The Lord’s Throne is Established
Study Scripture: Psalm 103:1 – 14
Background Scripture: Psalm 103
Devotional Reading: Psalm 66:1 – 14
Lesson 8 January 18, 2025
Key Verse
The Lord performs [b]righteous deeds And judgments for all who are oppressed
Psalm 103: 6.
INTRODUCTION
Do you feel stuck in a rut sometimes and long for God to get you unstuck and taken out of your rut?
Do you long for the beautiful and normal kind of kingdom living?
Let us note carefully that there is a divide between the greatness of the Lord and man’s orientation and inclination to put off praise to the Lord.
It must be admitted that our soul is slow to warm up and respond positively in thanksgiving to the Lord.
As David therefore shows his inner thoughts and the effects on his emotional life he writes telling us he has to exhort his soul. He therefore begins and ends his Psalm with an exhortation to “bless the LORD”.
David does not shy away from praising the Lord because of the benefits that had come from the Lord. David’s soul needs to be aroused to “not forget” the Lord’s benefits and so David lists some of these in verses 5 through 18.
The reality is that man depends on the “benefits” from heaven.
David states plainly that the benefits of the Lord are rooted in the covenant with Israel and that this covenant brings many blessings.
So we will see in this Psalm 5 clauses starting with the word “Who” designed to give the rhetorical answer given.
David reflects on his past and how God showed His steadfast love to him as well as to all the generations of the people of Israel.
He marvels at God’s “hesed” which is His covenant love, constant, unfailing, and impossible to fully understand love to His people who keeps the covenant and fear the Lord.
Note that this is a Psalm of worship where the word “bless” simply means “praise”.
His worship is based on the benefits received from God which he personally, his nation, and all of creation had experienced.
In plain and practical terms, God deserved “praise” because of the demonstration of His benefits. Practical benefits are obviously what human beings like and what they understand. People will tell you they love to hear the “promises” made by God, but they love more to see or to be reminded of the practical benefits recorded in their history.
Jesus knew this and He appealed to human understanding by stating that on the Day of Judgment He would separate the sheep from the goats for what they had done and blessed the sheep among other things for giving Him clothes when He was naked, giving Him food when He was hungry, visiting Him in prisons. When they expressed great surprise that Jesus would judge them on that basis for they could not recall doing those things He listed to Him, He taught that when the did such to the least of those His brethren they had done it to Him.
So do not hide that you like to receive benefits from God and you love Him in a vacuum.
David will therefore give us a roadmap of the journey of his soul to redemption.
We are warned however as we remember the gifts of God not to misunderstand what this Psalm is telling us, for we know that the Bible does not tell us that no child of God will ever be sick. So let us note carefully David’s journey.
The Study Text Psalm 103 is regarded by many of its readers as the Mount Everest of the praise Psalms. Others regard it as the most perfect song of pure praise to be found in the Bible. It is the first of a group of Psalms of praise which includes Psalms 103 to 107.
About half of the Psalms are attributed to King David, known as the “sweet psalmist of Israel”
(2 Samuel 23:1). Today’s passage from Psalm 103 is one of those Psalms. While some psalms include a superscription that provides the setting (example: Psalm 51), there is no such background given for Psalm 103. It simply notes the association with David.
As noted, King David is regarded as the writer, though with some uncertainty. It is virtually the same as the Psalm sung by David at the very end of his life and recorded in 2 Samuel 22.
Scholars attribute the writing to the later years of the life of this Shepherd- king who endured great crises in his life and from which God delivered him.
In his long tumultuous life David came to know and love God’s great deliverances and so in many Psalms he praised God for deliverance, sometimes using a word for love which means impulsive and emotional love which meant that he loved God deeply, dearly and entirely with his heart.
David considered the LORD to be:
– His rock, fortress and deliverer.
– His strength and the one in whom he would trust.
– His shield and the horn of his salvation, and
– His stronghold or his high tower of refuge.
Scripture tells us that he experienced and knew the grace and deliverance of God many times and understandably, David erupted in praise for God in a majestic fashion.
