Intro: [gentle music] Welcome to the Spoken Gospel podcast. This is our attempt to speak the gospel out of every corner of scripture. We believe every part of the Bible, Old Testament and New, is about Jesus, and this podcast is our experiment to publicly test that belief. Let's jump in. [upbeat music]
David: All right, well, welcome everybody to the Spoken Gospel podcast.
Seth: Happy New Year.
David: Happy New Year, and-
Seth: Brand new, 2019.
David: Brand new. [laughs] Brand spanking-
Seth: [laughs]
David: ... baby New Year. Is that a thing, baby New Year?
Seth: Baby New Year. My sister-
David: Your sister is baby New Year?
Seth: Would've been-
David: No
Seth: ... baby New Year if my mom could've held in her labor for another two hours.
David: Two hours?
Seth: She was born on December 31st.
David: Aw.
Seth: And the doctors literally told her, it was like, "Just, just, just, if you just keep the baby in, you could, your baby could be in the newspaper." And my mom looked at them like they were crazy.
David: Like... [laughs]
Seth: [laughs] Like, "I have control of my body in this moment."
David: [laughs]
Seth: And then had the baby on New Year's Eve.
David: Oh, my gosh. Well, that sounds fun.
Seth: Yeah, that's why she also doesn't get any Christmas presents, 'cause it's too... Any birthday presents.
David: No birthday presents.
Seth: Because it's too close to Christmas.
David: So does she get double Christmas presents?
Seth: No.
David: What?
Seth: Basic- I mean, her par- my mom and dad get her presents, obviously.
David: Yeah.
Seth: But as brothers, we were like, "Oh, we, we, we-"
David: You're like, "Eh, you know, I just got you this Christmas present."
Seth: [laughs] We just got you something. [laughs]
David: Take it easy, sis. Okay. Well, cool. Well, um, that has nothing at all to do with what we're-
Seth: The Psalms
David: ... doing today. We're s- like, we, we're starting officially the Psalms. We started last week with Jeff Vanderstelt. Uh, he kind of-
Seth: Yes
David: ... opened it up for us. We talked about gospel fluency. We talked about, like, some s-
Seth: I just loved that whole podcast.
David: Oh, my gosh, dude. It was amazing.
Seth: If you haven't listened to it, you should.
David: You should definitely go back and listen to last week's episode.
Seth: You should follow him on Twitter.
David: Follow Jeff Vanderstelt.
Seth: He's a kind man.
David: Buy his books. He's amazing. After we went off air-
Seth: He was just, like, pastoring us and encouraging us.
David: He was just pastoring us. [laughs]
Seth: So just-
David: After we got off air
Seth: ... by all, by all of his things. [laughs]
David: Just, he's amazing. It was so good. I was so encouraged by that. But today we're gonna start, um, with Psalm 1. Now, don't be deceived, my dear listener friends. We're not doing all 150 psalms. I don't know if that either brings you great relief or great despair, but I don't wanna mislead you either way.
Seth: We're just gonna be doing the kinds of psalms.
David: Right.
Seth: The genres of psalms-
David: Right
Seth: ... within the Psalms.
David: Yep.
Seth: So Psalm, like, wisdom psalms.
David: Wisdom psalms are today.
Seth: Torah psalms.
David: Yep.
Seth: Lament psalms. Imprecatory psalms.
David: Yep.
Seth: And so we have eight-
David: Thanksgiving, praise.
Seth: So eight different-
David: Eight of them, yep
Seth: ... categories of psalms-
David: Yep
Seth: ... that we'll be doing over the next eight weeks.
David: And they're broken down, uh, you know, depending on who you read, people break them down either more generally or more specifically. Like, some people have, have done, like, just lament, praise, and thanksgiving, I think is the-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... three broadest categories, right?
Seth: Yep.
David: And then, then you can get super, like, granular with, like, this is an individual lament psalm of David.
Seth: Yes.
David: And that's, like, a category.
Seth: Right.
David: Subgroup. But we're not getting that granular.
Seth: We just wanna give you-
David: We're getting somewhere in between. [laughs]
Seth: We wanna give you a sense of the types of things that the Psalm has to offer for Christians-
David: Yep
Seth: ... as their, as their book of prayer and their-
David: Right
Seth: ... book of praise, and specifically, how our lament, how our praise, how our-
David: Thanksgiving
Seth: ... thanksgiving points us back to and sees, sees Jesus more clearly.
David: Right. Yep.
Seth: So that's the goal.
David: Yep.
Seth: And so we're gonna do that by giving you eight different genres, but also working through them canon- in canonical order.
David: Right.
Seth: Yeah, so what you need to know is that the Psalms are broken up into five individual books.
David: Right, which is significant.
Seth: Which is significant, and they kind of track over the history of Israel.
David: Yep.
Seth: So book one is Psalm 1 to 41.
David: Okay.
Seth: And it charts David's rise to power, normally through some degree of affliction and suffering. Think about Saul chasing him-
David: Oh, yeah. Right
Seth: ... in the wilderness.
David: Yep.
Seth: Book two is Psalm 42 to 72, and it's David's reign to Solomon, some of the golden years.
David: The golden years.
Seth: Uh, the golden years of Israel.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And then book three is Psalm 73 to 89, which is Solomon to the destruction of the temple.
David: The not so golden years.
Seth: The not so golden years.
David: [laughs]
Seth: Some of the golden years.
David: The bronze, the bronze years.
Seth: But it is the da- the slow downfall of the King of Israel. Book four is Psalm 90 to 106, and that is, um-
David: So, like, e-
Seth: ... like, exile
David: ... exile. Yeah.
Seth: It's like, it's like exilic reflections on-
David: Right
Seth: ... Yahweh's past deliverance.
David: Right.
Seth: What God did previously to Israel.
David: Is there a lot of Asaph there?
Seth: There is.
David: Okay.
Seth: Yeah, and you also start, so in the beginning of the Psalms, you have all of David's psalms, like, front loaded.
David: Right.
Seth: And you, those trickle off the further you get-
David: Oh, I see. Okay
Seth: ... get into it. And then-
David: And then book five?
Seth: Book five is basi- is hope in Yahweh's future deliverance.
David: Okay. And that, and at the end, there's all those thanksgiving psalms-
Seth: Yes
David: ... and, and everything like that. And, and am I right? I'm, I'm trying to remember, 'cause I think you looked at this more than I did. But at the end of each book, except for book five, each book ends in a doxology.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Right.
Seth: There's a really similar refrain at the end of each book, which essentially, "Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord for all of his works and all that he's done."
David: Yeah.
Seth: Like, there's this psalm, and if you read in your Bible, it's gonna show you, book one.
David: Right.
Seth: Book two. Book three. It's gonna-
David: Th- this isn't something that we're just like-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... you have to, like, see through the lines. It's very, like, intentional and obvious.
Seth: And it's also part of the original text itself.
David: Right.
Seth: It divides it itself according to these books.
David: Right.
Seth: So there's been a lot of scholarly debate about how do you actually, what's actually important about the five books.
David: Right.
Seth: But...
David: Well, I think something that w- is important for us to note right off the top with the five books that will also inform our reading of, we're doing Torah, or wisdom psalms today, in Psalm 1. But what's interesting to point out is that I think everyone agrees that the five books of the Psalter echo and mirror the five books of the Torah, the Pentateuch, right? The first five books-
Seth: Yep
David: ... of the Bible, right? Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. It's like, that was the, that was the Bible of the Old Testament people. You know, that's the core and crux of their sacred scriptures, and the Psalms mirror that, right?
