamentations 3 begin with Olive. The next three begin with Bath.

The next three, he's tripling the thing. It's really amazing. And that it reads with such cogency and makes sense in English shows how intellectually difficult it is to pull this off. We are really, we can't access it in English. So I gave it to you in Hebrew.

There it is. And I highlighted the letters for those of you that forget that we read from right to left in Hebrew. So there they are. There's all the olives. Do you see them?

And the baits. If you don't have your sheet, look at it when you get home or whatever. This is amazing. Just be in amazement at the intellectual achievement of this poetry. But it is poetry.

Thank you, brother. Acrostics. Oh, the depths of the riches. Oh, the depths of the riches. Thank you.

That's very, very true. Acrostics. Alright, parallelism. What is parallelism? It's saying the same thing twice, parallel tracks.

I hate to use a very negative example here in Genesis 4, but there it is. Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Zilla, listen to me. Wives of Lamech, hear my words. OK, That's parallelism. Do you see it?

Ada and Zilla are his wives. OK? The wives of Lamech. Listen to me and hear my words are the same thing. Do you see it?

It's parallelism. So it's saying the same thing twice in slightly different words. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for injuring me. That's parallelism. Progressive parallelism.

But there it is. We learn more in the second time. If Cain is avenged seven times, then Lamech seventy-seven times. We see it especially, however, in the book of Proverbs. Proverbs uses parallelism all the time.

There's six types. B.H. Carroll gave them to us and they're listed out here. Synonymous parallelism is a parallelism in which the members are alike in meaning. Proverbs 11.25 says, a generous man will prosper, he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed.

So that's synonymous parallelism, the members are alike in meaning. Antithetic is where we have something contrasting. Alright, Proverbs 10.16 is, the wages of the righteous bring them life, but the income of the wicked brings them punishment. So there's parallelism, wages and income, but we have opposite outcome, and we have wicked and righteous, etc. So There's parallelism there.

Proverbs 10.24, What the wicked dreads will overtake him, what the righteous desire will be granted. Proverbs 10.24, this is synthetic. Different truth, but a common connecting link. What is the connecting link in the first half and the second half of Proverbs 10.24? Anticipation.

It's either dread or desire, right? What the wicked dreads will overtake them, what the righteous desire will overtake them, will be granted to them. So both cases you get what you're anticipating, but The wicked gets a negative thing. The righteous gets something positive. This is a big theme, huge theme, in the book of Hebrews.

If you reject Christ, nothing is left but the fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire will consume the enemies of God. So what am I doing right now? Right here in the middle of a thing on poetry and I'm going over to Christ. What the wicked dreads will overtake him? How so?

On judgment day, because they've not come to faith in Christ, because they rejected the Gospel, judgment comes down on top of them. But the righteous, What do we get? Well, we get a city with foundations, as builder and maker as God. We've been yearning for it all our lives. We're aliens and strangers here.

We've been looking forward to that world all this time, and we're going to get it. Praise God. Proverbs 10, 24. So we can go make a beeline to the cross or to Christ. Powerful.

Anyway, integral or progressive or climactic, a parallelism in which the last member completes a thought or another gradation expected by the first. It gets bigger and bigger, Proverbs 13, 14. The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a man from the snares of death. Many examples of these parallelism. Introverted, a parallelism in which the first line corresponds to the fourth and the second with a third.

By the way, one of the big themes all the time in Hebrew poetry is this idea of chiasm. You get four lines, and the first and the fourth correspond, and the second and third correspond. Or you could have five, and you get one with five, two with four, and three is the main idea and the main point. That happens too. It has to do with structure.

One thing that bothers me about chiasms is that these commentary writers find them in everything. Everything's a chiasm. The whole Bible maybe is a chiasm. They're always finding it. Once you start looking for it, it's like when you have a hammer, the whole world looks like a nail.

All right? So they're always looking for chiasms. All right? Where was I? Introverted.

All right. My son, if your heart is wise, then my heart will be glad. My inmost being will rejoice when your lips speak what is right. Do you see it? It's there.

First and fourth, my son, if your heart is wise, the last part is when your lips speak what is right. Do you see that? Middle part. My heart will be glad, my inmost being will rejoice. Do you see that?

So there's a kind of an X structure there. And then emblematic or parabolic paralism in which a lesson is drawn from natural objects. As vinegar to the teeth and smoke to the eyes, so is a slugger to those who send him. Have you ever put vinegar on your teeth? I know you've had smoke in your eyes.

It's funny, when I go camping, the smoke always finds me. It doesn't matter where, 360 degrees around the fire, the wind shifts slightly and it's going right for me. Has that ever happened to you? Maybe it's just me. Maybe the wind is just swirling all the time and no matter where you stand you get it.

