"A Promise Older than David" Psalm 89 Sunday Evening Worship Service

Well, Psalm 89 is quickly becoming one of my favorite passages of the Bible.

And it is a uh it's a long psalm that describes God's relationship with David and his promises to David, but it does so in a way that goes back in time before David.

I've titled the sermon tonight, I promise older than David, because as you go through Psalm 89, if you think that all of the content of Psalm 89 begins or enters into the world with David and ends with David, then it'll be a very difficult Psalm to understand.

Psalm 89 has some themes in it that are driving you both forward and backward.

It has some themes in it that drive you forward to the person of Jesus Christ and his ministry on earth, his rejection by people, and ultimately his substitutionary death, where he dies on the cross in our place, bearing the wrath of God, which is a key part of the psalm.

He descends into the grave and then he descends out of the grave, having conquered Sheol and conquered death and opens up the way to eternal life.

So that's part of the psalm is pointing forward to that.

But a key thing I think a lot of people misunderstand about this psalm is it's not just pointing forward, but it's also pointing back in time.

I call it a promise older than David because this is a promise that comes to David, the real King David, seen in 1st and 2 Samuel, but it is a promise that begins before David.

It begins with the Trinitarian counsel of God between the Father and the Son and the Spirit as they designed the plan of salvation.

And it's hard to talk about what it would be like for God to design something, because designing something implies contemplation.

If you were to design something, it would imply that you're maybe giving some draft versions of it and you're seeking input and you're tailoring something based upon what you're hearing from other people, and then you come up with a design.

And certainly God doesn't deliberate like that.

So when you think of the a design of God before time, it's probably not helpful to think of God like scheming something and plotting something, and you know, in that sense, coming up with different proposals over a period of time.

But the Bible does refer to God's design of salvation as a plan.

You've seen this in Ephesians 1.

It's referred to as a plan, uh the plan of salvation, a plan for the fullness of time.

And Jesus is referred to as the lamb slain from before the foundations of the earth.

So, in other words, before there was time, God had a plan for this world.

And part of that plan, the central part of that plan, is Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.

This is the plan of God.

Before there was time, God planned salvation.

And in planning salvation, God designs that his son would go and be the substitute.

The plan of salvation is that the Father would send the Son, and the Son would come to earth in humility and in lowliness, taking on a human nature.

This is the plan of salvation.

Jesus often refers to this as uh he says he's come to do the Father's will.

He's can only do what the Father has sent him to do.

This is repeated throughout the New Testament.

And when you hear that kind of language, it's not, I don't think, helpful to picture the Father planning it and sending Jesus, who's not part of this plan.

Rather, it is a uh a Trinitarian plan.

The plan of salvation is the plan of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Part of the plan is the Father sends the Son, but that's the Son's plan as well.

This is not a plan of salvation designed by the Father and that the Son just has to carry out contrary to his own will, but it's a plan that the three persons of the Trinity together are have planned, have designed.

One of the words for this is to call this the covenant of redemption.

Now I've preached on that before from Hebrews 13, so I won't go over all that again, but the covenant of redemption basically is the idea that God, the Father, Son, and the Spirit have designed the plan of salvation and have agreed to bring it to fullness in time.

It is called the covenant in uh Hebrews 13, but also here in Psalm 89.

And so that's why my attention has been drawn here tonight.

Now we're going to work our way through this.

There's so much in the psalm.

Just about every verse has layers of truth to it.

Just about every verse is connected to the verses around it.

Almost every verse of the psalm stands on its own, but then stands in relationship to what's before it and what's after it, and then has branches out in both directions.

That's what's crazy about the psalm.

I mean, everything can be understood just at face value, but it also grows up and down within its own psalm, within the structure of the psalm, but then it also grows out big time, going back to 2 Samuel and going forward to even to the book of Acts.

So you see this psalm making sense here, up and down, and then all over the place.

That's what's really impressive about this psalm.

Now, when you go through the psalm, there's certain words that are repeated over and over again in this psalm, and they are all in the first four verses.

So the first four verses kind of give you the full, the fullness of the psalm.

So we're going to look at the first four verses more slowly than we will at the rest of the psalm to kind of draw out the main themes that are in the rest of the psalm, and then we'll go relatively quick after that.

Um, but one of the first themes you discover in the psalm is the theme of covenant, God's covenant love.

You see it right away in verse 1.

I will sing of the steadfast love, and that word steadfast, it's Hesed is the Hebrew word.

If you only know one Hebrew word, that's probably the Hebrew word you know.

Hesed, it's God's covenant love.

It's uh love or faithful love.

It's sometimes translated.

ESV goes with steadfast love, but it's this covenantal love that God gives to somebody by virtue of the covenant.

So God makes a covenant, makes a uh a plan or a purpose with someone that is inaugurated by by death and the covenants that he has with people.

He sacrifices the animals for the Abrahamic covenant, he uh to play bring it out through time.

For example, the Mosaic covenant has the animal sacrifices in it, and so forth.

God has a certain love for the world, but then a more specific love for those that are in his covenant.