He reminded himself of God’s blessings so that he would always be grateful for what God had done for him. As one writer explains:
: “He is cataloguing the goodness of God, enumerating his blessings lest in a moment of depression or backsliding, he should forget the source of his prosperity and take God’s grace for granted”.
Psalm 103 has led to many hymns of praise such as for example Henry Lyte’s hymn written in 1834: “Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
To his feet your tribute bring:
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
Who, like me, he praise should sing?
Praise him, praise him, praise him, praise him,
Praise the everlasting King….
Another great hymn based on this Psalm reads in part:
“Count your blessings; name them one by one,
and it will surprise you what the Lord has done”….
Charles Spurgeon tells us why this Psalm is most important for senior saints:
“We should attribute it to his later years when he had a higher sense of the preciousness of pardon, because of a keener sense of sin, than in his younger days. His clear sense of the frailty of life indicates his weaker years, as also does the very fullness of his praiseful gratitude”.
As we study Psalm 103 the following are among the questions that should naturally arise in our minds: Do we take God’s grace for granted?
Do we murmur against God?
Do we complain about God like how some in the day of David complained and while some do today?
Or do we pile up the words of gratitude for what God has done for us so that we can properly express our gratitude to our God of grace?
Do we consider how a person should praise God? How does David answer this question?
Do we consider why a person should praise God?
Do we think deeply about what God is like and connect our understanding of His attributes, His virtues, or His nature so that we know that we should praise Him?
Do we consider seriously who should praise God?
And have you considered whether you have a share in these blessings of God that David declares in his in rapturous fashion?
What about God’s mercy, His loyal love? What does it mean to you?
This Psalm of grace calls for deep self-examination and a turning around to see what God has done for us and to say with David as he said: “Bless the Lord O My soul”.
THE TEXT
Verse 1. The psalmist calls upon his soul to arise to praiseful gratitude for God’s justifying, redeeming, and renewing grace.
The word bless is used in Scripture both of what God does for people and what they offer up to Him. God’s blessings are His gifts to His people, what the psalmist (David) calls “his “benefits”
Note the Hebrew word “barak” which means “praise” is closely related to “berek” which means “kneel”. So the word translated more often as ‘bless’ rather than ‘praise’ tells us David will kneel in homage to Yahweh to show his reverence to God as well as expressing ‘praise’.
The word for soul is a noun and ‘soul’ (nepes) means soul or life, or breath which is the animating force giving creative life. This we possess and it comes from God and will return to Him and is the portion of us that can relate in any way to God. Praise therefore comes from the depths of his being. When the psalmist calls upon his soul to “bless” the Lord, he is not invoking or conferring a blessing on Him in the same sense that God blesses. This is impossible, as God stands in no need of it, and being God, He is All Sufficient and blessed for evermore.
The people’s blessing of God is expressed in praise of Him and gratitude for those benefits. Indeed, the Psalms often use the words bless and praise rather interchangeably, as parallel thoughts (Psalms 34:1; 104:35; 145:2). When the psalmist calls upon his soul to “bless” the Lord, he is giving Him praise, honor, and thanks for all mercies, spiritual and temporal. This is the purpose of David’s Psalm, to stir himself up to the duty of praise.
But when we say we bless God we are proclaiming and congratulating His blessedness, and giving Him praise, honor, and thanks for all mercies, spiritual and temporal.
We are told that God delights when we praise Him for who He is and praise and thank Him appropriately. This is the purpose of David’s Psalm, to stir himself up to the duty of praise.
The soul of man is often prone to forget to render thanks that are due, and more especially thanks that are due to God. It therefore needs to be expressly aroused in order that it may not leave the blessing with which God blesses it unacknowledged. The soul must not forget all His acts performed on it, which are purely deeds of loving kindness, which is the primal condition and the foundation of all others. Including is sin pardoning mercy. There are several instances where the words ‘bless’ and ‘praise’ are used interchangeably.