Seth: Yeah.
David: Okay.
Seth: These are-
Seth: The king's reflections, Israel's reflections on Yahweh's faithfulness.
David: Right.
Seth: And so we're about to read Psalm 1, and we'll just read the whole thing. It's only six verses.
David: Yep.
Seth: And it's an explanation of the centrality of the Torah for the good and blessed life.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So it ma- and it's acts as an introduction to the entire psalter. So it's introducing us-
David: Right
Seth: ... the good life is one based on the Torah, so it makes sense that the five books of the Psalms relate to the five books of the Torah.
David: Right. Yeah.
Seth: That's, that's the-
David: Yeah, and so it's, uh, and, and another thing that most people agree on with Psalm 1 is that it has been placed here, along with probably the second one. There's no superscription, so there's no author. Uh, we're not told that this is a Psalm of David or anything, uh, because it actually is meant to act as a preface, an introduction to the whole psalter. Um, a- and interestingly, um, that's why, um, in, and I think it's in Acts, or somewhere in the New Testament, they reference the second Psalm, what we know as Psalm 2, they quote it, but they say, "In the first Psalm."
Seth: Yeah.
David: But they're actually quoting Psalm 2, and the reason for that is because Psalm 1 wasn't really Psalm 1. It was the preface, and you don't count the preface as chapter one.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so Psalm 1 and Psalm 2, and we'll talk about this next week when we talk about Psalm 2.
David: We're gonna do Psalm 2 next week, yeah.
Seth: And how these two are meant to be read together.
David: Yes.
Seth: And how the vision of the good life w- that is grounded in the reading of God's word and God's Torah is meant to be exemplified by the leader and king of God's people.
David: Mm.
Seth: The king of God's people is supposed to exemplify and be this messianic figure for the people of Israel. He's supposed to be the exemplary Israelite.
David: Right.
Seth: The one who does the law perfectly-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... for Israel.
David: But then we s- as we see-
Seth: [laughs]
David: ... in the shape of the psalter, as you've already outlined, that fails.
Seth: That fails.
David: Yeah. There's a, there's the decline out of the monarchy, David's moral failures. You know, later on he'll talk a lot about like, "Oh, forgive me, for I've sinned, you know, blot out my iniquity." And now then they're in exile, and then there's hope for future return. So this, this perfect leader, this perfect king isn't here.
Seth: Right.
David: Yeah. Okay.
Seth: So you open up the salt- Psalms, and you read Psalm 1 and Psalm 2, and what you see is the vision of the good life and the vision of the good king. The hope for Israel as they open up the psalter and they read back into the Old Testament is that if I ground my life on the word, and if there's a king who lives up to the expectations and commands of the word, we will be like trees-
David: Mm
Seth: ... planted by rivers of, uh, rivers of running water.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Fruitful and good and healthy, like we're back in the Garden of Eden, which we'll talk about in just a-
David: We'll talk about that
Seth: ... in a second.
David: Yeah
Seth: So that's what's happening right here.
David: All right. Well, let's jump in and read Psalm 1. [gentle music] Okay, so Psalm 1, I'm gonna read out of the ESV here, says this: "Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law he meditates day and night."
Seth: So let's talk about those two verses.
David: Okay, sure, yeah. Let's talk about it.
Seth: Let's talk about those two verses.
David: Okay.
Seth: So what, when you're reading this, what do you notice?
David: Well, I mean, right off the bat, I notice the word blessed.
Seth: Blessed.
David: Like, right, which is a weird word that, I mean, #blessed.
Seth: [laughs]
David: Like, it's been, it's been, like, really used loosely. Uh, I think of it like, uh, "Oh, man, you know, I'm just, I'm just blessed." You know, like, people use it like that. People use it often for, like, monetary, like, to reference things that are monetary.
Seth: Right.
David: Like, "Oh, we just-"
Seth: I'm so rich.
David: I'm so rich.
Seth: I'm so blessed.
David: I'm so blessed.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Like, God's really blessed me financially. Like, so it's, it's l- a loaded term for a lot of people, but I know that a lot of translations use, uh, translate this word happy.
Seth: Happy is the man.
David: Happy is the man. So it's, it's this, it's this life of, of peace with God, contentment with him, relationship with him, probably characterized by the Hebrew idea of shalom, peace.
Seth: Peace, right.
David: Relationship, covenant, covenant peace with God. Um, so that, I mean, that jumps off the page right away for me.
Seth: Yeah.
David: What about you?
Seth: I think, well, I notice the phrases walks, stands, and sits.
David: Yeah, super interesting.
Seth: So you say, "Blessed is the man who walks not-"
David: Right.
Seth: And he's kind of-
David: Who doesn't do these three things
Seth: ... who doesn't do these three things.
David: Right.
Seth: And he's walking, standing, and sitting. So there's this type of overfamiliarity with the ways of evil. There's this standing, placing yourself near-
David: Yep
Seth: ... observing, uh, being a party to-
David: Right
Seth: ... um, like taking notes on-
David: Yep
Seth: ... the way of the world. And then also sitting in the seat of scoffers, like making yourself comfortable with-
David: Right
Seth: ... cynicism and skepticism about God.
David: Yeah. It's like a progression.
Seth: Yeah.
David: It's like, it's like, oh, I kinda, like, walked through that life, right? And then-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... and then I kinda stopped in the dead center of it, and I was like, "Oh, this is kinda comfy. Maybe I'll stand here for a bit." And then eventually you just plop down, and that's where you live now.
Seth: Oh, I hadn't thought about it. Yeah.
David: Yeah. It's like passing through, stopping, and planting.
Seth: I was thinking about the opposite. I was thinking walking is the one that's like this habitual pattern-
David: Oh, yeah
Seth: ... of continuing.
David: I think, I think it's even mirrored in, uh, wicked, sinners, and scoffers is kind of a little difficult for us to see a progression, but, um, I r- I read that, that, like, wicked i- is, is more about, like, i- is, it's less of a loaded term than we have.
Seth: Yeah.
David: It's, it's more of, like, the, the-
Seth: Troublemakers
David: ... troublemakers.
Seth: Mischief makers.
David: Yeah. And then-
Seth: Hooligans
David: ... and then sinners are those who, um, have made a, a habit of sinning, right? So they're sinning intentionally, but then scoffers are those who sin for the point of scoffing at those who would try to follow God's law. And so they're actually, their sin is ant- uh, uh, like antithetical towards your righteousness.
Seth: Right.
David: So it's actually a progression of, like, who you're hanging out with too. So it's like, don't just walk through the camps of the mischief makers, right? Don't stop and stand with people who have made a habit of sinning, and don't just plant down with those who, um-
Seth: Mm
David: ... are completely opposed to God. And, like, and I think the, the idea here is that one leads to the other.
Seth: Right.
David: That, like, if you walk among the wicked, that will lead to you standing among the sinners, and if you do that, that will lead you to sitting with the scoffers. Basically, you become what you behold. You, you take on that which you are around, right? Which we'll then see, like, the antidote to that is-His delight-
Seth: Right
David: ... is in the law of the Lord. So don't, don't, don't walk through wickedness and sit, and stand with sinners and sit with scoffers. Sit, walk, and stand in the law of God, right?
Seth: Yeah.
