The Bible Study Hour

Announcer: What is your Sunday like? Is it a treat or a trial? A burden or a delight? What does the Bible have to say about this day of the week, set aside for corporate worship and reflection?

Announcer: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and Internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.

Announcer: Psalm 92, the only psalm that deals directly with the Sabbath, gives us some clear direction as to what we should do and what the attitude of our heart should be on this day set aside for the Lord.

Announcer: Let's join Dr. Boice as he examines Psalm 92 and shows us our number one priority for this very special day.

Dr. James Boice: In most reformed circles today, and some others, there's an ongoing debate about the right way to observe Sunday. Sometimes it's useful to acknowledge that there is an ongoing debate in this or in some other area because it keeps us humble. It just shows the reformed people don't have everything together.

Dr. James Boice: At any rate, this particular division takes place between those who consider that Sunday should be observed like the Jewish Sabbath, with the cessation of all work, except what are called works of necessity, like you have to have policemen and firemen and things like that. And that's usually called the Puritan view, because the Puritans were very strong about observing Sunday as the Sabbath.

Dr. James Boice: Then the other view is that it's chiefly a time for worshipping God, but that doesn't exclude other kinds of useful activity. And that's usually called the continental view.

Dr. James Boice: Now, I side with the continental view on the grounds of what I find in the New Testament. When I read about the first Lord's Day, it seemed to me there was a lot of activity, and I don't find statements throughout the New Testament that say you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that. We ought to use that day in a wonderful and active way to serve God and serve others in my opinion.

Dr. James Boice: But wherever you might come out on this particular division about the right way to observe Sunday, there should be little doubt in the minds of any Christian people that Sunday is a day rightly and wisely set apart to worship God. That's what our Psalm is about. It's talking about the Sabbath, of course, because the Sabbath, Saturday, was the day the Jews worshipped God. But it does tell us that it is to worship God and that it's good to worship God.

Dr. James Boice: And it even tells us a little bit about how we should do it. It's the first of a number of Psalms like this, the only one in the psalter that is specifically designated for the Sabbath, but one of many from this point on that begin to talk about worship and how we really ought to worship God.

Dr. James Boice: So I want to say at the start, because this has to be practical, in the form of a question, how do you approach Sunday? Do you think of it as a day in which you have to go to church, but in which you want to get the duties of church going over as quickly as possible, so you can get on with doing other things that are more enjoyable? Or do you think of it as a wonderful day that's been given to you by God out of the other days of the week, in which you can learn about him and worship him?

Dr. James Boice: In other words, what I'm asking is this, is Sunday a treat or a trial? Is it a delight or a wearisome burden?

Dr. James Boice: Derek Kidner is one of the commentators on the Psalms that I often quote. He did a little book, two little books, for InterVarsity Press. And he says at this point, this Psalm for the Sabbath is proof enough, if such were needed, that the Old Testament Sabbath was a day not only for rest, but for corporate worship and intended to be a delight rather than a burden.

Dr. James Boice: Well, the rabbis made it into a burden, of course, but Jesus opposed their error when he said, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. In my opinion, Sunday should be a time for thanksgiving and many kinds of joyful celebration. Now that doesn't mean we shouldn't praise God on other days of the week as well.

Dr. James Boice: The Masoretes, who were scribes who worked with the Old Testament text and provided the vowel pointing of the Hebrew text, had an interesting way of teaching this. They started with this Psalm, the only one in the psalter that is specified for a specific day, but from that they built up a collection of Psalms, so they had one for each day. It was a way of saying that it is always right to praise God.

Dr. James Boice: For example, on the first day of the week, that is Sunday, they chose Psalm 24. On the second day, Monday, Psalm 48; Tuesday, Psalm 82; Wednesday, Psalm 114; Thursday, Psalm 81; Friday, Psalm 93; and Saturday, Psalm 92.

Dr. James Boice: Now, I don't think we have any obligation to follow that pattern, but if we wanted to do it, we could do it very well for Sunday at least, because we have a very good hymn that is based upon Psalm 92. It's a Psalm by Isaac Watts. We're going to use this Psalm to finish our service today. It's called, How good it is to thank the Lord. And it goes like this.

Dr. James Boice: How good it is to thank the Lord and praise to you most high accord. To show your love with morning light and tell your faithfulness each night. Yea, good it is your praise to sing and all our sweetest music bring.

Dr. James Boice: One thing that Watts emphasizes in that verse, based on the Psalm, is that it's good on Sunday to praise God both morning and night. Now, it's not easy to outline this Psalm. One common way of outlining it is according to a chiastic pattern. What that means is that the Psalm sort of reverses itself. It develops a theme at the end, followed by a second theme, a third theme. It comes to a point in the middle, and then it kind of backs out of that in reverse.