Who knows. But at any rate, it's taking something from everyday life, something that you can experience and then connecting to your experience and teaching truth. That's Proverbs, alright? Then there's a simile, Deuteronomy 32. Simile is where God is compared to something using the word like or as For the Lord's portion is his people Jacob his allotted inheritance in a desert land He found him in a barren and howling waste.

He shielded him and cared for him, he guarded him as the apple of his eye like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions. So what is God being compared to here? An eagle doing what? Caring for his young. That's right.

An eagle caring for the young. Protecting. It's a similar because it uses the word like. Or Proverbs 21, 1, the king's heart is in the hand of the Lord. He directs it like a water course wherever he pleases.

It's a picture of God just moving the river. It's a very, very powerful picture, but it's poetical. And then there's metaphor, Proverbs 18, 10, 11. This is where God is compared to something without using the word like or as. The name of the Lord is a strong tower.

The righteous run to it and are safe. Can you get from that verse to the cross? Jason, how would you do that? The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous run to it and are kept safe.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. And so there's a very strong connection there to the Romans 10, et cetera. The wealth of the rich is their fortified city. They imagine it to be an unscalable wall. So their wealth is likened to a fortified city, but not really, Because it really isn't an unscalable wall, it can come crumbling down.

And then there's representative language in which something represents God. Psalm 48 is really interesting because it's meditating on Zion and all that, but in the end you get the feeling that you're really meditating on God and the greatness of God. And it happens at the end. It says, Like your name, O God, Your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness.

Mount Zion rejoices. The villages of Judah are glad because of your judgments. Now look at this, verse 12 and following. Walk around Zion, walk about Zion, go around her counter towers, consider well her ramparts, view her citadels that you may tell of them to the next generation, for this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our guide even to the end.

So You're basically being taken in your mind on a tour of the city, going around and looking up at the wall, you see? Here's a guard tower, here's a strong section of wall, here's another guard tower, here's the mighty gate, here's the other part here. Look at this and what are you supposed to be thinking about the whole time? The strength of what? Of the city?

No, it says, this is our God. A mighty fortress is our God. A bulwark never failing. You're supposed to think great thoughts of God, not of Jerusalem. It's that God is this mighty.

He is the one that's powerful, etc. Alright, those are various elements of Hebrew poetry. Now let's work together on a text, shall we? Let's look at Psalm 84. Turn in your Bibles there to Psalm 84 and...

First of all, let's talk about the old covenant. Let's talk about pilgrimage in the old covenant. Okay, what is this Psalm referring to? It says, How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty. My soul yearns even faints for the courts of the Lord.

Do you see it? My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the sparrow has found a home and a swallow, a nest for herself where she may have her young a place near your altar. You see it? Oh Lord Almighty, my King and my God.

Blessed are those who dwell in your house. They're ever praising you. What is the Old Testament shadow here? What are we talking about? The temple.

It's the temple. It's talking about the temple. All right? Look at verse 10. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked. Do you see that? So it's talking about the temple. Now, was there a pilgrimage in the old covenant to the temple? Three times a year, All of the men were commanded to leave their homes and travel and go to the one place that God had chosen from among all the tribes, the place where he would put his name.

God talked about this in the book of Deuteronomy and what place did he choose where he would put his name? There'd be the arch of the covenant. Well that was the arch, but then David had in his mind to build a temple. Was that commendable? Did God commend it?

Was God in favor of it? Absolutely. Although he does raise it to the next level. You want to build a house for me, David? I'm going to build a house for you.

That has all kinds of implications concerning Christ, right? Because David is the ancestor of Christ and etc. We'll get there. But at any rate, Solomon built that house. God chose Jerusalem to be the place where he would put his name.

13. And so three times a year the Jewish males were to make a pilgrimage. 14. What do you think that looked like? I mean they're leaving their businesses, they're leaving their farms, they're leaving...

And they're going. They're going up to... It's always up to Jerusalem. I was going up because it's a mountain. And so in Psalms 120 to 134 you have the songs of ascents.

And they're psalms that they would sing on the way. And you know you can imagine there's no buses or planes, you know you're not taking the flight from Tel Aviv over to Jerusalem, you're going to walk or travel on a donkey maybe, etcetera, but you're going to travel and you're going to be surrounded by a lot of other people. All the men of your village, you probably go together And it's really a time of fellowship, right? And you're talking and you sing these songs. It's like the hymn book, Songs of a Sense.

Now, this isn't strictly speaking one of the songs of a sense, but you can see how it fits. Their destination, they're thinking about their destination, right? They want to go to Zion. They want to go to the temple of God. And it's a blessed place, et cetera.

Now what do we get out of this whole Old Covenant shadow? We'll get to New Covenant reality, but the Old Covenant shadow, what attitudes and emotions are in the heart of the psalmist here as he writes this? What does he feel about this pilgrimage? He's anticipating being in God's presence. He wants to be close to God.