David: Spend time with him. Like, that's-
Seth: Meditate on his law day and night.
David: Right, meditate on.
Seth: Don't meditate on the cynicism-
David: Right
Seth: ... of skeptics.
David: Yep.
Seth: Don't spend time with sinful people and what they enjoy doing. Don't even really entertain or walk by strate- like, have you ever done that thing where you're just like, "I just wanna like, just wanna-"
David: Just wanna like see it.
Seth: I just wanna see it.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Like, I know there's like... If there's like a TV show on Netflix or Amazon-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... I know it's probably not the best, like I'll scrub over it to make sure there's nothing inappropriate-
David: Right
Seth: ... like, on [laughs] the thing. But it's like, that's, that's kinda like what he's saying here. Don't like, you don't look for trouble. You don't need to do that.
David: Right.
Seth: You can just turn it off.
David: Right.
Seth: Right? [laughs]
David: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and I think the key word here in this text is delight. Like, his, the disposition of his will and his heart is enjoyment of the things of God. Because people go to wickedness and sin and all these things because they think that will bring them joy, right?
Seth: Right.
David: Delight. It'll give them what they want in life.
Seth: Yeah, people enjoy their skeptical outlook on life.
David: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Yeah, and people think that wickedness and sin will, will bring peace and happiness to them, right?
Seth: Yes.
David: And so he says, "No, no, no, no, no. Like, what you need is to delight in God's law," right? So let, we should probably unpack that a little bit.
Seth: Yeah, so like there's this way of sinners, the counsel of the wicked. There's this seat of like judgment or... I think seat is supposed to imply like judgment or power.
David: Mm.
Seth: So there's this idea that there's these ruling forces, these ruling ways of life. There's this way to live, there's this path that you could walk down. There's this vein of knowledge you could go in-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... and meditate on and enjoy and become, um, uh, proficient in.
David: Oh, sure. Oh, interesting.
Seth: But there is a better way of living.
David: Right.
Seth: It is delighting, making your home in, abiding in, habitualizing yourself with the law of God, and meditating on it day and night. Not meditating on the-
David: Right
Seth: ... on the, the stuff of-
David: I, I, I'm just really interested in what you just said, because like, it's this whole idea of, um, when we live in the world and, and attune ourselves to the way of the world, it is a, like an opposite Torah. Like, it's like the-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... it's like the, the antithesis of the Torah, right? I'm trying to think of a, a-
Seth: It's like-
David: ... of a, of a-
Seth: There's the book of-
David: Arch Torah. [laughs]
Seth: Yeah, the arch Torah. [laughs]
David: Like the arch Torah, yeah. It's like, it's like... A- and we think about that. We are very proficient in some of the things of this world. We're very good at... Some people are really good at lying.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Right? Like, some people are very good at like, um, at, at gossiping behind other people's backs, or manipulating people to make them do certain things. And like, we become accustomed to those things.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And we can swim in that water, and we spend so much time meditating on... Not that culture's bad, right? I don't wanna demonize that.
Seth: Right.
David: But what I'm saying is, we s- we spend a lot of time swimming in the water of culture and of, of wickedness and of sin and of things like that, that we've become fluent in it.
Seth: Right.
David: Um, and it's like, yeah, but what, like, can you quote s- Roman- Romans 8?
Seth: Right.
David: Or, or, you know, or Genesis 1?
Seth: So let's look at it a little more practical.
David: Okay, yep.
Seth: 'Cause I think most of us don't see ourselves as loving sin.
David: Right.
Seth: We don't love gossip. We're not like super into... Like, we don't see ourselves that way.
David: Right, until you do it, and then y- you look at yourself, you're like, "Oh, I totally do this."
Seth: "Oh, I totally do that."
David: Yeah. But anyway, yes. But-
Seth: But I think-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... I think one of the ways that we sometimes try to, we justify our cynicism, we justify our anti-Torah narratives by disguising them as righteousness. Discri- the, disguising them as the right way to think about things.
David: Right, which is, which is ironic, because like the Torah is the righteousness of God.
Seth: Right.
David: Like, it's like this is how you live right, and so we... So actually what you're saying is like, to identify our arch Torahs, we don't necessarily need to look at like what's classically sin, we need to look at what we would call our own righteousness.
Seth: That's right.
David: Okay.
Seth: What do we think is the right way to view the world?
David: Okay, that's interesting.
Seth: So a r- a really simple example would be the Torah gives us a really, a, a, a blueprint of what true leaders should look like.
David: Okay, how?
Seth: Right? So in Deuteronomy it tells us that the kings of Israel are supposed to have their own copy of the Torah.
David: Oh, right, and they're supposed to-
Seth: And have-
David: ... at least read it once a year or something like that?
Seth: Read it once a year.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Have a hand, have a hand copy it themselves.
David: Hand, hand copy it, yeah.
Seth: Have it for them. They're supposed to meditate on it day and night.
David: Right.
Seth: They're supposed to have this, they're supposed to be led by the Torah.
David: Yep.
Seth: Right?
David: Okay.
Seth: And the people are supposed to respect and honor-
David: Right
Seth: ... the king or the ruler.
David: Because ultimately, God's their king or ruler, and, and they said, "Everything the Lord's spoken we will do."
Seth: Right.
David: Like, there's this covenant partnership of the Torah. We're gonna live by it.
Seth: And God places rulers, and we know that-
David: Okay
Seth: ... from Romans, right?
David: Okay.
Seth: So like there-
David: I'm tracking with you.
Seth: So there's this sense like there's the Torah, the Bible, has given us a sense of what, how Christians are to react towards leadership.
David: Okay, yep.
Seth: But one thing that millennials do, like people like us-
David: Like us
Seth: ... is that we see the political process-
David: Uh-huh
Seth: ... as it's happened over the course of the last two, couple years.
David: Oh, boy.
Seth: We see the partisanship on both sides.
David: Yep.
Seth: And what we say is, "The right way to view this is to pull out of the political process entirely."
David: Right. It's all broken.
Seth: It's all broken, and we are profoundly cynical.
David: Yeah.
Seth: We trust nobody, and probably a lot of us don't even vote because we say, "Actually, there's no room for Christians in this at all. We have no... We should just... It's all broken. It's not worth our time."
David: Right.
Seth: That's actually an unbiblical and anti-Torah narrative-
David: Mm
Seth: ... of how the Lord sets up government. So that, that does, that, that's not about being political.
David: Right.
Seth: It's about what do you think is the righteous way to view politics?
David: Right, yeah.
Seth: And-
David: We're not saying like, we're not, we're not giving you a prescription on like, you must vote or you must vote this way. Or like-
Seth: We're saying-
David: Or, and we're not saying that politics aren't broken in America or anything like that.
Seth: We're saying have you meditated on the Torah enough-
David: Right
Seth: ... to have a biblical imagination-
David: Yes
Seth: ... about government?
David: What water are you swimming in?
Seth: What water are you swimming in?
David: Yeah, and 'cause the same is true e- even if you're not in that middle camp of pulled, you're pulled out and skeptical. The conservatives think that, like, voting Republican is the righteous way to, like, be Christian in America.
Seth: Right, and-
David: And-
Seth: ... they can't imagine a Christian ever voting Democrat.
David: Right, a- and like that's their righteousness. They're not, but they're not doing that because they've meditated on the Torah. Or not, not everybody. I'm not saying everybody. No, no, I'm not saying that no good C- Christians vote Republican.