… name … a person’s name represents that individual’s character or uniqueness. God’s holiness is one of His most prominent qualities. His name is the sum of all His attributes, (Genesis 2:19; 13:4;
Micah 4:5; Psalm 99:3, 5, 9; Isaiah 6:1–3; Revelation 4:8; 15:4). The “name” of God stands for His person which essentially is connected with ‘holiness’ or the sacred.
Verse 2. David now focuses on good things God had done.
As stated in Verse 1, it is a requirement of man to praise and exalt the Almighty, Holy God with His entire being. In order for our praises to return to God, it must be done within the grateful remembrance of the mercies we have received from Him. We must continually give thanks for them, lest we forget them. Forgetting is truthfully unjust as well as unkind, since in all God’s favours there is so much that is memorable.
Even good men are apt to forget what God has done for them, like the Israelites of old, who sung the praises of the Lord, and soon forgot His works. However, once again we are reminded that the Lord is merciful and wise, in giving us great prophets and finally a Messiah who came and brought the Gospel dispensation that includes the provision to encourage our remembrance of the great things God has done for us through the power of the Holy Spirit. We can now always be in a state of mind and soul to show gratitude and thankfulness to Him and for the encouragement of our faith and hope in Him.
The several blessing are both spiritual and physical and these include forgiveness of sins and healing from diseases. The Jews regarded them as closely related and regarded illness as a sign of God’s displeasure. Healing then was regarded as a sign of forgiveness of sins.
Verse 3. Here David specifies some of the Lord’s blessings. They are both spiritual (the forgiveness of iniquities) and physical (the healing of diseases) in nature. Jesus demonstrated His power both to forgive sins and heal diseases, as in the case of the paralytic brought to Jesus (Mark 2:1–12).
David apparently felt that he was not praising God enough. It is not simply that true worship was something inwardly felt by the soul but it should also show in other forms of expression. All that is within him, the totality of being called heart, soul, will, mind, and strength must he says, remember the many benefits God has brought with Him.
He speaks of the five marvellous benefits that God brought to invigorate our souls, and he lists them in order:
-forgives
-heals
-redeems
-crowns
-satisfies.
David mentions, first and foremost, that God pardoned his sins as well as our sins that have kept good things from us, and by His pardon we are thus restored to the favour of God, which bestows good things on us.
God has forgiven our trespasses. The magnitude of our sins are staggeringly large, and hence forgiveness gives us a extremely great reason for praising God.
Even better than just forgiving our past sins, it is a continuing action, as He is still forgiving, as we still sin and repent. God has the power to cleanse all unrighteousness and will do so.
Our crimes were capital crimes, but God saves our lives by pardoning them. Our diseases were mortal, that is deadly, but God saves our lives by healing them. These two go together, for, as for God, His work is perfect and not done by halves. If God take away the guilt of sin by pardoning mercy, He will break the power of it by renewing grace. Where Christ is made righteousness to any soul He is made sanctification.
There are many ways for a man’s life to be in peril, God covers all and accounts for all through His grace. From crimes, or diseases, or by the power of his enemies, man can experience the divine goodness of the Redeemer by always being in remembrance of what Christ has done.
We should always remember but God cares for our bodies and that He will bring healing through natural, scientific ways as well as by very miraculous ways. Our diseases are not simply spiritual even though there are many spiritual diseases such as pride, lust, laziness, and other spiritual maladies
But many can testify that God has healed their bodies on many occasions as well as their souls and recognize that good health has been given us surely as a gift from God.
One writer clarifies however: “This passage is not intended to suggest that God’s child can expect perpetual healing from every illness, so that he will never die. Physical death is a punishment which results from humanity’s involvement in sin”. (Genesis 2:17; Romans 5:12). It is a divine appointment (Hebrews 9: 27).
Second, the passage is not a promise but Christians throughout history were able to tap into the divine power of miraculous healing, as such existed in the era of Jesus’ personal ministry and in the apostolic period just beyond that time. The supernatural phenomena of those days were temporary by design
(1 Corinthians 13:8).
What the passage thus addresses is this: The God who created the human body (Genesis 2:7;
Psalm 139:14) is able, consistent with His own purposes, to mend His own creation.
