For the sake of David your servant, do not reject your anointed one. (Psalm 132:10, NIV)
The psalms of ascent were written by several psalmists. Four of them are attributed to David, king of God’s people in ancient Judah. While David did not write Psalm 132, where we find ourselves today, he is its prominently named subject.
What is noted throughout the psalm is David’s desire to build a temple for the Lord and the Lord’s willingness to establish the throne of David for all time.
The temple, of course, occupied the minds of those singing this psalm. To the temple they ascended, so of the temple they sang.
Our sin shows that we cannot keep the Mosaic Covenant and hold to the righteousness of God. No chance. But Jesus has done so.The covenants, meanwhile, commonly captivated the Israelites. These were God’s promises, the buoy that kept his people afloat in hard times. The Adamic Covenant brought both the curse and the assurance that “the seed of the woman” would crush the serpent’s head. The Abrahamic Covenant established that God would raise up a people who would impact the world—they were blessed to be a blessing. These two covenants were prominent among several others (the Edenic Covenant, the Noahic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, and the Palestinian/Land Covenant).
But when it came to the temple, the covenant on the people’s minds was the Davidic Covenant: David’s family line would include a specific “anointed one.” For this one, God would “clothe his enemies with shame” and make the crown on his head resplendent (Psalm 132:18).
What the people did not then know was that this one would be the embodiment of the New Covenant. This one would be Jesus of Nazareth, God with us, Savior and Lord.
And now we turn back to the thing that is not noted about David in Psalm 132: his sin. This seems almost impossible in our age of broadband media, both traditional and social, where the sins of humanity are paraded before us with little embarrassment and even less discretion.
What we find instead in Psalm 132 are the answers to two important questions.
First, do the sins of a leader discount or even erase the good work he has done? This fair question is often applied to a pastor who has preached many valuable sermons but then fallen in sin. There is no one-size-fits-all answer to such situations, and as with David painful consequences will likely ensue. But this answer wins in the end: Even the most hypocritical and heinous sins can be forgiven.
Second, through whom does this forgiveness come? We’ve already given away the answer. It’s Jesus, the one who suffered the gravest of all consequences, which was not of his own making but of ours. Our sin shows that we cannot keep the Mosaic Covenant and hold to the righteousness of God. No chance. But Jesus has done so, displaying all righteousness, and through him the New Covenant comes to life in us. It is by this covenant that God will “put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people” (Jeremiah 31:33).
Certainly we can sing to that!
—
Jeff Hopper
September 3, 2018
Copyright 2018 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
OTHER DEVOTIONS IN THIS SERIES
Ascending: Common Complaints (Psalm 120)
Ascending: In God’s Care (Psalm 121)
Ascending: Joy and Peace in Fellowship (Psalm 122)
Ascending: The Mercy We Need (Psalm 123)
Ascending: How Great An Escape (Psalm 124)
Ascending: Stark Lines (Psalm 125)
Ascending: Sorrow and Joy (Psalm 126)
Ascending: Work and Home (Psalm 127)
Ascending: ‘Blessed’ (Psalm 128)
Ascending: Set Free (Psalm 129)
Ascending: Finding Forgiveness (Psalm 130)
Ascending: Our Waiting, Impatient Soul (Psalm 131)
Ascending: Together in Christ (Psalm 133)
Ascending: Earth to Heaven, Heaven to Earth (Psalm 134)