Seth: Right.
David: That's not what I'm saying at all.
Seth: It's saying that we can use our politics-
David: Right
Seth: ... as a stand-in for-Trust in Jesus Christ.
David: Yes.
Seth: That our functional saviors become our cynicism, our conservatism, or our liberalism
David: Or our liberalism. Yeah.
Seth: And we say, "The only true way to be righteous, the true way to live a just and blessed life in this world, is is you follow these political categories."
David: Right.
Seth: And that's not true. The blessed life is one that is meditating day and night, delighting in the law of the Lord, not the law of the land. [gentle music] So here's verse three. "He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers. But the wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away." So let's unpack this.
David: There we go.
Seth: What's, what's happening here?
David: So who are we talking about? He, right? This is the man who's not walking with the wicked or standing with the sinners or sitting with the scoffers, but he's delighting in God's law. He's, he's rehearsing the Torah day and night. And we didn't talk about day and night. You know, that's a, a, what's it called? A merism.
Seth: Merism.
David: Right? It's, it's called a merism, which, which is like a all-encompassing term. So it doesn't mean, like-
Seth: Only s- only read the Bible in the morning if you-
David: In the morning or at night. And it also doesn't mean what, um, the Essenes out at Qumran, where the Dead Scenes, Sea Scrolls were found.
Seth: Oh.
David: They took it literally to mean day and night as a merism, but took it literally meaning, like, 24 hours a day. You have to always be doing this. So someone in their camp would always be reading the Torah out loud in the Essene community.
Seth: Oh my gosh.
David: So it's like, that's not what he means. It just means in all of life, from the rising to the setting of the sun and everything in between, you should be meditating on scripture.
Seth: Yes.
David: Right. Okay. So that's the person we're talking about, this person who's delighting-
Seth: Maybe-
David: ... in it. Yeah
Seth: ... maybe we should define meditating.
David: Oh, okay. Sure. So, uh, the Hebrew idea [laughs]
Seth: [laughs]
David: ... of meditating is the idea of chewing-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... or repeating under your breath. And so it's not some kind of, like, Eastern, like, meditation, where your goal is to empty your mind.
Seth: Yeah.
David: The idea is that you would fill your mind with Christian truth, or with, with biblical truth, I should say.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so the idea is that you would repeat over and over again. So like, "He's like a tree planted by streams of water. He's like a tree planted by-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... streams of water."
Seth: I think-
David: "He's like a tree planted by streams of water." Like-
Seth: He is
David: ... he is l-
Seth: Like a tree. [laughs]
David: Yeah. It's like the idea of chewing on the words, saying them over and over again so that-
Seth: And I think-
David: ... it looks like you're chewing
Seth: ... in Hebrew too, isn't it onomatopoeic? Chavash.
David: Chavash.
Seth: Isn't that the t- Isn't, it's supposed to, like, sound like it's an animal-
David: The-
Seth: ... or person chewing.
David: Chewing.
Seth: Chavash, chavash, chavash.
David: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah. [laughs]
Seth: You're like, it's supposed to, like-
David: I like that. That's nice
Seth: ... right, it's like-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... it's this idea of, like, you're constantly mulling over, your imagination is being formed by-
David: Right
Seth: ... you're filtering your reality through-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... the categories of scripture.
David: Right. And that, and, and we also, and I also just wanna say, as we, as we're doing that, and that leads to delight in the heart.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So it's like, it's not only an intellectual pursuit, but you are delighting in the truth of God in your heart. You love the word of God.
Seth: Right.
David: So, like, we're talking about Torah Psalms here, right?
Seth: Yeah.
David: We're talking about wisdom or Torah Psalms. Um, Psalm 119 is, like, the quintessential Torah Psalm. Uh, it's the-
Seth: Right
David: ... it's the longest chapter in the Bible, and every single verse talks about the law of God or the commands of God, right? And over and over again, he talks how, about how he loves God's word.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Like, how he delights, and it's sweeter than honeycomb. It's better than gold. Like, those are the words of someone who stinking delights [laughs]
Seth: [laughs]
David: ... in God's word. And so, like-
Seth: And think about the-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... difference between that type of meditation and, like, Eastern meditation-
David: Mm
Seth: ... where the purpose is to empty your mind of content-
David: Right. Yep
Seth: ... empty your mind of filters, and not to experience delight, but to experience emptiness.
David: Yeah, yeah, absence.
Seth: Like, to be, experience-
David: Like to where you are neither joyful nor in pain.
Seth: You're like-
David: It's nirvana is that middle place.
Seth: Right.
David: People think of nirvana as, like, this ultimate great experience. It's not. It's like-
Seth: It's-
David: ... perfect neutrality
Seth: ... perfect neutrality, perfect disconnectedness.
David: Yes.
Seth: Like, perfectly disconnected from all things so you're hurt by nothing.
David: That's right. The-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... the, uh, Torah meditation is the exact opposite
Seth: ... is, is fill your mind with the categories, the words, the, the Psalms, the books-
David: The truth
Seth: ... the stories of-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... scripture, so much so that your heart bursts with delight.
David: Yeah. And yeah, I know we ke- we s- we started this section with the first time.
Seth: [laughs]
David: We keep going back. But I also wanna, like, to, to talk about his delight is in the law of the Lord, so that, the word law is the word Torah. Okay? So does that mean in the Torah Psalms, when he says, like, "Oh, God, I delight in your, in your word," so when people read these Psalms, like, does that mean, like, only the Ten Commandments, or only-
Seth: Right
David: ... what God commanded in Leviticus? Like, am I just supposed to read about the long lobe of the liver over and over again and just feel such delight for that?
Seth: I think-
David: Or, or is that term more expansive?
Seth: It's more expansive.
David: Yes, of course. [laughs]
Seth: Because you, you should find delight in God's commandments.
David: Definitely.
Seth: But Torah is also the first five books of the Bible-
David: Yes
Seth: ... which includes narrative, story-
David: The story of, like, the redemption-
Seth: ... poems
David: ... out of, out of Exodus
Seth: Yes.
David: Yeah.
Seth: It also just means instruction.
David: Right.
Seth: So all that God instructs-
David: Yes
Seth: ... should bring delight to our heart.
David: Yeah. And all that God has done, because he instructs-
Seth: Yes
David: ... us on what he has done. Yeah.
Seth: So for Christians today, that means all of the Bible-
David: That's right
Seth: ... is included in this.
David: Yes.
Seth: And all God's faithfulness to you in this life.
David: Right.
Seth: So David, throughout the Psalms-
David: Mm
Seth: ... he's not meditating always on a particular piece of scripture.
David: That's true.
Seth: He's meditating on G- how God was faithful to him-
David: Mm
Seth: ... when he was on the run from-
David: That's right
Seth: ... Saul. He's faithful to him.
David: "He delivered me from the hand of-
Seth: Yes
David: ... the enemy."
Seth: "You were merciful to me when I sinned-"
David: Yeah
Seth: "... against Bathsheba."
David: Oh, that's interesting.
Seth: Like, he's meditating on-
David: Right
Seth: ... God's faithfulness and actions to him in his own life.
David: Wow. That's really cool. I like that. We're gonna bleed into Thanksgiving Psalms if we're not careful there, but yes, that's really, really good.
Seth: And the idea is when you do this, when you meditate on God's instructions in his word, in your life, in Jesus Christ-
David: Yes
Seth: ... you become like a tree-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... planted by streams of water-
David: Right
Seth: ... yielding its fruit in season.