Okay? Other attitudes or feelings you get out of this, just from an old covenant perspective. You're a Jewish man, you're going to travel up to the Temple. Is the journey going to be easy? No, it's going to be a difficult journey.

As they pass through the Valley of Baka, it's a place of weeping, right? It's not an easy thing. Bokeem is weeping, etc. And there's a connection there. So the journey might be difficult, but you know it's worth it?

It's worth it because of what you get at the end. I'd rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God. I get to be with God, et cetera. And as they're traveling, they're praising God. And they're able to go from strength to strength till each appears before God and Zion.

Anything else from an old covenant perspective as you get this? Okay. As they're going, they're yearning for God. Do you see a yearning for God here? A yearning to be in the presence of God.

Verses one through four, right? Why does he talk about the sparrow and the swallow? Even the sparrow has found a home, a place. What is that telling us about God? Provision God provides?

Would a sparrow come and nest on your shoulder? Not likely. It's a place of safety. It speaks really of the gentleness of God. God is a home, a dwelling place, a place where you can feel comfortable, a place where you can feel at ease.

You know, She's nesting there and she can have her young. It's a comfortable place. Did you ever read the children's book, Make Way for Ducklings? You know, they're looking for a place where they can nest, right? And they can't find any place.

It's too dangerous. And they finally find a place of security, a place of safety. That's God for us. A place of gentleness, a place of safety. All right?

And as they're pilgrimaging, they're pilgrimaging to be with God. Verse 8 and 9, as they're going, what are they praying about? Hear my prayer, O Lord God Almighty. Listen to me, O God of Jacob. Look upon our shield, O God.

Look with favor on your anointed one. What is that talking about? Watching over them. Watching over them. Who's the anointed one?

Who's the shield, the anointed one that they're praying for? We'll get there, brother. Not yet. We're still in the old covenant. It's real.

The king. The king. I think it's the king. Weren't the kings anointed? So they're praying for the king.

All right. Is the king a picture of Christ? Yes. We'll get there in a minute. All right.

But yes, they're praying for their king. Why would they pray for their king? Look with favor on our king, please. Look with favor on our shield. Why would they want that?

Go ahead. They did it real justly. Okay. Go ahead. Yeah, if you have a righteous king and things are going well, the nation is going to be going well, and if not, it won't.

Now, the word shield, the word shield is a metaphor frequently for a king, okay? It's somebody who is a benefactor who provides you with your protection, he provides you with food, etc. Why is that important? It's going to say at the end, the Lord is a sun and a shield. Same Hebrew word, magen.

And so God is a shield means that God is a benefactor king. He protects us. So they're praying for the king as they go and they celebrate life at the temple, life that's blessed by God. So that's the outline from the old covenant point of view. How do we bring all this over into the new covenant?

The temple. What went on at the temple? What do they do at the temple? Sacrifice, sacrificial system. Is there any point of contact with Jesus there?

See this is where the lunch kicks in guys. Alright, come on, come on, come on. Alright, let's go. Is there a connection from the blood sacrifice, animal sacrifice to Jesus? Say yes.

He is the final sacrifice. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Is there a connection between the temple and Jesus? Yes. Okay.

What is the connection between the temple and Jesus? Destroy this temple and I will rebuild it in three days, right? What's the temple? Jesus is the temple. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins.

What about the pilgrimage? What's the connection between the pilgrimage and Jesus? Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way? And what did Jesus say? I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father. You want to do a pilgrimage? I am the road you travel. Me. He is the pilgrimage.

Can we find Jesus in Psalm 84? I think we can. If it weren't after lunch, you guys would be all over it. Okay? Animal sacrifice, there's a connection.

The temple, there's a connection. He's the pilgrimage, There's a connection. What about the people you're traveling with? Is there a connection in the New Covenant with them? Brothers and sisters in Christ, the Church, we exhort each other, we sing, we praise, we're together, we be sure that everyone makes it through.

Nobody's lost on the journey. They all make it from strength to strength until each one of them appears in Zion. There's definitely a new covenant connection. Okay? How about the future?

What about our future heavenly life? Is there any connection of all of this to the future? Where are we heading in this life of ours, huh? We're on a pilgrimage to heaven, aren't we? We're just aliens and strangers here.

We confess that we're pilgrims moving through. Go ahead. We're going through the valley of tears. Yeah. It's a hard time.

All right. It's a time, whatever, But we have our hearts set on the pilgrimage and even more on the God who's waiting for us at the end. And we want to be in his house. And what's so sweet about thinking about eternity here? What does it say?

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere. What has God promised us in Christ? Not one day in his courts. What's he promising? Eternity in his courts.