God loves the world, but he loves his own children differently than the world because his children relate to him by covenant.

And there's so many different human examples of this that if that's hard for you to understand, that God loves people differently.

I think you have the capacity in your mind to get it when you understand that you are told to love your enemy, right?

You're also told to love your neighbor.

You're also told to love your wife.

Now, hopefully you don't love all those people the same way.

Like if your enemy is attacking your neighbor, hopefully you don't have to have a long pause to think like, all right, do I help my neighbor who's being attacked?

What if your enemy is your neighbor?

In some of your cases that's true.

And they're attacking your wife.

Now you're like, oh wait, I'm supposed to love my enemy and my neighbor and my wife.

That's two to one.

Not good thinking.

You recognize you have a special or more specific love for your wife because of the nature of marriage.

You have this kind of covenantal relationship with your wife, and so you enter into a special love with her.

So that's the word Hesed.

It's a special love that God has for his own people.

And this right out the gate here in the Psalm, practically the first word I will sing of the covenant love, the steadfast love of Yahweh.

Yahweh is God's covenantal name, it's his self-identity, it's the name that he reveals to his own children.

It is his covenant name, not the name to the nations, but the name to his people.

So God's covenant love goes to his covenant people, seen here in verse one.

That love, second key theme of Psalm 89, is not just covenant love, but the second key theme is forever.

You see this word all over the Psalm.

And it's the right out the gate in verse 1, the end of the first line of verse 1, the steadfast covenant love of Yahweh forever.

And you see forever again at the end of verse 1, for example, to all generations.

In verse 2, forever.

In verse 4, forever.

The end of verse 4, for all generations.

And this keeps going throughout the entirety of the psalm.

If you go down, you don't need, you know, need to flip there, but it's verse 36.

His offspring shall endure forever, as long as the sun is before me in verse 36.

Verse 37, his love is established like the moon forever.

Down in verse 46, will God hide himself forever?

The last line of the psalm, blessed be Yahweh forever.

In fact, you can if you're flipping around the Psalm.

Look at verse 49.

Yahweh, where is your steadfast love of old?

Your covenant love of old.

Again, the same word for forever there, only pointing backwards.

And so the first theme in the psalm is covenant love.

The second theme is the forever, the timelessness of it.

Third theme of the psalm is the faithfulness of God.

And you see that back in verse 1.

With my mouth I will make known your faithfulness.

It's another very common and repeated word in the psalm.

I'll draw your attention to a few examples of it in verse one, of course, and verse two.

In the heavens you will establish your faithfulness.

And then you can draw your eyes down to verse five.

O Yahweh, your faithfulness in the assembly of the Holy Ones.

Verse 8, O Yahweh, with your faithfulness all around you.

Verse 14, your covenant love, your steadfast love, and faithfulness go before you.

Verse 37.

Selah.

Then down in verse 49, Yahweh, where is your covenant love of old, forever, by which your faithfulness you swore to David.

So you see these words, God's covenant love, his for the forever nature of it, and faithfulness, they're in this triad of words, and they repeat over and over again in this psalm.

It's driving on the point to you that whatever this psalm is communicating, it is communicating about God's covenant love that is timeless, both forward and backwards, and it reveals God's faithfulness.

And this is the causing the psalmist to rejoice.

The psalmist is worshiping.

The psalm starts happy.

This is a very happy psalm at the beginning.

It's not going to end that way.

It's not going to end happiness.

It ends very, very sad.

But it starts very, very happiness.

It starts with just excitement about God's covenant love forever, his faithfulness going all over the place.

He will establish in the heavens.

His faithfulness will be established.

So I just want you to think about what that means: that God's faithfulness is established in the heavens.

It's not saying that God's faithfulness is established on the earth.

That's the contrast.

God's character is God's character independent of what happens on the earth.

Very key point for this Psalm.

God's character is who he is.

God is God regardless of what happens on the earth.

Even if democracy doesn't work with God, even if the whole earth voted that God doesn't exist, it would not affect him at all.

Or even if the whole earth voted that, you know, to add a new attribute to God.

Whimsical.

The whole earth votes that God is whimsical, changes the mind all the time, make him more, you know, make him more approachable, just like people.

That doesn't actually affect God's attributes.

His attributes aren't determined on the earth.

His attributes are set in himself in heaven.

And that's what verse 2 is saying.

And your covenant love will be built up forever in the future, because in the heavens his faithfulness is established.

And now we go to a couple more themes of the Psalm, God's covenant, of course.

You've said, I have made a covenant with my chosen one.

God makes a covenant by swearing in the second part of verse 3.

I have sworn to David, my servant.

You see this covenant and the anointing of the Messiah in verse 38.

If you draw your eyes down there, the Messiah is called the anointed in verse 38.

Then you have again in verse 39, you have renounced the covenant, that covenantal language.

You see it in verse 49, you swore a covenant to David.

In verse 51, they mock the footsteps of your anointed.

In the middle of the Psalm contains this as well.

Look at verse 20.