Dr. James Boice: So, if you were using letters to indicate the way it goes, it would be A, B, C, D, C, B, A. Now, there's something to that. If you look at the Psalm, you'll see how it would work. The first and the seventh stanzas have to do with praising God. The second and the sixth with the works of God for which he's to be praised. And then the third and the fifth with the failure of senseless men to praise him. And right in the middle comes verse 8, which stands apart all by itself. It's sort of a little one-line summary of what the Psalm is all about. Well, that's one way of doing it.

Dr. James Boice: The new international version has four stanzas with that one verse stanza in the middle. I think probably the three-part outline that Derek Kidner proposes in his commentary is the best. At least it's very easy to follow, and it's what I'm going to follow. It goes like this. First of all, there's a call for tireless praise. First four verses. I call it good to praise God.

Dr. James Boice: Then there's the silence of the senseless person who doesn't know enough to praise God. Verses 5 through 9. And finally there's the vitality of praise in an endless sense with which the Psalm ends. So I'd like to look at it that way. It has a lot to teach us.

Dr. James Boice: Well, the first verse establishes the theme of the Psalm and it says it's good to praise God. It's elaborated in verses 1 through 4, but the first verse says it all, it is good to praise the Lord and make music to your name, O Most High. Now, I want to ask a number of questions as we go throughout this. And the first question I want to ask is this, why is it good to praise God?

Dr. James Boice: There are a number of ways of answering that question. We might reply, that it's good because God says it's good. When we read it's good to praise God, we can hardly not think of the opening chapter of Genesis, where God creates the heavens and the earth, and at each stage of that creation he makes a pronouncement upon it, and he says it's good. God created the heavens and the earth, he said it's good. He created the light and the darkness, and he said it's good. He created the land and the creatures on the land, and man, and put him on the land, he said, it's good. Now, you have something like that here.

Dr. James Boice: You might also be able to say it's good for us because it benefits us. If we're creatures made in the image of God, it's a good thing to have a day in seven set apart where we actually think of who God is and that we're made in his image and praise him because we ought to do that. It benefits us.

Dr. James Boice: Spurgeon had an interesting way of putting it. He said that praise of God is good ethically because it's the Lord's right. It's good emotionally because it pleases the heart, and it's good practically because it leads others to render God the same homage. So it's good in all of those ways.

Dr. James Boice: And yet, you know, when I think about that word good, it seems to me that it's a weak word in the context, because we use the word good of almost anything. And here we're talking about the goodness of praising God. That has to be at a level that far exceeds anything we normally mean when we use the word.

Dr. James Boice: Some writers have called the praise of God salutary or delightful. Luther called it precious. He said on more than one occasion, come, let's sing a Psalm and drive away the devil. That was the way Luther thought. Worshipping God is a glorious, splendid, delightful and very reasonable thing to do.

Dr. James Boice: And that leads me to a second question. And the second question I want to ask is this. Does the thought of praising God seem boring to you? At least if you have to spend more time at it than 60 minutes on a Sunday morning. It does. You ought to recall that it is for this that human beings were created.

Dr. James Boice: You know how that question of the Westminster Shorter Catechism goes? It's the very first one. If you've never learned any of the questions of the catechism, you at least ought to know that one. What is the chief end of man? And it answers, man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Glorifying God is worshipping God. That's what you and I were created to do.

Dr. James Boice: And notice, the enjoyment of God is important too, because the two go together. In fact, our enjoyment of God is expressed in our praise of God. And when we praise God, we do, in fact, worship him and enjoy him. If you don't find the worship of God on Sunday or any other time to be enjoyable, it's not because you know God and have found that he is boring.

Dr. James Boice: Quite the opposite. If you find the worship of God to be boring, it's because you don't know God. The more you know God, the more wonderful he will seem, and the greater privilege and enjoyment it will be to worship him.

Dr. James Boice: There's a pastor out of Minneapolis by the name of John Piper, who has written on this theme and is really very excellent on it. He's written a book called, Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. The first time I saw that, I didn't like the title very much because of that word hedonist. It brought up all kinds of negative connotations. But, of course, that's not the way he's using it. He's talking about the enjoyment that human beings who have come to know God through Jesus Christ have in the worship of him.

Dr. James Boice: As a matter of fact, he takes that question from the Westminster Shorter Catechism and makes it more or less the theme of what he says. You see, what's the chief end of man? Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And what Piper says is, man's chief end is to glorify God by enjoying him forever. You see how he puts the two together? Here's what he says.