David: So I love that. So a tr- a tree planted by streams of water, um, the, I mean, obviously, the, let's just lay it out there, 'cause I'm not gonna assume that everybody is, like, a, you know, a botany expert or something. So, the, the good news for a tree planted by streams of water is that it has a constant source of nourishment, right?
Seth: That's right.
David: It doesn't have to worry about drought or anything. It's constantly being fed what it needs. Uh, it's just right there on the riverbank, soaking up its nourishment, um, second by second, right?
Seth: Right.
David: Uh, all day and all night, that, using that merism from before, right?
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so that's the good news for this tree, is that it's planted by streams of water. What's really interesting here, though, is it's not he is like a tree who plants himself by a stream of water, right?
Seth: Right.
David: It's he has been planted. He, he's planted there, which, like, immediately throws me back to Genesis 1.
Seth: Right.
David: Or, uh, or is it 2, that, that, that it says that God planted a garden in Eden.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Like, it's this act of God.
Seth: You should be reading Eden into this passage.
David: You have to, yeah.
Seth: The tree planted by, the tree planted by streams of water should bring you back to Eden, where there's all these trees fed by the four rivers-
David: The four rivers
Seth: ... running through it.
David: Yep.
Seth: It should also bring your mind to Ezekiel 47, where out of the temple of the Lord floods these rivers-
David: Right
Seth: ... and makes the desert bloom.
David: Yep.
Seth: And then also should bring you to Revelation 22-
David: Yep
Seth: ... where out of the temple of the Lord, rivers of wa- running water come and sprout trees for the healing of the nations.
David: Yeah.
Seth: You should be reading here Eden.
David: Right. Why? What does that do for us? Like, why is that important? What, what would, what would the psalmist here be trying to communicate in evoking all this Edenic imagery of getting back to the garden with God?
Seth: He's saying when you orient your life around the Torah-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... when your imagination is shaped by and processes through the imagery and the stories of God's instruction, your life becomes as it was meant to be.
David: Mm.
Seth: Eden is the world-
David: Oh, okay, yeah
Seth: ... as it was intended to be. You, your life-
David: Oh
Seth: ... takes on the shape of Eden. God's kingdom comes-
David: That's really good
Seth: ... into your life.
David: So it's like, yeah, so it's like whereas, like, we're talking about the arch Torah-
Seth: Yes
David: ... which is gonna form you into the image of the broken world, right?
Seth: Right.
David: In the fall. The Torah, like, reorients you into God's perfect order of creation. It brings you back under the dominion of God, where you can walk with him, and everything's put right.
Seth: Yes.
David: That's stinking amazing. [laughs]
Seth: And not just the world, but you as a human being-
David: Mm
Seth: ... become who you're meant to be.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Like, you become refreshed-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... watered, nurtured. You're bearing your fruit-
David: Right
Seth: ... in its season, which is kind of a fr- a, a strange-
David: It's a weird one for us
Seth: ... but I think, so here's just a personal example. I've been, I was running the other day, and I was just praying.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And, um, I just, it's, uh, it's, I was just thinking, like, about expectation and the things in my life that are yet to be finished but have already be- like, already started. So-
David: But not yet here.
Seth: You're not yet here.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So, like, I'm already, like, in the process of hopefully publishing a book maybe one day.
David: Right.
Seth: But I've not yet received an off- offer. Like, uh, my wife is already pregnant, but I've not yet met my baby girl coming-
David: Right, yeah
Seth: ... in March. Like, I've already, um, you know, y- like, my son has already been resurrected.
David: Right.
Seth: But I'm not yet with him.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And even with my job, I feel like the Lord is giving me all these new callings and desires, but they're not yet put into fruition.
David: Right.
Seth: And I think the promise is that when you meditate on God's law, cultivate an imagination that's shaped by his instruction, you will bear fruit.
David: Mm.
Seth: You will be mature. You will taste what you most are, were created for-
David: Right
Seth: ... in its season.
David: In its season. And, and the cool-
Seth: At the right time
David: ... and, and in, and in between parts, it says that its leaf never withers.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So you're still healthy, right? You're still putting forth your leaves, showing that, like, signs of health. You're not only, um, healthy and happy in the harvest season-
Seth: Right
David: ... when everything's actually coming about, whenever the not yet's become already.
Seth: Yeah.
David: You know? [laughs] Like, you're always healthy.
Seth: You're always healthy.
David: You're showing your, showing your leaves. Yeah. That's pretty cool.
Seth: Yeah, and I, and I thought about Jesus here too. Like, one of the things that we should probably be seeing, and so it's, he is like a tree.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And I think we'll talk a little bit about this next week, Psalm 1 and 2 being read together. This is a picture of the perfect messianic king of Israel. This, this should be what David and what Solomon are like-
David: Right
Seth: ... but fail to be.
David: Yes. Like what you talked about earlier.
Seth: Yeah.
David: It's like the whole Psalms are, are showing us this perfect ruler that we didn't get, and it's like, who is this perfect one here then, right? Right? Yeah.
Seth: Yeah, and so I think you can see Jesus in here.
David: Definitely.
Seth: John 1:1, "The Word"-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... became flesh and dwelt among us. And so I was even meditating on Jesus' own life. He spent his entire childhood studying the Torah.
David: Mm.
Seth: He spends days away from his parents at the foot of the, uh, at the, of the rabbis-
David: Right, yeah
Seth: ... in the synagogue. The parents are looking for him. So on the day bef- after he's baptized, he goes in the wilderness, and Satan tempts him. Before he begins his ministry, he's tempted, and how does he respond? With scripture, saturated, meditating on day and night in the Word, and then he begins his ministry in its season.
David: Yeah.
Seth: He was 30-something years old-
David: Right
Seth: ... when he started his ministry. He, the fruitfulness of his ministry began in its season, and even in his death, he prospered.
David: Mm.
Seth: His leaves did not wither, even though he was a man marked by sorrows.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And even death prospered.
David: That's really good.
Seth: Not just him, but all of us.
David: Yeah. And what's amazing is that this perfect, blessed man who doesn't walk in wickedness or sinners or scoffers, who delights perfectly in the law, who yields its fruit in season, who stays by the stream of the water, all these things, like, we've, we, we can aspire to that, and, and, like, we can be that. Like, that's the promise of God. But Jesus was it perfectly. Like, he was the perfect blessed man of Psalm 1.
Seth: Yes.
David: And what's amazing about that-
Seth: And he is your ruler.
David: Yeah, he, a- yeah, and he's your ruler. Uh, a- and, like, but what's so cool about it is that, like, he's also your stream. Like, he's the one-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... by whom you're planted, and next to, like, he's the thing that you, like, sustains you and feeds you. Like, I just think it's amazing. Like, he's not only the blessed man, he's also the stream.
Seth: Yeah, he's not just the king making Eden around you.
David: Right.
Seth: He's the stream feeding you, making you a fruitful tree.
David: Right.
Seth: Right?
David: Yeah.
Seth: So those are those two things, like, God's kingdom, his Eden being brought to earth through our meditation on the Word. He's the stream fulfilling and-For bearing fruit-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... for the healing of your own soul-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... and the souls of the nations around you.
David: Amazing. All right, well, let's take a quick break, and we'll talk about the wicked next.