That will trip your breaker. The Psalmist says it's better one day. If I could just have one day in heaven, what would you pay, by the way, if you could have this year, 2007, one day in heaven? Scott, what would you pay for that privilege? Not that he'll give it to you, probably won't.

But if you were to be caught up to the third heaven, what would that be worth to you? Would it change your preaching? Would it change your perspective on things? I mean, of course, would you be willing to have the thorn in the flesh to keep you from being exceedingly proud because of the vision that was given to you? Now, that's a whole different question, OK?

The Apostle Paul was able to see things that he couldn't put into words. It was so incredible. And the psalmist here is saying, just the temple, which is just the earthly shadow, the reality is Christ, was still a great place to be. It really was. It was a place of peace, a place of security, a place where we felt close to God.

I want to be there. And so three times a year they would travel up and be there and there was a sense of excitement and fellowship and unity. All right. And how does the Psalm end? How does it end?

O Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you. Before that it says, the Lord God is a sun and a shield. The Lord bestows, I need to get a different translation than NIV here. A middle of verse 11. Somebody read verse 11 in either ESV, KJV, something else.

For the Lord God is the Son and Shield, the Lord will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from them that walk upright. Fantastic. What's that translation? King James.

That's King James. Grace and glory. How about grace then glory? How's that? That is awesome, isn't it?

He's going to give you grace so that you can have glory. And that's awesome. And you need grace for this pilgrimage, don't you? For this journey that we're on? You need grace for it.

And so He's going to bestow upon you grace and glory. And no good thing does He withhold from them who walk uprightly. Wow. Is that comprehensive? Some of you are like, well, I'm missing some things.

I was talking to a brother earlier, he was trying to sell a house and be reunited with his family. No good thing, Dana, does he withhold? You're trusting him for this, aren't you? But it's in his good timing. No good thing does he withhold?

What if in the end you never get the good thing you're holding out for? What does that say? For you at least it wasn't a good thing or else you would have gotten it. He knows what's good for you even though you think if I could have these 16 things I would be happy. And it's like the Lord knows what's good for you and no good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly.

And so that's a beautiful promise. And then in the end, he focuses on how we make the journey. Oh, Lord Almighty, blessed is the man who trusts in you. That's the nature of our pilgrimage. It's an ongoing trust in Christ, a constant trust in the living God.

No good thing to see with hold from those who are walking like this, trusting in Christ, focusing on him. Now as we look across Psalm 84, do you see poetical expressions here? Poetry, the whole thing is a psalm, it's a poem, but what poetical expressions do you see here? Having a highway in your heart, that's a poetical expression. OK.

Other things? How does that translate to reality? A highway in your heart, what precept is there? Didn't Jesus say, don't look here or there or the other place for the kingdom for behold the kingdom of God is within you within you and I think the kingdom of God is something that he builds in our hearts I think it's something that he erects through sanctification through faith in Christ we have this treasure in in jars of clay don't we? How's your jar of clay doing?

Aging, right? Getting older, losing capability, but yet we are renewed day by day, strengthened in Christ internally, right? Until at last we see him face to face. Any other poetical images here? Do you see any metaphor, the Lord is?

Do you see anything like that? The Lord is a sun. What is that? How is God a sun? There is no darkness.

He is light. He gives light. Is that literal? Well, it will be in the New Jerusalem apparently, because there's not going to be any sun, for the Lord God will give it light. So that's about as literal as it gets.

I had this like Chinese PhD student, who was trying to disprove Christianity, and we were talking, meeting together, and all that. He was giving me an interesting time about Genesis chapter 1. And he said, God says, let there be light, but he doesn't create the sun until the fourth day. And I said, let me ask you a question. I said, you work in biology there in Duke and all that.

Is there a botany section or lab anywhere in Duke? He said, yeah. He said, do there happen to be any labs down in the basement where there are no windows? He said, yeah. I said, well, how do the plants grow?

He said, well, they set up lights with the ultraviolet and all that, and the lights give whatever they need. He's saying, you tell me that human beings can do something without the sun, but God doesn't know what to do until the fourth day. I'm kind of stuck. I wanted there to be light, but the sun just wouldn't come. It's late now.

Finally on the fourth day, we get the sun. God can do light. He's able to do light. He just delegated the job on the fourth day to the sun, right? Sorry, now you take it over, right?

God is able to be a son. All right. And he doesn't need it in the New Jerusalem. He won't need it at all. He'll be the son.

All right. Any other poetical images in Psalm 84 that minister to you? You get the sense of kneeling down on your hands and knees and drinking some mountain fresh spring water. That's refreshing. I like the image of longing here.

13. My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord. 14. There's a sense of yearning there. For more messages, articles, and videos on the subject of conforming the church and the family to the word of God and for more information about the National Center for Family Integrated Churches where you