With my holy oil I have anointed him.

Verse 28, my steadfast covenant love I will keep forever, and my covenant will stand from forever.

I will establish his offspring forever, and his throne as the days of the heavens.

Verse 33, same thing.

My covenant love, my faithfulness, verse 34, my covenant, verse 35, I've sworn by my holiness.

So again, I'm just trying to help you see it.

These themes of God's faithfulness, his covenant love, the forever nature of it, with his him swearing an oath, they're all over this psalm and they're usually huddled together.

And then one more theme that you see in these first four verses is that of David or the chosen one.

He's called my chosen one in verse three.

He's called my servant David in verse three.

He's called my the offspring, the seed.

That's the word given to Abraham in the Abrahamic covenant back in Genesis chapter 12.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

I'll build your throne, speaking of the Messiah's throne, in verse 4.

It's repeated in verse 18.

He's our king in verse 18.

Verse 19, he's the godly one.

He's the one who is mighty.

He's the one who's chosen from the people in verse 19.

Verse 20, it's the name David.

Again, I found David my servant.

Verse 21, my hand will be established with him.

That's messianic kind of language.

Verse 27, I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

Verse 29, his throne will exist as long as the days of the heavens.

Yahweh, where's your steadfast covenant love of old?

And here's where verse 49 is cool because it's got all these themes in it together.

Your steadfast covenant love of old, which your faithfulness you swore to David.

So that brings us back to verse 3 at the very beginning of the psalm.

You've said, I've made a covenant with my chosen one.

I have sworn to David, my servant.

Now, this is what's provoking the praise.

That God declared he has a covenant.

This covenant is rooted in heaven, it's revealing the faithfulness of God forever and ever with his covenant love.

And this covenant enters earth with God's chosen one.

Now, who is the chosen one?

Well, the first time we see this covenant is with David.

Verse 3, I have sworn to David, my servant.

But if you are at all familiar with the Bible, you know that this covenant is not primarily about David.

David does not fulfill all of these promises.

The covenant is made with David to his offspring.

And when it says offspring, it is singular, it is speaking of the seed, it is speaking of the Messiah.

So this is a covenant made to the Messiah.

It enters our world in time through David, but this covenant is really made ultimately with the Savior Himself.

And so so much of Psalm 89 is gonna go back and forth between the covenant with David and the covenant with the Messiah, and to the point where it's very hard to distinguish which is parts of this covenant is with David and which part of it is with the Messiah.

It's they're not really, you can't really extract them from each other.

It's all wrapped up together.

And that's because God's plan of salvation can't really be parsed in that sense.

God has designed a plan of salvation with his son before time.

He's covenanted within the Trinity to bring it to pass.

He's called it a covenant with my chosen one here, chosen one referencing the Savior.

And then he's sworn to David, verse 3, my servant.

That's how it enters into time.

And then it plays out through time.

God's covenant with his son, his covenant with David, his covenant with the Messiah.

And you'll see all three of these wrapped up together.

And what's that covenant gonna do?

Well, verse 4 answers that I will establish your offspring, the word for seed there, forever.

I will build your throne for all generations.

Well, the throne will be built, but we're gonna see in the psalm that God's faithfulness is seen in the throne.

This is the very throne of God itself.

So already you've got this weird messianic promise that Jesus brings out in his preaching.

Remember, Jesus stumps the Pharisees when he asks the Pharisees, hey, how come, how come the Messiah is said to be David's Lord but also David's descendant?

How can that both be true?

And remember, the Pharisees are like minds fall out of their ears.

They don't know how to answer that question.

How can the Messiah be David's son but also David's Lord?

That doesn't make any sense.

Unless the Messiah is both God and man, unless the Messiah is the architect of the promise of salvation and the recipient of it.

He has to be both places.

He has to be before David and after David.

The same principle is here: the throne of the Messiah will be established forever in all generations.

Selah.

Selah is just a pause, you know, to think about what you just heard.

Like pull the car over, spend a few seconds thinking about it, and recognize that there's a lot going on here.

That's how Selah functions as a psalm.

So I'm going to give you an outline that'll help carry us to the rest of the psalm.

We'll spend less time in these paragraphs than we do with the first four verses here.

Your outline is going to be the rock older than time.

There's a phrase in here that God is the rock of salvation.

His character is a rock.

And so we're going to borrow that.

Borrow that phrase.

We sang, On Christ a solid rock I stand earlier.

That's going to be your outline.

It's the rock older than time.

First, God rocks.

That's where we're going to start.

God rocks.

We've already seen all the key words of the psalm pile up in the first four verses, and then we kind of have a deviation here.

Verses 5 through 14 initially is just this praise of God.

In a sense, this is kind of boilerplate language.

You see this all over the Bible.

The kind of language uses verse 5 through 14 is repeated throughout the Bible.

It's not unique to this Psalm.

The heavens will praise your wonders.

You've got kind of Psalm 19 language right there.

The one cool thing about 5 through 14 is the repetition of faithfulness.