Seth: Wicked. [gentle music]
David: All right, so let's, uh, let's dive in here to the last section and talk about the wicked. And so verse four, "The wicked are not so, but are like chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous, for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish." So we have here two sets of people, right? We have the, the, the, the righteous and the wicked, which, um, should remind us again, if he's already talking about the Torah, this is a wisdom Psalm, all these things that we've talked about. This should remind us of the book of Deuteronomy-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... which is like, "I've set before you life and death," right? Blessing and curse. You know, you can be wicked or righteous. It's, like, very Torah-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... type language here.
Seth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
David: There's two sets of people in the world, which is an uncomfortable idea for a lot of moderns, to think that there's, there's only two types of people in the world. [laughs] Like, there's the wicked and the righteous. It's like, and the gray area, right?
Seth: Right.
David: Like, I mean, I want there to be some gray area [laughs] but the, uh, Psalm one's not that lenient on us here. So, like, what should we be thinking about when we start reading about the wicked? Like, what are our categories for them?
Seth: Well, you keep talking about the arch Torah, the anti-Torah.
David: Oh, yep, yep.
Seth: You should just be thinking, like, so what's the opposite of Eden?
David: Hmm.
Seth: What, so if Eden is what people who meditate on the day, on, on the Lord-
David: Yep
Seth: ... and his word day and night-
David: Yep
Seth: ... what is the opposite of Eden? What does that look like? If the, if a person reading scripture is a tree, what is the opposite of a tree? It's chaff.
David: Oh, right.
Seth: Something that's-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... immovable, you can't take up easily. Chaff is the opposite.
David: Yeah.
Seth: I don't know if you've ever, like, gone to, like, a, a reed or something, like, like in a pond or, or-
David: Oh, no, I haven't
Seth: ... or a dandelion.
David: Oh, yeah, dandelion.
Seth: Most people don't, like, have, like, access to chaff.
David: Yeah. [laughs]
Seth: If you, like, if you crush wheat, there's all this, like, skin left over.
David: That just falls apart.
Seth: That just falls apart. If, if, like, the bottom of a popcorn bowl, there's little bits of, like-
David: Oh, little-
Seth: ... popcorn, like, things.
David: ... dust, yeah.
Seth: And so it's like, it's this just worthless thing-
David: Oh
Seth: ... that just blows away at the-
David: Right
Seth: ... slightest touch, and so if-
David: Oh
Seth: ... if the man who meditates on the Torah is solid, immovable, planted by streams-
David: Yep
Seth: ... ever-growing, the wicked person wastes away.
David: Right. Is that, was that, uh, James that talks about being tossed to and fro by every-
Seth: Yep, that is James
David: ... wind and wave, every new doctrine-
Seth: Yeah, that's right
David: ... every new thought, every new philosophy. It's like, oh, I guess I'll believe that now, or I guess-
Seth: Right
David: ... I'll compromise this or that moral, or, um, oh, I guess that's actually not that bad anymore. I mean, culture says it's not a sin or that it's not wrong, so it must not be wrong.
Seth: Right.
David: I'll just accept whatever the world is telling me instead of grounding myself-
Seth: Right
David: ... in the commands of God.
Seth: Yeah.
David: Okay.
Seth: So if you're not that, if you're-
David: Yep
Seth: ... if you're not grounded in that, if you're just wasting away, you're flying to and fro, you're-
David: Right
Seth: ... just being directed by whatever cultural wind comes along-
David: Yep
Seth: ... here's the, you, therefore, you will not stand in the judgment.
David: Oh, because you're blown away.
Seth: You're blown away.
David: Right.
Seth: You c- you have nothing tethering you.
David: Yeah.
Seth: You have no stream of life-
David: Oh, interesting
Seth: ... building you up. You have no trunk-
David: Right
Seth: ... rooting you in the, keeping you solid.
David: Right.
Seth: Like, you have nothing to hold onto in the judgment. You have no substance in yourself-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... when the day of judgment comes.
David: 'Cause it's not only, um, like, stick-to-it-iveness or, like f- like, you know, being fixed in a spot that, that this tree by a river evokes.
Seth: Right.
David: That's opposite in chaff. It's also, uh, chaff is dead, right? It doesn't have any-
Seth: Yeah, yeah
David: ... life to it.
Seth: No.
David: It's, like, the, the, it's the throwaway.
Seth: Right.
David: Right. So it's like the tree is nourished, it has life, it's vibrant, it has leaves and fruit. Chaff is, like, it rubs off and blows away, and it's dead.
Seth: Right.
David: So it's also, like, that which you might think has life, right, like, uh, you know, in the way of scoffers and the-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... seat of sinners and all those things, all the wickedness in the world, you think that gives you life, but actually it's like the husk of life, and it's just death.
Seth: Yes.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And so you imagine, too, like, so the law of the Lord is what protects you from judgment. It's what provides you life. It provides you protection.
David: Right.
Seth: And so if you're not following that, all that's left for you is judgment.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: If you have nothing to guide your life except your own desires and your own hopes and your own beliefs-
David: Right
Seth: ... you won't stand up to a God who holds you accountable to what his Torah says.
David: Yeah. Wow. And so, I mean, obviously for us, we know that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law, right, who protects us-
Seth: Yes
David: ... from judgment.
Seth: Yes.
David: Okay, because, like, uh, and, and in, and in every way he's the ful- fulfillment of the Torah, right? He loved it perfectly, right? He kept it perfectly. All the moral commands he kept, but then he also fulfilled what the Torah prescribed in terms of, like, sacrifices and how to make ourselves right with God because he didn't offer a sacrificial lamb as-
Seth: He was it
David: ... he was the sacrificial lamb.
Seth: Yeah.
David: So he fulfilled every part of the Torah, so that way when we stand before the judgment of God, our one plea is like, "Well, I'm covered by Christ."
Seth: Right.
David: Like, it's his righteousness that's mine. Like, he's the stream by which I'm planted. Like-
Seth: Yes
David: ... and I'll never be uprooted.
Seth: That's right.
David: Yeah. That's pretty cool.
Seth: So answer this then.
David: Okay.
Seth: "Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous."
David: Oh.
Seth: I would, I, it goes, c- 'cause, like, congregation of righteous, I automatically think congregation, I think church.
David: Sure. [laughs]
Seth: So, but that doesn't seem to fit here.
David: I, well, yeah. Yeah, I think, like, congregation-
Seth: 'Cause I want sinners in my church, you know? [laughs]
David: Right. [laughs] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think that, like, uh, I'm, I, I don't know if this is the answer, but I'm immediately brought back to, um, the Torah and, um, uh, the congregation of the people in the Torah is the people of Israel, right? And what happens to sinners in the midst of the people when they sin? They're cast out, right? They're put outside the city.
Seth: They're exiled, yeah.
David: They're exiled, and that either means for a period of time for their, until they are ritually clean again, right, or they're put out indefinitely, depending on the-
Seth: The severity of their sin. Like, uh-
David: Right
Seth: ... if you're a murderer or something, you know.
David: Yeah.
Seth: Uh, and so like-
David: It even happens to the entire nation of Israel in Babylon.
Seth: Right, eventually they're all cast out.
David: Yeah. The, [laughs] the entire congregation.
Seth: Is cast out of the congregation. [laughs]
David: Yeah. [laughs] The congregation can't stand in the congregation.