Dr. James Boice: Does Christian hedonism put man's pleasure above God's glory? Oh no. It puts man's pleasure in God's glory. Our quest is not merely joy, it is joy in God, and there is no way for a Christian to consciously manifest the infinite worth and beauty of God without delighting in him. It's better to say that we pursue our joy in God than to simply say that we pursue God, for one can pursue God in ways that do not honor him. The enjoyment of God and the glorification of God are one.

Dr. James Boice: The Psalmist would have understood that, even if we don't. We're sometimes very far from that. But the Psalmist did. And the Psalms that come from this point on are going to express the enjoyment of worship in very strong and very powerful language. It is good to praise the Lord and make music to his name is what he says. Now, here's the question again, do you understand that? How good it is really to worship God?

Dr. James Boice: Here's another question. What should we praise God for? Well, this Psalm lists two things, or lots of things that are going to be listed as we go on, or many, many things we should praise God for. But this Psalm lists two. Number one, the steadfast love of God, because that's what the word love in verse two really means. It's the word hesed in Hebrew, and it's the steadfast, covenantal love of God. And then number two, God's faithfulness.

Dr. James Boice: Now, if you don't praise God for anything else, those two are enough to keep you busy because it's God's steadfast, covenant love reaching out to redeem you through Jesus Christ that's made you a Christian in the first place, and it's God's faithfulness that keeps you in that covenant relationship. The one looks back to the moment of our conversion, and the other the continuation of it. We know both of those to the highest degree in Jesus Christ.

Dr. James Boice: All right, we asked a number of questions. Let me ask another one. It's all answered here in the Psalm. This question goes this way, how should we praise God? Well, the Psalm answers, joyfully in verse 4 and with instruments in verse 3.

Dr. James Boice: Now, as far as instruments goes, it specifies two of the instruments of that day, the ten-string lyre and the harp. Later on, we're going to find that other instruments are mentioned. The 150th Psalm lists all the ones they knew. I suppose if they had guitars and electric keyboards and organs, I'm sure that would have been enlisted as well.

Dr. James Boice: Now, I've talked about this division in the church about how you're to worship on Sunday, whether you work or not, or certain things are permitted or not permitted. There was a debate about that. There is also, as you may well know, a debate about the use of instrumental music in Christian services. Whole traditions will not use instrumental music.

Dr. James Boice: I quote Spurgeon favorably from time to time, but Spurgeon's congregation, this great mass congregation in the city of London during his lifetime, did not use instrumental music. They were against it. And so when you look through the quotations that Spurgeon includes in his great treasury of David, when you come to Psalm 92, you find lots of quotations from the church fathers that are against the use of instrumental music.

Dr. James Boice: From such notable giants of the church as John Calvin. John Calvin said from this it appears that the papists, like the Roman Catholics of that day, in employing instrumental music cannot be said so much to imitate the practice of God's ancient people as to ape it in a senseless and absurd manner, exhibiting a silly delight in that worship of the Old Testament which was figurative and terminated with the gospel.

Dr. James Boice: Now, Calvin's point was that instrumental music was something that has been fulfilled in some unspecified way in Jesus Christ, and to use instruments is somehow to regress to the Old Testament pattern. Spurgeon also quotes John Chrysostom. Instrumental music was only permitted to the Jews as sacrifice was for the heaviness and grossness of their souls.

Dr. James Boice: Or here's Andrew Fuller. Instrumental music appears with increasing evidence to be utterly unsuited to the genius of the Gospel dispensation. Well, that may be their opinion. But I don't find that it follows from the Psalm or from any other portion of the scripture. As a matter of fact, I find exactly the contrary. What I find in the Psalms is that we're encouraged to use every possible means at our disposal to worship God.

Dr. James Boice: Now, we know that there are dangers. Instrumental music can become mere performance. Just singing can become mere performance. Banging a drum can just be banging a drum. But it can also be done in exuberant joy and praise to God. So you see, the way you handle these things is not by saying, well, this is allowed and this is not allowed, but rather by focusing on God. So whatever you do, whatever means at your disposal is used to praise him.

Dr. James Boice: Well, I've said a lot about these first four verses that tell us who we're to worship, why it's good, what we're to worship God for and how. This next section of the Psalm, beginning with verse 5, introduces a contrast. In the case of those who, unlike the Psalmist, do not know and do not praise God. It's very characteristic of the Psalms to do that, to throw in a very sharp contrast.