You see it in verse 5, you see it in verse 8, you see it in verse 14.

God's faithfulness is on display in the heavens.

You get this kind of divine counsel here in verse 7.

He's a God greatly to be feared in the counsel of the holy ones and awesome above all who are around him.

The counsel of the holy ones is a phrase used elsewhere in Psalms.

I think it's Psalm 80 or so around there, speaking of God's counsel with the angels.

In other words, you're not going to confuse God or the preincarnate Messiah, the Son of God, is not going to be confused with an angel.

If you were to see Jesus in all his glory, you wouldn't think that's an angel.

No.

And God's not like his angels.

Nobody can be compared to Yahweh.

There's no heavenly being like Yahweh, verse 6 says.

And if God is so much greater than the angels, the angels are so much greater than the so-called, so-called gods of the pagan nations.

You know that, right?

The gods of the pagan nations are either demons or fiction, and they're not even worth mentioning.

Angels are greater than them.

Well, if angels are greater than the pagan gods, and Yahweh is greater than angels, I mean this whole thing just piles up.

God is extremely exalted.

Verse 9, he rules the world.

You rule the raging of the sea.

When the waves rise, you still them.

You crush Rahab like a carcass.

I don't think anybody has any idea what the word Rahab means.

Some people say it's a constellation that God rules over the stars.

Some people say it's a sea monster because it's used elsewhere in the Psalms as a sea monster.

I think the MacArthur Study Bible says it stands in for Egypt here, that God crushed Egypt.

Whatever it is, Rahab was an enemy and God rocked his enemies.

So that's the bottom line of that.

He scatters his enemies with his mighty arm.

That's a the verse that is picked up by Mary, by the way.

Mary quotes this verse in the Magnificat when she finds out she's going to bring the Messiah into the world.

She has her prayer/slash song in Luke, and she quotes that verse, the strong arm of God.

If you ever memorize the Magnifica, that's from verse 10 there.

You scattered your enemies with your mighty arm.

Everything belongs to God.

The heavens belong to him, verse 11 says, all the earth is in it, because you have founded them.

So this word founded is important to remind you that we're dealing with eternity here.

That God made the earth.

Everything on the earth is founded on God's word.

God's faithfulness predates his creation.

So God rocks, because of all the reasons, you know, he rules nature and he rocks the Egyptians or Rahab or the stars, whatever, he's rocking things.

That's amazing.

But that's because that's who he is before creation.

The north and the south, those are stand-ins for mountains, one in Turkey, one I think in some people imagine uh Egypt or Ethiopia.

They're bracketing here the known world, the north and the south.

God defeats them.

He defeats the Egyptians, if that's what Rahab is.

He defeats the waves back in verse 9 of the sea.

I mean, he rules from river to ocean, from mountain to mountain with his verse 13 mighty arm, again Mary's language.

Strong is your hand, high is your right hand.

Righteousness, justice, verse 14, are the foundation of your throne.

Again, that word foundation.

Everything is going back to God's throne, which predates creation.

Verse 14 key for understanding the Psalms steadfast love and faithfulness go back.

Before you.

Think about what that means.

Somebody goes before you.

It means before you enter the room, they're already there.

So God's covenant love and his faithfulness go before him into the world.

Which means before God creates the world, his covenant love and his faithfulness is already there.

In other words, God has a promise to himself.

This is how Paul says it in Titus chapter 1.

Titus 1 · chapter mention

God promised salvation before time began.

Well, to whom is God making a promise before time began?

Not to you.

I mean, who's around before time began?

The angels aren't even around then.

Who's around before time began?

Just himself.

So this is a promise God makes to himself.

His faithfulness is seen to himself.

His covenant love is seen to himself.

Paul makes the same point in Hebrews chapter 6.

Hebrews 6 · chapter mention

It says, when God wanted to swear by something greater, what can God swear by?

God wants to make an oath.

What is God going to swear by?

You know, people will say, I promise on my mother's grave.

My mom's still alive and maybe listening to this, so apologies.

I promise on my mother's grave.

Well what's God gonna do?

God swears by himself.

He swears by himself.

And that's, I think, important to understand to get what is being described in Rose 14.

Verse 15, blessed are those who walk, who know the festal shout, who walk, O Yahweh, in the light of your face.

The festal shout being those who are keeping the law.

Blessed are those who are rejoicing in God and his Levitical law, who walk in the light of your face.

This is the blessing given to Aaron.

The Israelites be blessed when they go in and out of worship by the light of the countenance of the face of God.

If you understand that God's faithfulness and his covenant love are going before him, then you're walking in the light of his presence.

You exalt in his name.

Righteousness is exalted, the glory of the strength, all of this is happening.

The whole universe is rejoicing based upon how it connects back to God.

Verse 15 through 18 here, as we start reading, this starts your transition to the Savior.

You start to realize this is becoming more personified in the person of Christ here.

You're going to start to see the light of his face.

He's going to come to earth.

His righteousness is going to be exalted.

People will glory in his strength.

By your favor, our horn is exalted.