Seth: Because there's no one righteous, not one. [laughs]
David: Right, yeah, which is really interesting. And so, but I think there's also this idea of, um, I, I think we think that if there was a roll call of the righteous, you know, most of us think we would be able to stand up and go like, "Oh yeah, like I'm, I'm a good person. Like I could stand, uh, up under that call."
Seth: Right.
David: And it's like, no, you can't. Like, no one will be able to stand up under the, the call of the righteous.
Seth: Are you good enough?
David: Yeah.
Seth: When on the last day, and you were supposed to weigh your good deeds versus your bad deeds-
David: [laughs]
Seth: ... and it says, "Have you passed the test?"
David: Right.
Seth: The answer is always no.
David: Yeah. Right. But, uh, but here we seem to have, like, a way to get a yes, right? That we can stand in the judgment, that we can stand in the congregation of the righteous. How?
Seth: Because, verse six, the Lord knows the way of the righteous.
David: Oh, inter- but, which y- you would expect it to say that the righteous know the way of the Lord.
Seth: Right.
David: That's really interesting. [laughs]
Seth: I was really confused by this for a second, so I was trying to, I'm still trying to process a little bit. The reason we can stand is because the Lord knows-
David: Our way
Seth: ... our way.
David: Huh.
Seth: And so I, the word knows is kind of a loaded term-
David: Very loaded
Seth: ... in the Old Testament.
David: Super relate- it can mean sex.
Seth: It can mean sex.
David: Yep.
Seth: It, it, it, it indicates love.
David: Intimacy.
Seth: Intimacy.
David: Yep.
Seth: So the re-
David: Commitment
Seth: ... so the reason-
David: Yep
Seth: ... that we can stand is not just because the Lord knows that we exist.
David: Right.
Seth: It's because he loves-
David: Mm
Seth: ... the way of the righteous.
David: Right.
Seth: He loves righteous people walking in his way.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And there's a special type of love that im- implies commitment.
David: Mm.
Seth: Like, 'cause sex implies commitment.
David: Right.
Seth: So, like, there's, there's this sense that, like, the Lor- the reason why we can stand is because there's this type of covenant knowledge-
David: Yes
Seth: ... this covenant love towards those who keep his law. So our, the reason we stand is not because we keep the law.
David: Right.
Seth: Because the Lord knows and loves those that do keep his law.
David: Mm.
Seth: So I was trying to, I'm trying to process that in my mind.
David: Yeah. But I mean, uh, it, it's like the Torah says. You know, it, it talks a lot about, like, um, if you obey my commands and keep my statutes, I will be with you, I will protect you, you will be my people, I will be your God, all that kind of stuff. And so it, it makes sense that, like, this person who is meditating on God's law, who loves it, who keeps it, who, who stays away from sin and all this stuff, uh, God knows him and protects him and plants him by a stream of water. My question here is how does this not turn into legalism? Like, how does this not make everybody just go like, "Oh, so this is works-based salvation." It just sounds like, it sounds like work- works-based salvation. If I, if I read the Bible enough, if I meditate on it enough, if I stay away from sin enough, right, if I plant myself next to the stream enough, then I'll be able to stand in judgment.
Seth: Well, that means you just don't know your Torah.
David: [laughs] Right.
Seth: Because did God love, know, and care for Adam and Eve before or after he created them?
David: Before.
Seth: Before. Did God know, love, and care for the people of Israel before or after he made a covenant at Sinai?
David: Before.
Seth: Okay.
David: Jacob, too.
Seth: Jacob.
David: Yeah, in the womb-
Seth: Abraham
David: ... over his shoulder. Yeah. Uh-huh.
Seth: Like, there's not one character in the Bible who does good and righteous deeds that God did not love beforehand.
David: Right. He knew them first, and then showed them favor, and then they obeyed his commands.
Seth: Yes.
David: Right. And, and, like, and it was God that was involved in that process.
Seth: So the way that you prevent this from becoming legalism is remembering that the Lord loves you and has made a covenant with you, and he's sworn to his own hurt.
David: Mm.
Seth: Like, made a promise at the cost of himself.
David: Right.
Seth: And ultimately, that's seen in Jesus.
David: Yes.
Seth: We see God's love to us not in the fact that he... We see God's love to us in the fact that before we said yes to him-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... before we obeyed him, while we were yet sinners-
David: Yes
Seth: ... Christ died for us.
David: Yeah.
Seth: He made a covenant with us. He bled for us. And because he has already loved us, we obey.
David: Right. Yeah. And, and the more that we meditate on that truth that you've just articulated, day and night, the more our hearts will come to delight in that truth, delight in even not only that God died for us when we were yet sinners, but delight that then this God who died for us has commanded us to live a certain way. We'll actually want those things.
Seth: Yes.
David: And our hearts will begin to change to delight in that which we used to abhor. Not only God himself, but his commands and his statutes and his principles.
Seth: Where we used to lack discipline-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... to do the things we were supposed to do, we will wish we had the discipline to do them.
David: Yes.
Seth: Right?
David: Right.
Seth: Like, we will wish we had the discipline to wake up at six o'clock in the morning-
David: I want to want it. [laughs]
Seth: ... and read my Bible.
David: Right.
Seth: I, I wish I had the discipline that it would take for me to stop looking at porn.
David: Right.
Seth: Like, I wish I had those things.
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: And you will take every effort and fiber of your being to be holy, not because God will only love you when you become holy.
David: Right, 'cause that'll never stir up your affections of-
Seth: But because you've already been loved.
David: Right.
Seth: That's what I tell Sunny every time I-
David: Your daughter
Seth: ... she's, she's six.
David: Yep.
Seth: And so whenever she disobeys us, I say, I tell her, "Sunny, sin is so serious. Being disobedient to Daddy is so serious. That's why Jesus had to die."
David: Right.
Seth: "It's so serious that Jesus had to die. But he loves you, and I love you so much. And just because you disobeyed doesn't mean I love you any less. But because I love you, you must obey."
David: Mm.
Seth: So I tell her that almost every time I put her in time out.
David: Right.
Seth: Every time, or at the end of time out, whenever we do that, that's the truth.
David: Yep.
Seth: Like, we love-
David: Because I love you
Seth: ... because.
David: That's really good. Okay, so we need to kinda tie a bow on this. The last line of the psalm is a, is a super, uh, positive note. Uh [laughs]-
Seth: The way of the wicked will perish.
David: Right.
Seth: But notice, like, the Lord doesn't know them.
David: Mm.
Seth: It's all-
David: And he doesn't, he doesn't, doesn't know they don't exist, or he's blind to them or anything like that.
Seth: He doesn't, but there's... It's interesting that they're not parallels. I was expecting them to be parallels, right?
David: Mm-hmm.
Seth: For the Lord knows the way of the ri- righteous, but does not know-
David: But he does not know the way of the wicked.
Seth: But it's just-
David: Right
Seth: ... but the way of the wicked will perish.
David: It's like that chaff again. It just blows away.
Seth: I think it's pointing to the pointlessness-
David: Right
Seth: ... of evil.
David: Oh, yeah.
Seth: It's like, there's, like, there's, it's, it's pointless.
David: There's, it doesn't gain anything.
Seth: It gains nothing.
David: Yeah.
Seth: There's not-
David: Which, we, uh, we think it does
Seth: ... there's not a point for the Lord to love evil.
David: Mm.
Seth: There is a point to love, the Lord loving the way of the righteous.
David: Right, because it actually ends in something.
Seth: But love and c- Because it ends in something.
