Lessons From the Psalms - Psalm 65

[00:00:07] Welcome to Lessons From the Psalms. This is Bill Kelley and I'll be your host. On this podcast we will be going over the book of Psalms.

[00:00:21] Open in prayer. Father God, I thank you for anyone listening to this Psalm today. Lord, I pray that you would reveal to everyone listening how much you truly love each and every one of them. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

[00:00:36] This is Psalm 65 beginning in verse 1.

[00:00:42] Praise is awaiting you, O God, in Zion. And to you the vow shall be performed. O you who hear prayer. To you all flesh will come. Iniquities prevail against me as for our transgressions. You will provide atonement for them.

[00:01:06] Blessed is the man you choose and cause to approach you, that he may dwell in your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, of your holy temple.

[00:01:20] By awesome deeds in righteousness, you will answer us. O God of our salvation. You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth. And of the far off seas. Who established the mountains by his strength. Being clothed with power. You who still the noise of the seas. The noise of their waves. And the tumult of the people.

[00:01:50] They also who dwell in the outs. And the pros. And the tumult of the people. They also who dwell in the farthest parts are afraid of your signs. You make the outgoings of the morning and evening. Rejoice.

[00:02:02] You visit the earth and water it. You greatly enrich it. The river of God is full of water.

[00:02:11] You provide their grain, for so you have prepared it. You water its ridges abundantly. You settle

[00:02:19] its furrows. You make it soft with showers. You bless its growth. You crown the year with your

[00:02:29] goodness, and your paths drip with abundance. They drop on the pastures of the wilderness,

[00:02:36] and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks. The valleys

[00:02:45] also are covered with grain. They shout for joy. They also sing. Friends, this is Bill Kelly,

[00:02:53] your host, and Psalm 65 is one of my favorite Psalms. Psalm 65 is literally titled,

[00:03:02] Praise to God for His Salvation and Providence. I want you to think about that, and this is a classic

[00:03:13] example of why more people read the book of Psalms than any other book in the Bible. I believe even

[00:03:23] non-Christians often open up Psalms because they've heard from their friends and family of how soothing

[00:03:30] and comforting the book of Psalms is. Now, Psalm 65 is actually a wisdom psalm, and that being the case,

[00:03:40] it is almost closer to a proverb than it is a psalm, but it actually is a prophetic psalm as well.

[00:03:51] If you read verses 1 and 2, and I'm going to start breaking this down, but in verse 1 and 2 it says,

[00:03:58] Praise is awaiting you, O God, in Zion. And of course, Zion here is the city of Jerusalem.

[00:04:07] And to you, the vow shall be performed. In other words, it hasn't happened yet.

[00:04:16] Let's go on to verse 2, and you'll hear the same thing.

[00:04:20] O you who hear prayer, and we're talking about God here, to you all flesh will come.

[00:04:30] In other words, they haven't come yet. Now, what they're saying is there will come a time

[00:04:37] when everyone in the world will come to God. Now, do people come to God now? Absolutely.

[00:04:46] But here, we're not talking about all people. Here, we are talking about a day in the future

[00:04:54] when all people will come to God. Let's go to verse 3.

[00:04:58] Iniquities prevail against me as for our transgressions. You will provide atonement for them.

[00:05:09] And friends, that is what Jesus did on the cross for us. He was our atonement.

[00:05:19] Because of what Jesus did on the cross, all of our sins have been forgiven. That is what verse 3 is

[00:05:28] explaining to us. Let's go to verse 4.

[00:05:31] Blessed is the man you choose, and cause to approach you, that he may dwell in your courts.

[00:05:41] We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, of your holy temple.

[00:05:47] Now, friends, what this verse is telling us, or actually inviting us, is to dwell in the presence

[00:05:55] of God. Now, there's a verse in the Bible that says, God inhabits the praises of his people.

[00:06:03] So, if you are in a habit of praising God, then you are literally in his courts, and you will be with

[00:06:14] him. Let's go to verse 5. By awesome deeds in righteousness, you will answer us, O God, of our

[00:06:24] salvation. You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of the far-off seas.

[00:06:32] And once again, I believe this is a prophecy of the future to come. Because there are many people

[00:06:41] in our world today who do not have the confidence that God is going to provide for them. There are

[00:06:49] people today who actually don't even believe that there is a God. Let's go to verse 6.

[00:07:22] And friends, verse 6 talks about

[00:07:26] the establishment of the earth. We're talking about God initially created the earth, and that's

[00:07:35] what verse 6 is telling us. But we also here in verse 7 and 8 find out that he is in charge of

[00:07:43] the seas and the oceans as well. What I like about verses 9 and 10 is we are talking about how God has

[00:07:53] provided rain. Listen to these sweet two verses.

[00:07:59] You visit the earth and water it. You greatly enrich it. The river of God is full of water. You provide

[00:08:09] their grain. So here he's not only talking about the fact that he provides rain for us, but here we're also

[00:08:18] talking about there's runoff from the rain, and it will eventually get into the rivers and the oceans

[00:08:26] as well. For so you have prepared it. You water its ridges abundantly. You settle its furrows. You make it soft

[00:08:37] with showers. You bless its growth. Now let's go to verse 11.

[00:08:43] You crown the year with your goodness, and your paths drip with abundance. They drop on the pastures

[00:08:54] of the wilderness, and the little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks.

[00:09:02] The valleys also are covered with grain. They shout for joy. They also sing. So friends,

[00:09:11] to encapsulate these three verses, basically we're talking here about the goodness of God,

[00:09:20] and God is an abundant God. He is a more than enough God, and if we put our trust in him,

[00:09:32] all of our needs will be met. Friends, please join me again soon as we take a closer look at Psalm 66.