Horn is the strength of an animal.

It's used by Hannah in Hannah's song in 1 Samuel 2, but this is a reference, of course, to the Hannah's saying it in reference to the Savior.

The Messiah will be exalted.

Our shield belongs to Yahweh, our king to the Holy One of Israel.

So when I say this, it's starting to become Messiah language here.

Notice what he's saying.

Our king belongs to God.

He has a special relationship with God.

He's our messianic king, our horn, our strength, the promise given to David.

He belongs to the Holy One of Israel.

How can the king have a special relationship with the Holy One of Israel, with God Himself, and walk in the light of God's face?

Very hard to understand until you realize that the king is God Himself.

Is God Himself.

There's a pronoun change in verse 17, which I think is kind of cool.

It's uh, you know, look at verse 17.

You are the glory of their strength.

Speaking of the worshipers, by your favor, our horn is exalted.

See the change from third person to first person?

Like, oh, all those worshipers, they're totally rejoicing.

And all the worshipers are singing, God rocks.

On Christ the solid rock, they stand.

And then the last verse, it changes from third person to first person.

On Christ the solid rock, we stand.

Our horn is exalted.

Our shield belongs to Yahweh.

Our King, it's it's Him.

He belongs to the Holy One of Israel.

So, God rocks.

Amen?

Secondly, the Savior is the rock.

Verses 19 through 37.

Here you get language that is unique to the second person, the Trinity, to the Son, the eternal Son of God.

It reminds you of Psalm 2, Psalm 110.

Of old you spoke in a vision to your godly one, and said, I've granted help to the one who is mighty, I have exalted one chosen from the people.

Again, it's very hard to disentangle what's spoken to the Son of God, the Messiah, and what is spoken to David, the King.

It seems like verse 19, though, is using language that is used elsewhere for the eternal Son of God.

The Lord decreed, the Lord said, Today you are my son, I have begotten you.

And this is the doctrine of eternal generation, that the Father, uh the Son is begotten from the Father from before the foundation of time, that the Son is eternal, and the Father has an image of himself, that image is the Son, the Father is the speaker, the Son is the word, the Father is the source, the Son is the light.

All the language used in the Bible of the Son is found resonant in this, that he is spoken by the Father.

There's all over Proverbs 8, for example, John chapter 1, John chapter 3, where he's called the only begotten son of old.

John 1 · chapter mention John 3 · chapter mention

You spoke to your godly one.

And we're going to see that kind of language repeat through this.

And look, you can draw your eyes on to verse 27.

I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.

So if you're if you limit this psalm to David, that's a very hard verse to understand.

I'll make him the firstborn.

I mean, David wasn't even the first, second, third, fourth, fifthborn of his own family.

How could he be the firstborn of God's family?

Who's the firstborn in God's family?

It's obviously the Son, the eternal son.

When you go back to Psalm 2, it said, I have declared, I have decreed, today you are my Son.

I have begotten you.

The Lord grants, Jesus says, in John's gospel, the Father has granted him life.

You see that language back in verse 19.

I've granted help to the one who is mighty.

Again, a very strange verse, if you don't understand it's talking about the second person eternity.

How do you grant help to someone who is mighty?

And what can you do?

If you ask the president of the United States, hey, do you need anything from me?

What's he gonna say?

Probably your vote.

That's what I need from you.

Vote for me again.

Well, that's a display of his weakness right there.

The one area he's weak in is what he needs help from you to do.

You know, if you see an all-powerful king, you say, Do you need anything from me?

He doesn't need anything from you.

Taxes is what he needs from you.

But here, you're speaking of the messianic king.

He's the holy one of Israel, his horn is exalted.

God is giving him special favor, and now that favor is called as exalting him, granting him help, even though he's mighty.

When you see this as kind of eternal generation language, you understand it's the Father who's giving life to the Son.

The Son is all the attributes of the Father, all the strength, all the omniscience, all the omnipotence, all the eternality of the Father, and yet it's granted to him by the Father.

And then verse 19 makes sense.

I've exalted one.

And now you got chosen from the people.

This is a transition back to David, and of course you see David's words, David's name in verse 20.

I found David my servant.

This is what's quoted in the book of Acts.

Acts chapter 4 picks us up again, quoting Psalm 89, that God found David, a man after his own heart, chose him with my holy oil.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

I anointed him.

He's receiving the covenant love.

So the eternal covenant of God between the Father, Son, and Spirit is now breaking into the world on the King David.

My hand will be established with him.

So God is tethering his pretemporal, eternal, faithful, powerful, sovereign hand into time on King David.

My hand will be established with him.

Remember the word established was used earlier for the very throne of God before time.

Now that is breaking forward in the earth with the anointing of David, the powerful, sovereign hand of God on David.

More than the hand of God, look at verse 21.

My arm will strengthen him.

The enemy will not outwit him, the wicked will not humble him.

I'll crush his foes before him, strike down those who hate him.

My faithfulness and steadfast love, those two words again, will be with him.

In my name, his horn again will be exalted.

Messianic promise.