David: Right. [laughs]
Seth: But there's not even a point in God wasting his affection on wickedness.
David: On wickedness.
Seth: And so-
David: He, he loves, he, he has, he only has ever loved wicked people.
Seth: Right.
David: But his love on them makes them righteous. We've talked about that already.
Seth: Yes.
David: But those who continue in wickedness, who, who just continue to persist in their wickedness, it just perishes.
Seth: God will not waste his affection on things that will not bring them life.
David: Right.
Seth: And he's saying, "If you choose to spend your life on wickedness-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... you'll waste your life."
David: Mm.
Seth: "You will waste your affection. You will waste your love. You will waste your time."
David: Yeah.
Seth: Spend it on things that bring true delight.
David: It just, it seems so counterintuitive, because it's, uh, we, we often think about, like, you know, live life to the fullest, and carpe diem, and, like, uh, I want, I'm like, I gotta knock things off my bucket list. And it's like, these are all things that the world brings, right?
Seth: Right.
David: Like, uh, those are the things that are gonna make me satisfied and have a full life.
Seth: Yeah.
David: "Oh, he lived a full life." Like, what does that mean? It, like-
Seth: I think what this psalm is teaching, really simply-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... is that if you want to define what the good life is for yourself-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... you'll waste your entire life.
David: Wow, yeah.
Seth: If you wanna live a blessed, full, permanent, thriving life, you live the way the Torah describes.
David: Yeah. Now, one thing I have to push back on there.
Seth: Yeah.
David: And I agree with you, but I think one thing that'll be helpful is, um, it says that, like, in everything he does, this man prospers.
Seth: Yeah.
David: But, uh, we're gonna see really quickly as we go through the psalms, that, like, uh, you know, this is supposed to be David, you know?
Seth: Yeah.
David: And it's like, even when he, before he, like, committed crazy sins, like, not everything he did prospered, in, in terms of, like, went well for him. Like, he was hiding in a cave, and people sought his life, and all this other stuff. And, um, uh, I just think about, like, how often people struggle to believe in God or his goodness, because they're like, "Man, I, I'm trying to live a good life. I haven't done anything wrong, and everything bad is happening to me." Like-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... these promises must not be true. So, like, when it says everything that you do will prosper if you stay by the water, meditating on God's word, delighting in it, and everything like that, why does it seem like things go bad for us, even whenever we do that?
Seth: Because that's not you.
David: 'Cause what's, what, huh, what-
Seth: You are not the person who perfectly abides and meditates-
David: Mm-hmm
Seth: ... on God's law n- day and night. This is the exemplary king who leads the people that this is describing.
David: Right.
Seth: And that king is King Jesus, and all things that Jesus did prospered.
David: Prospered.
Seth: Nothing that he set his hand to do failed.
David: Yeah.
Seth: And all the blessings that are Jesus's-
David: Right
Seth: ... all the promises that he procured are yes and amen for you when you place your trust in him.
David: Right.
Seth: Why does it not prosper for you? 'Cause you're not Jesus.
David: [laughs]
Seth: They prospered for Jesus, and he promises that if you place your trust in him, everything will turn out to prospering.
David: Right.
Seth: Even if it doesn't mean in this life.
David: Yeah.
Seth: It will prosper in the end.
David: Yeah, but I mean, 'cause even in Jesus, he was the perfect man, the perfect blessed man, and yet he was ridiculed, hated, murdered, like, all these things. So I, I, I, I'm saying, like, uh, like, life still doesn't go well for people who do everything right, is what I'm saying.
Seth: Right.
David: Like, prosper here cannot mean-
Seth: Yes
David: ... categorically-
Seth: Right
David: ... cannot mean money, health, safety. It can't mean those things.
Seth: No.
David: Because if it, if it did, then God lied, 'cause it didn't happen to Jesus-
Seth: Yes
David: ... who was this perfect man. So either God's a liar, or prosperity doesn't mean, uh, health, wealth, and safety. Like-
Seth: Right
David: ... those two things can't go together. And so prosperity, what, what does it, what does it mean? It has to mean that, like, just as pursuing wickedness and sin and your own good life perishes, whatever we think of being prosperous is equally as pointless as wickedness and sin. Like-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... real, like, real fruit in this life is not a, a padded bank account, and you know, the ideal job, and the hottest wife or husband, and all these other things.
Seth: Right.
David: It's like, there's, and a healthy, you know, perfect body. Like, that's not what prospering means. There's something better, and I think it is this relational language with God.
Seth: Yeah.
David: That you're delighting in him, that you're meditating on what he's done, that, like, no matter what happens, you're planted by a stream of water, and your leaves are out-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... and you yield your fruit in its season, and, like, you, you never perish. Like, yeah.
Seth: Think of, think, think about Ecclesiastes.
David: Okay.
Seth: So Ecclesiastes is the book wr- a book written by Solomon.
David: Yep.
Seth: David's son.
David: Yep.
Seth: So David would've, as a good Messianic king, would've taught his son these lessons.
David: Yeah, this, this very psalm.
Seth: This psalm would've been, and, like, he, he quotes his father-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... in this, this psalm-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... in Ecclesiastes. And what does d- Solomon conclude-
David: Mm
Seth: ... that the good life is?
David: Yeah.
Seth: It's not striving after pleasure-
David: No
Seth: ... or money or-
David: Power
Seth: ... wisdom or power.
David: Yep.
Seth: It's knowing God-
David: Yep
Seth: ... keeping his commandments, and eating, drinking, and enjoying your work.
David: Yeah, enjoying your, enjoying your work.
Seth: It's like-
David: Whatever it is
Seth: ... whatever it is-
David: Yeah
Seth: ... enjoy what you have-
David: Yep
Seth: ... and trust God.
David: Yeah. It's really good.
Seth: That's true wisdom.
David: Yes. And, like, that's, uh, and the Torah lays that out for us really well.
Seth: Right.
David: It's like, trust God, and you'll come to the promised land and eat good food. Like, that's, I mean, that's, like, the p- that's, like, the good news of the Torah, right?
Seth: Yeah.
David: And so, like, what's amazing for us, then, the good, what's the good news of the gospel, then, for Christians here, is that, is that, like, a Sabbath rest remains, the promised land remains, the offer remains for you. Jesus has purchased your entry to it. Trust that he's bought it for you. Come in, dine with him, rest with him, meditate on what he's done for you, worship him, delight in him, and enjoy your life. Like-
Seth: Yeah
David: ... and you can't flip those. Like, you can't say, like, "Oh, I will enjoy my life, and that will be me, like, putting God in his proper place." You have to, like, you have to keep-
Seth: Right
David: ... those two in the right order.
Seth: I think maybe a s- even simpler way to say it is what is prospering?
David: Mm.
Seth: It's contentment.
David: Yes.
Seth: It's-
David: Yes, I think this is a lot about contentment here
Seth: ... it's like you bear fruit in its season.
David: Yeah.
Seth: So what does that mean? There's a lot of seasons that seem fruitless.
David: Right.
Seth: But you are content because you are living in, being nourished by, the living water of Jesus Christ. What is true wisdom? What is the blessed life? Contentment in Jesus. [upbeat music]
Outro: Thank you for listening to the Spoken Gospel podcast. Spoken Gospel is a nonprofit dedicated to creating free gospel-centered media that speaks the gospel out of every corner of scripture. So to join us in our mission and view our resources, we invite you to visit spokengospel.com. [upbeat music]