Dr. James Boice: I call this the silence of the senseless because that's the word the psalmist himself uses to describe them. He calls them senseless beasts or the senseless man, because that really means the brute man, that is a person who has no more knowledge of God, and therefore no more knowledge of who he actually is than an animal.

Dr. James Boice: Because that's what distinguishes human beings from animals after all. Human beings are aware of God. Animals are not. Animals have life, we have life. Animals have personalities, we have personalities. Animals have emotions to some extent, as you well know. But animals don't worship God. Human beings do. So if human beings are not worshipping God, what are they? They are senseless brutes. They're acting like animals.

Dr. James Boice: Derek Kidner quotes Samuel Johnson's comment on people who are like this. Samuel Johnson, the maker of the dictionary, you know, was a religious man. He said, you know, it's sad stuff. It's brutish. If a bull could speak, he might as well exclaim, here I am with this cow and this grass, what being can enjoy better felicity? And there are people like that, you see, wine, women and song, but not a thought of God.

Dr. James Boice: Let me point out on a slightly higher note that this is the inference of Psalm 8, which we've already studied in the series. You know, Psalm 8 places human beings in a mediating position in God's created order. So the angels and God are above and the beasts are below. But it says that we are made a little lower than the angels, rather than a little higher than the beasts.

Dr. James Boice: It's a way of saying that although we have this mediating position, we have souls and spirits which are capable of worshipping God. We also have bodies, which tie us to the animal creation. It's nevertheless our joy and opportunity, as well as our privilege, to look up beyond ourselves and the angels to God in whose image we are made and worship him.

Dr. James Boice: Now, we won't do that. As the unsaved do not, and unfortunately, many Christian people seem to imitate them that way. Then we look down and we become beast-like. Someone once said, God made man a little lower than the angels, and he's been trying to get lower every ever since.

Dr. James Boice: Now, Psalm says something else. Not only that people who fail to worship God are senseless, in the sense of being brute-like, it also says that they're wicked. Do you see that? Verses 7 and 9. Though the wicked spring up like grass and all evildoers flourish, they will be forever destroyed. For surely your enemies, O Lord, surely your enemies will perish. All evildoers will be scattered.

Dr. James Boice: You see, what he's saying there is that the failure of the senseless to worship God, it's not just a physical failure, as if you would be talking about somebody you can't hear and say, well, they don't listen to the word of God. They can't, of course, they can't hear. He's saying what the scriptures do throughout. There is indeed an incapability of fallen human creatures to know and worship God. But that is not free of moral overtones. We are incapable of doing it because we will not do it.

Dr. James Boice: Because we have a sinful nature and are determined to go our own way. We're blind because we will not see. And the reason human beings won't know and praise God is that they don't want to know him. They don't want to praise him. They actually hate him because what they actually want to be is God themselves. And they live in a universe where we can't do it.

Dr. James Boice: Well, we come to the end, the last section. Having made a contrast between himself and those who do not know and worship God, and having shown the destiny of the latter, that is, that they're going to perish, the psalmist now picks up on the destiny of these wicked persons and makes a still further contrast between their destiny, the destiny of the wicked, and the end of the righteous, verses 10 through 15. The wicked are going to wither up like grass, but the righteous will flourish like a palm tree and like a cedar of Lebanon.

Dr. James Boice: He's going to say a little more about that, but first of all, before he does, notice that he gives a personal testimony. God has blessed the psalmist in a specific way. He doesn't want to forget that, and he doesn't want other people to be ignorant of it either. We all have things for which we can praise God. They vary because our experiences are different. And the psalmist says, look, here's my experience. You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox. Fine oils have been poured over me. My eyes have seen the defeat of my adversaries. My ears have heard the rout of my wicked foes. That was my experience, he says.

Dr. James Boice: And I praise God for that. Now, he wants the rest of us to do it too. And so, it's on this encouraging note that he brings this composition to a close. He says three things about those who truly know and worship God. Number one, they will flourish like a palm tree and grow strong like a cedar of Lebanon. Verses 12 and 13. Now, that was true of Moses in a physical sense.

Dr. James Boice: Moses lived to be 120 years old, and you'll recall that it was said of him, at the end of his life, that his eyes were not weak nor was his strength gone. Unfortunately, that's not true of everyone physically. David grew very frail in his old age, as you know. And others have grown feeble as well. But that's not what these verses are speaking about primarily. They're talking about what we would call being strong in the Lord or strong spiritually.

Dr. James Boice: It's what Paul was writing about when he said, although outwardly we're wasting away, yet inwardly we're being renewed day by day. 2 Corinthians 4:16. That's an internal, spiritual strength that only those who have grown old walking with Jesus and trusting Jesus really know. The world doesn't understand that. Young people don't understand it very much either. But as you grow old, you begin to understand what that is. Spiritually, inwardly, internally, you flourish like the palm tree.