I will set his hand on the sea, his right hand on the rivers.

We saw it in language earlier, used of the Father, now it's used of the King.

And look at this.

He'll cry to me, You are my Father, my God, and the rock of my salvation.

This is what I mean by the Savior is the rock.

God is the rock, but the Savior, the Messiah, the recipient of this covenant, is in a unique relationship to the Father.

Let me just draw, before we move on here, let me just draw out a couple observations from this passage in the Savior.

You see, the God chooses the Savior.

God chose this person.

In a very unique way.

The choice of him is anchored in God's promise.

Look at verse 21.

The promise is God's strength will be shared with him.

He'll have victory.

God promises the Savior victory in verses 22 and verse 23.

To exalt him in verse 24, to rule the world in verse 25.

And the Savior has a particular relationship with the Father.

He's anointed by the Father.

The Father's hand is established with him.

He'll declare, You're my Father in verse 26.

He'll be the firstborn in verse 27.

And this promise can never be broken.

Look at verse 28.

My steadfast love, my covenant love will last forever.

My covenant will stand firm for him.

I'll establish his offspring forever and his throne as the days of the heavens.

This is eternal.

The Savior's throne will last forever and ever and ever.

It's not a covenant that's contingent upon how this person lives.

Of course, David lives a reckless life.

It's a covenant that takes place in God's holiness, not in his sanctuary.

He'll establish his offspring forever, God says, in God's own holiness.

This is what we call an unconditional covenant.

God is holy, and so he'll keep his word.

When you think of David's life, you're you're thankful for that.

If this covenant was contingent upon David's behavior, no Jesus.

Exile forever and ever and ever, period.

No New Testament, no nothing.

But this covenant was not contingent upon David.

This covenant comes through the holiness of God, which is unmovable and unaffected by the things on the earth.

To cut off this king would be to cut off God Himself.

That's what verse 29 is making.

You cut off this king, you cut off God himself.

Verse 30.

If his children forsake my law, this is language borrowed from 2 Samuel 7, and don't walk according to my rules.

Speaking of David and ultimately Solomon and Rehaboam, of course, who becomes a total apostate, if they violate my statutes and they don't keep my commandments, I will punish their transgression with the rod.

If you ever study 2 Samuel 7, which is the Davidic covenant, you recognize there's a big problem in 2 Samuel 7.

Some of 2 Samuel 7 is obviously talking about Jesus, and some of it can't be talking about Jesus.

Like, for example, when the Savior, when the seed, the promised person sins, he'll be punished.

And you're like, well, hello.

Jesus is sinless.

That's kind of like a tenant of our faith.

And yet the promise that he'll come has this caveat: when he sins, I'll punish him.

And so you recognize that part of even the Davidic covenant goes to Solomon and the human offspring.

And some of it is reserved for the final seed.

Of course, Jesus didn't have children.

We're all adopted into his family.

We're his brothers and sisters.

Our Father is God.

And so you recognize that some of the Davidic covenant finds residence only in Christ.

Well, this is part that finds residence in Solomon and Rehoboam.

They are going to sin, they are going to be struck by God.

But notice that even when they're struck by God, verse 33, I will not remove my steadfast love or be false to my faithfulness.

I will not violate my covenant with them.

Once for all I've sworn by my holiness.

This language, once for all, is important, verse 35.

There's one thing about all this, one thing in the Davidic covenant that will not be changed.

I will not lie to David, verse 35 says, his offspring, his seed, the messianic part of the promise will be forever.

So that part is called out.

It's distinguished from the rest of the covenant to David.

There's this covenant to David, and David's children, when they sin, will be disciplined.

And they're even going to go into exile, if you know the Old Testament.

They will be banished to Babylon.

But one part of the promise will never be altered, and that's that God will keep the seed alive until the Savior comes.

And that offspring, verse 36, will endure forever again, as long as the sun is before me.

Again, verse 37.

Like the moon, it's forever.

A faithful witness in the skies.

So this promise will stretch on forever.

The Savior is the rock himself.

However, the Psalm takes a twist here, verse 38.

The Savior is rocked.

God rocks, the Savior is the rock, and thirdly, the Savior is rocked.

In verse 38.

What did God just say?

We just read it a second ago.

That He's not going to reject the covenant.

That it's made in heaven, it's not going anywhere.

God will not reject the covenant.

And yet, verse 38, now you have cast off and rejected, and you're full of wrath against your anointed.

The very thing the paragraph before just said would never ever happen, as sure as the moon up there.

Look outside.

Is the moon still there?

Yes.

Then God is not going to cast off his promise with the Messiah.

And yet, verse 39, well, there that went.

You've renounced verse 39.

You've renounced the covenant with your servant.

You've defiled his crown in the dust.

Well, it made the crown so spectacular is on the head of the Savior.

Now it's tossed into the dirt.

There are those that think this is entirely about David.

Remember, David was exiled.

Absalom overthrew him.

Absalom took his wives and raped them.