None of us would survive infancy were it not for the amazing providential healing process that has been divinely designed and incorporated into the fabric of the human system. The immune system, the phenomenon of antibodies, the mending process, etc. are all remarkable beyond our ability to express….
But beyond the foregoing is the ultimate promise of our glorified state”. After the body is deposited back into the bowels of the Earth, to return to its dusty origin (Genesis 3:19; Eccl. 12:7) it awaits the Day of Resurrection (John 5:28-29); Acts 24: 15;1 Corinthians 15). When it emerges from the grave, it would enter a new state where pain and that exists “no more”. (Revelation 21:4), and where the “leaves” of the “tree of life” provide abiding “healing”, that is, everlasting association with God (Revelation 22:2).”
Verse 4. Christ has redeemed our life from destruction, from the destroyer, from hell, and the second
death. Note this redemption is based on the concept of the Kinsman-Redeemer. The redemption of the soul is as a result precious and we cannot compass it. We are even more indebted to
divine grace that has worked it out, to Him who has obtained eternal redemption for us.
All saints are blessed through Christ. This spiritual blessing given by the grace of God to man includes mercy. It is also by Him and extends throughout time.
Any and all other blessings flow from the loving kindness and tender mercy of God. The word for ‘tender mercies’ is based in the singular on the ‘womb’ and so when used in the plural speaks of the idea of a mother’s tenderness for her child. Included in these blessings are all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, the sure mercies of David.
All the spiritual blessings are with which the saints are blessed in Christ, the grace given them in Him, and by mercy kept with Him for evermore. To clarify, all things pertaining to life and godliness come out of the regeneration we have in Christ. We therefore not only have sparing from sin, disease, and trouble, but God is so great that He gives us a crowning with His great love and mercy.
Verse 5. It is only the favour and grace of God that can give satisfaction to a soul. Only He can meet the needs of the soul, fill it and answer to its desires. Nothing but divine wisdom can undertake to fill its treasures (Prov. 8:21); other things are excess, but will not satiate, Eccl. 6:7; Isa. 55:2.
God will satisfy.
He has given us the prospect and pledge of long life. The eagle is long-lived, and, as naturalists say, when she is nearly one hundred years old, casts all her feathers (as indeed she changes them in a great measure every year at moulting time), and fresh ones come, so that she becomes young again.
When God, by the graces and comforts of His Spirit, recovers His people from their decays, and fills them with new life and joy, which is to them an earnest of eternal life and joy, then they may be said to return to the days of their youth, Job 33:25.
Verse 6. David in the next few verses looks at his own experiences and gleans inspiration for praise. He also draws on his relationship to others as God has blessed him and them, through their interactions.
God is in action with a purpose for He has an obligation and will execute righteousness and justice.
God is just and good to all. He executes righteousness and judgment, not only for His own people, but for all that are oppressed; for even in common providence He is the patron of wronged innocence, and, one way or other, will plead the cause of those that are injured against their oppressors. It is His honor to humble the proud and help the helpless.
Verse 7. The ways of God have been made known. God has done deeds. By mentioning Moses, David inspires us to rise to the example that was set. Moses was not perfect, but we can see the good things that he did and see how God responded to him. The psalmist’ intention in this verse and the following, extends to the consideration of the good things God did for others, with the purpose of keeping a warm sense of divine goodness upon His heart, and also to ours.
In anothern sense, God ‘s special relationship to Israel serves as a general lesson to all His people, that if you possess that clean and upright heart, God will look to you with favor.
God has revealed Himself and His grace to us. He made known His ways unto Moses, and by him His acts to the children of Israel, not only by His rod to those who then lived, but by His pen to succeeding ages.
Divine revelation is one of the first and greatest of divine favors with which the congregation of God and the church is blessed; for God restores us to Himself by revealing Himself to us, and gives us all good by giving us knowledge. He has made known His acts and His ways (that is, His nature, and the methods of His dealing with the children of men), that they may know both what to conceive of Him and what to expect from Him. Thus, in all His actions, God deals fairly with His people and all man.