Dr. James Boice: Number two. They will be fruitful even into their own age. Not only will they personally be physically strong, they'll be fruitful too, which is what verse 14 says. That is, they'll testify to the greatness and goodness of God, and God will use these testimonies to bring others to faith in Jesus Christ.

Dr. James Boice: You see, when we're young, we're often caught up in the affairs of the world, and it's hard to escape that. We don't think too much sometimes of witnessing for Jesus Christ. But as you grow older, and you get closer to that day when you're going to stand before him and give an accounting of all the deeds that you've done in the flesh, then testifying to his greatness really matters. And what we're told here is that those who have lived with Jesus a long time do that, and God blesses that. He uses that testimony in old age.

Dr. James Boice: Number three. This testimony will remain firm to the very end of their lives. Sometimes as you get old, you wonder, am I going to be able to hold the testimony strong to the very end? Will my mind grow feeble? Will my body begin to drag me down? Listen, the psalmist says, the righteous will maintain their testimony to the very end, proclaiming the Lord is upright, he is my rock, and there's no wickedness in him.

Dr. James Boice: Perowne, another commentator says, the flourishing of the workers of iniquity has been but for a moment, but the joy and prosperity of the righteous is forever. Well, you get to that last verse, and the Psalm has come full circle. It's back to praising God again, which is the point at which it started. And so, I want to combine those ideas now and ask a final question, and it's this.

Dr. James Boice: If you cannot praise God on the Lord's Day, on Sunday, if you find it tedious and troublesome, how are you going to keep on doing it into old age? If you're going to do it, you better start learning now. Listen, Moses, whose eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated, even though he lived to be 120 years old, praised God in his old age, finishing the last book of the Pentateuch with a song and a sermon. Deuteronomy, right at the end.

Dr. James Boice: Jacob, another one of the patriarchs, also praised God in his old age. In fact, what he said in his old age was probably more significant and spiritual than anything he said in his whole life. You find it in Genesis 49. Joseph, too, gave a strong old-age testimony. He spoke of God's sovereignty. His brothers thought he was going to take revenge on them, but he said, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good. Genesis 50:20.

Dr. James Boice: Paul wrote some of his most helpful epistles just before he died, executed in Rome. And the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, was written on the island of Patmos by the Apostle John when he was a very old man. Is that going to be your experience? Are you going to get old and maintain a strong, joyful testimony in the Lord? Or are you going to become unhappy and miserable and critical, the way so many old people do?

Dr. James Boice: Much of the answer that question depends on what you are doing now. How you are worshipping God now. What is your testimony now? What is the pattern now that you're building into your lives? Can you say what the righteous of the Lord do at the end of Psalm 92? The Lord is upright, he is my rock and there's no wickedness in him. If you can't say it now, you're not going to say it later. If you don't find joy in saying it now, you won't find joy in saying it later. I hope you'll be able to say that now and later, because there's a great need for that kind of strong testimony.

Dr. James Boice: Although it's far from the kind of carping words I hear from not a few Christians today. Maybe they don't know God very well. Maybe they don't know how to praise him. Probably they need some practice. Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for this Psalm, so practical, about what is our chief end. And yet an end that most of us hardly ever consider and give very little time to.

Dr. James Boice: We know we have other things to do. Our Father, we would pray that as we study this Psalm again, and I trust we will, and as we go on to these other Psalms that follow, many of which have to do with praising you, worshipping you, that you'll teach us something about worship, and so transform us that we might become increasingly joyful Christians who are able to say, it's good to praise God and who do. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Announcer: Thank you for listening to this message from The Bible Study Hour, a listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a reformed awakening in today's church.

Announcer: To learn more about the Alliance, visit AllianceNet.org. And while you're there, visit our online store, Reformed Resources, where you can find messages and books from Dr. Boice and other outstanding teachers and theologians. Or ask for a free Reformed Resources catalog by calling 1-800-488-1888.

Announcer: Please take the time to write to us and share how The Bible Study Hour has impacted you. We'd love to hear from you and pray for you. Our address is 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. Please consider giving financially to help keep The Bible Study Hour impacting people for decades to come. You can do so at our website, AllianceNet.org. Over the phone at 1-800-488-1888, or send a check to 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 17601. For Canadian gifts, mail those to 237 Rouge Hills Drive, Scarborough, Ontario, M1C 2Y9. Thanks for your continued prayer and support, and for listening to The Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.