And then David had to be frog-marched out of Jerusalem, and people were spitting at him and throwing rocks at him, and he had to cross the Jordan River.

And then he eventually came back.

But the language here does doesn't even reach that.

It's beyond that.

The language here is worse than even what David experienced.

You've breached all his walls, verse 40 says.

You've laid his strongholds in ruins.

All who pass by plunder him.

He's become the scorn of his neighbors.

You've exalted the right hand of his foes.

You've made all his enemies rejoice.

You've turned back the edge of the sword.

You've not made him stand in battle.

You've made his splendor cease and cast his throne to the ground.

His throne now is in the dirt.

Remember God's throne is exalted in heaven before the foundation of time.

This Savior's throne is now in the dirt.

This is talking about the exile of Israel, where they were plundered, the temple was destroyed.

The king was led by a hook in his nose.

Remember Zedekiah, the end of the Second Kings?

They put a hook in his nose and led him out by a cable to Babylon.

That's what went down with their king.

You don't get more humiliated than that.

It's hard to look noble with the nice crown on your head when you have a hook in your nose and you're being led by a horse.

That's what happened to them.

And so you're left with this question: Is this like a huge contradiction in the Bible?

You sometimes can find those websites, they're like, here's all the contradictions in the Bible.

They don't put this one on there, though.

Like the actual contradictions in the Bible, they all miss.

They're like, the Bible says the soldier's robe was scarlet and the other one says it was purple.

Judas hung himself and he burst open when he fell off his rope.

Contradiction.

But this is like a legit one.

I will not break my covenant with David.

Also, Jerusalem's getting plundered, and the king's being led out of the city with a hook in his nose.

And I renounce my covenant.

I take the crown off his head and throw it in the dirt.

That's a problem.

But you have to remember here that this covenant has some components to it.

The first of that is the eternal covenant, pre-temporal between the Father and the Son, brought about in time.

That finds his fulfillment in Christ.

That one is unmoved.

David, meanwhile, his offspring did sin, and they are experiencing the punishment and the vengeance of God on their sin, the consequences of their sin.

And of course, Jesus comes and he lives all this out.

This is the Savior's life.

He becomes the scorn of those around him.

Those around him mock him.

He's stripped naked on the cross.

They mock him, they hurl insults at him, they cast lots for his clothing.

When you read the crucifixion account, it reminds me so much of these verses.

Verses 38 through 45.

His splendor has ceased.

Verse 41, all who pass by mock him.

They hurled insults at him.

They shouted at him, hey, you who are the Christ, you who say you're the Christ, take yourself down from the cross.

And it seems like his glory is defiled.

He cries out from the cross, Father, why have you forsaken me?

Look at verse 46 of Psalm 99.

How long, O Yahweh, will you hide yourself forever?

How long will your wrath burn like fire?

The Savior on the cross becomes the recipient of God's wrath.

As he suffers in the place of sinners.

Remember verse 47.

How short my time is.

Relatively young.

Three years of ministry is what he had.

And then that was that.

So God rocks, the savior is the rock, the savior is rocked.

And then finally the rock is rolled away.

Verse 48.

What man can live and never see death?

That's the question.

So this psalm ends in a bit of a sad note.

When you read commentators about Psalm 89, they put it in the category of sad psalms.

But I don't necessarily get that.

One commentator says this is a psalm of sharply contrasting moods.

It begins with singing and rejoicing in verses 1 through 3 and ends with mournful rhetorical questions that go nowhere.

But it's not fair to read this as a psalm that goes nowhere, I don't think, because we have the rest of the Bible.

We know what the covenant is pointing to, verse 48.

What man can live and never see death?

I mean, don't you want to yell the answer at this?

What man can live and never see death?

Jesus! That's the point of the point of the covenant.

Look at verse 48.

Who can deliver his soul from the power of death?

That's what was quoted in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

That's what Peter is referencing.

That he went down to the grave, but God would not abandon his holy one to Sheol.

He wouldn't abandon his anointed one to Sheol.

So who can deliver his soul from the power of the grave?

God can.

Jesus can.

The Messiah can.

Psalm 22 says all verse 29 all the prosperous of the earth eat and worship, and then bow down before God, and they go to the dust.

And no one can keep himself alive.

Which alludes to Psalm 16, that you die, no matter how you live your life, you die and you go to the grave.

And no one can escape Sheol.

Catholic doctrine of purgatory, notwithstanding, no one can escape Sheol.

And then Jesus goes to Sheol.

Jesus goes to the grave and empties it.

Brings his holy ones with him up to heaven.

So when you die now, you don't go to Sheol anymore.

The Old Testament saints died and went to Sheol, where they waited for the Savior.

You die, you don't go down, you go up.

Have you noticed that in the New Testament?

Old Testament saints died and went down.

New Testament saints die, go up.

Jesus brings you up into the air with him to heaven because he's emptied out Sheol.

This is why Peter says in Acts 2.27, you will not leave my soul, quoting Jesus, you will not leave my shoulder my soul in Sheol, or abandon your holy one to corruption.