Note Yahweh is merciful and compassionate but He is not indulgent. He does not fool Himself in blinding His eyes to the frailty and the unacceptable behaviour of human beings. His compassions do not fail, and therefore David does not say Yahweh never gets angry but says God is slow (Hebrew ‘arek) to anger. He has a slow fuse, says one writer.
Verse 8. This is perhaps the most reassuring verse to repentant sinners and even to sinners in general.
God has never been rigorous and severe with us, but always tender, full of compassion, and ready to forgive. Just and merciful is our God, not rewarding us for our iniquity, but looking for ways to bring us back into His fold. His anger only comes at a very slow pace. The world benefits from His sparing mercy.
It is in His nature to be so. The Lord is merciful and gracious; this was His way which He has made known unto Moses at Mount Horeb, when He thus proclaimed His name (Ex. 34:6, 7), in answer to Moses’s request (ch. 33:13). It is my way, says God, to pardon sin.
He is not soon angry, as mentioned, He is slow to anger, not extreme to mark what we do amiss nor ready to take advantage against us. He bears long with those that are very provoking, defers punishing, that He may give space to repent, and does not speedily execute the sentence of His law; and He could not be thus slow to anger if He were not plenteous in mercy, the very Father of mercies.
The famous Prince of preachers Spurgeon tells us:
“All the world taste of his sparing mercy, those who hear the gospel partake of his inviting mercy, the Saints live by his saving mercy, are preserved by his upholding mercy, are cheered by his consoling mercy, and will enter heaven through his infinite and everlasting mercy”.
Verse 9. God does not hold His disapproval for long towards those that sin. Though we always offend and deserve chiding, though He lets us know His displeasure against us for our sins by the rebukes of Providence, and the reproaches of our own consciences, and thus cause grief, yet He will have compassion, and will not always keep us in pain and terror, no, not for our sins, but, after the spirit of bondage, will give the spirit of adoption.
How unlike are those to God who always chide, who take every occasion to chide, and never know when to cease! What would become of us if God should deal so with us? He will not keep His anger for ever against His own people, but will gather them with everlasting mercies, Isa. 54:8; 57:16.
Do not forget however that God has not dealt with us after our sins because the Father has dealt with another after our sins for Another took our sins upon Him.
Verse 10. All of man must acknowledge, must own this truth, namely, that God has not dealt with us after our sins. The Scripture says a great deal of the mercy of God, and we may all set to our seal that it is true, that we have experienced it.
If He had not been a God of patience, we should have been in hell long ago; but God has not rewarded us after our iniquities; so those will say who know what sin deserves.
He has not inflicted the judgments which we have merited, nor deprived us of the comforts which we have forfeited, which should make us think the worse, and not the better, of sin; for God’s patience should lead us to repentance, Rom. 2:4.
Verses 11 – 12. The next two verses complete the thought about the mercy God extends to all people. He has pardoned our sins, not only my iniquity, but our transgressions.
It is a great benefit to us that we have been the recipients of the pardoning mercy of God. We are to take comfort in this, as well as taking comfort from the benefit others have from the pardoning mercy and thus we must give Him the glory.
David now gives us 3 examples to illustrate God’s love, kindness, and compassions. The people of Israel could not miss the meaning of David’s exhortation.
He tells us that God’s mercy can be describes as the separation our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west.
It can be illustrated by the idea that our transgressions are separated from us as the heaven is high above the earth (so high that the earth is but a point to the vast expanse). So God’s mercy is extended more than human beings can imagine. The point of the east and the west can never meet. The point of the heaven where God is and where the earth is can never intersect.
Then just as a father loves and pities His son so does God pities us. Our fathers knows his son intimately, his strength and his weaknesses.
God knows our frailty and our inability.
That is why we have hope.
It exceeds the merits of those that fear Him most, so much above and beyond them that there is no proportion at all between them. The greatest performances of man’s duty cannot demand the least tokens of God’s favour as a debt, and therefore all the seed of Jacob will join with him in owning themselves less than the least of all God’s mercies,
Gen. 32:10.
God’s mercy is thus great towards those that fear Him, not towards those that trifle with Him. We must fear the Lord and His goodness.
The fullness of His pardons is but evidence of the riches of His mercy towards His creation, and even more so to those who are counted as His elect.
As far as the east is from the west (which two quarters of the world are of greatest extent, because all known and inhabited, and therefore geographers that way reckon their longitudes) so far has He removed our transgressions from us, so that they shall never be laid to our charge, nor rise up in judgment against us. The sins of believers shall be remembered no more, shall not be mentioned unto them; they shall be sought for, and not found. If we thoroughly forsake them, God will thoroughly forgive them.
Verses 13 – 14. He pities those that fear him, that is, all good people, who in this world may become objects of pity on account of the grievances to which they are not only born but born again. Or it may be understood of those who have not yet received the spirit of adoption but are yet trembling at His word; those he pities, (Jer. 31:18, 20).
How He pities: As a father pities his children and does them good as there is occasion.
God is a Father to those that fear Him and owns them for His children, and He is tender of them as a father. The father pities his children that are weak in knowledge and instructs them, pities them when they are rude and bears with them, pities them when they are sick and comforts them (Isa. 66:13), pities them when they have fallen and helps them up again, pities them when they have offended, and, upon their submission, forgives them, pities them when they are wronged and gives them redress; thus the Lord pities those that fear Him.
So as Spurgeon relates God pities our childish ignorance, our childish weakness, our childish foolishness, our childish naughtiness, our childlike stumbling and falling, our childlike pain, and he pities the child when another has wronged them.
We in our lives, once as children ourselves, and perhaps having children should understand this point. God is our ultimate example of what a parent should be, and of course, part of it is to show that how children should strive to be good children to their parents.
Why He pities: For He knows our frame. He has reason to know our frame, for He framed us; and, having Himself made man of the dust, He remembers that he is dust, not only by constitution, but by sentence.
Dust thou art. He considers the frailty of our bodies and the folly of our souls, how little we can do, and expects accordingly from us, how little we can bear, and lays accordingly upon us, in all which appears the tenderness of His compassion. God knows us better than we know ourselves. He understands the nature of sin and how it will affect us, but still knows we can be more though Him, and gives us every opportunity to be better.
CONCLUSION
Regenerate persons, His sons and daughters, the work of His hand, in each of the parts of the world where they live, are here called upon to bless the Lord, who, of His abundant mercy, hath begotten them again to a glorious inheritance: these are His workmanship in Christ; formed for Himself, His service, and glory; and are under the highest obligations to show forth His praise.
These are the children of God. Knowing the Great God, how can you withhold the praise from Him and not declare it to others.
But note the clear statements about who should praise God. It is not only those that are redeemed and forgiven, all those rescued from the pit. Without any doubt they are to lead praises to God. But he knows that God is so great that all should praise the Lord, all creatures, all men, all animals, all Angels, and all of creation. Maybe you think that there are things in creation, plant, fish, amoeba, viruses or other kinds of life that cannot praise God, but David is saying that they can and they should. There might be more to this world than we are dreaming about or can even imagine.
So ask yourself if you want to share in the blessings of God. Is there any real praise in your heart? If you’re not sure you should go to the cross of Jesus Christ and see what happened there.
Remember that you should not abuse the love of God. He stands ready however to welcome back prodigal sons and daughters. David wants people to respond in awe, thankfulness, and obedience. All this must be done with sincerity.
Ask God to overcome your anger and to make you a calm follower of God.
Remind yourself of the blessings you have had.
Let your heart worship deeply and show it by following the example of love and commitment of that woman that had been forgiven and who came to the house of the Pharisee Simon the leper and anointed Jesus with that expensive ointment.
Be aware that God can forgive you and change you so that you can worship deeply.
Bless the Lord, O my soul: thus the psalmist ends the psalm as he began; not to excusing himself by what he had done, nor by calling upon others to this service; knowing that this is constant employment for time and eternity; a work in which he delighted, and was desirous of being concerned in, now and for ever.