The ultimate human descent is to the grave, and we are continually pulled down by sin, down to the grave, down to the grave, down, down, down, down, down.

So much so that Psalm eighty nine ends with the guy going, There's no way that anybody can deliver his soul from Sheol.

Paul says Romans 10, verse 7.

Romans 10:7

He asked rhetorically, who descended into Sheol to bring Jesus up?

Who went and got Jesus out of the grave?

Nobody.

The Holy Spirit brought him to life.

God Himself did this, meaning that he is the Lord of Sheol.

He's the Lord of heaven, the Lord of earth, the Lord of the grave.

When you see verse 48, obviously is fulfilled in Christ, and verse 49 through 51, become happy.

Yahweh, where's your steadfast love of old?

By which your faithfulness you swore to David.

You know, we're not stuck before Christ.

We're reading this after Christ, and we look at this and we're shouting, This is Jesus.

That's where his covenant love is.

Remember, O Yahweh, how your servants are mocked, how they bear in their heart the insults of the many nations which your enemies mock, O Yahweh, which they mock in the footsteps of your anointed.

We do remember this.

Jesus sent us into the nations to take the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth.

All of the questions that are rhetorical and leave unanswered in Psalm 89 are all answered in the New Testament.

And they're all answered with the same word.

Jesus.

The eternal Savior, the Horn of God, who came to earth to take away our sins by bearing the shame that we deserve on the cross.

By bearing our guilt, by bearing God's wrath against himself.

Our sin became his sin.

By his stripes we are healed.

By his death we have life.

By his descent to the grave, we go up.

By his victory over death, the crown of the Messiah is not thrown into the dirt but is exalted in heaven.

We obtain the crown of eternal life when we die.

The faithfulness of God is on full display in the glories of the gospel.

His covenant with his anointed is a covenant that is older than David.

The very faithfulness of God is on full display in his covenant with David, of course.

But the covenant that Christ makes with us, the new covenant, is not patterned on the covenant with David.

The covenant with David is pattern on God's covenant with his son from before time revealed in this world.

When God raised him from the dead, he answered the questions of Psalm 89 and he gives us hope.

So we can look at the whole overflow of history.

We can look at Israel in exile.

We can look at David defeating Goliath.

We can look at the Levites writing Psalm 89.

We can look at any event in the Old Testament and see how it is longing for Christ to be on full display.

And then we come to the New Testament and see how Jesus fulfills all the promises to David.

He's David's Savior, He's David's son, He's David's Lord, He's the real King.

He's David's King.

God, we're thankful for the promises of Psalm 99 that pull our hearts forward in eternity and pull our hearts backwards in eternity.

From before the foundation of the earth.

We're thankful that your faithfulness is seen in who you are.

It's not contingent upon how we respond.

We don't defile you.

We can defile ourselves, we can defile our testimonies, but we can't defile you.

You're the great unmovable mover.

You're the light that shines that cannot be darkened.

If you're darkened by anything, it's your own holiness.

It's your that your light is invisible because you're so far beyond us.

And so it helps us then to see your light break into time with specific promises.

Like your promise to David.

We think of him being summoned by Nathan on the that one day back in 2 Samuel 7.

Where he asks Nathan to build the house and is told no.

But rather you will build him into a house.

And we see this now in in full color in the New Testament.

The promise to David, the seed of David, became the very house of God, your own temple, the church.

We're all members of that, brick by brick built together.

We're thankful for the newness of the church, as we read earlier, Acts chapter 2, how the church began with Peter's preaching, began with the overflowing power of the Holy Spirit, and it began with an allusion back to Psalm 89.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Lord, we find confidence in the fact that this is not a plan that is being pasted together, but a plan that you designed from before the foundations of time.

They would see that the gospel is not just reducible to something in a tract or something that a friend has told them, but the gospel is seen in all of creation.

That you plan this from before you made the earth.

And all of creation is pulling towards the glory of Christ.

And they would see tonight that your plan for the Savior to be crucified and buried and descended to Sheol and exalted up to heaven is an appeal for us to believe.

For those of us who do believe the gospel of God, we give you praise that you have shown your glory, that you punish David for his sin with Bathsheba, you punished Rehoboam for his apostasy, you exiled all of Judah, having a fall to the Babylonians, and yet you preserved the Messiah's crown.

It may look like a crown of thorns on the head of the Savior, but it is a beautiful crown indeed.

We see in it our own sin being atoned for.

We see in it the eternal Son of God, who is declared to be the Son of God, declared before time, declared again at his baptism, declared again at his resurrection.

And we worship him as the Son of God even tonight.

Give you thanks for him in Jesus' name.

Amen.

And now for a parting word from Pastor Jesse Johnson.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you're in the Washington, D.C.

area, I would love to see you at Emmanuel Bible Church.

Our service times and church information are on our website at ibc.church.

For more information about the Master Seminary and their Washington, D.C.

location, go to tms.edu.

I hope this resource has been a blessing to you and it helps you seek the Lord daily, serve others around you, and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with boldness.

May the Lord bless you.