Please read Psalm 90 (17 verses)

Before the world was made or it’s foundations laid, the Lord is God. He has always been God and is the one and only necessary being. All things were made by Him, even time and space have been invented by the mighty Creator. A thousand years are as a tale that is told to Him and He is not bound by this same time or space. People are born and rise like grass, and disappear just as quickly. God returns us to dust and has the power over all life and death. When we see the Lord revealed in His Word, it terrifies us and causes us to seek peace with Him. We are wise to consider our few days of life and gain a heart of wisdom before this Lord and God.

He sees all of us – our body, mind and soul and all our sins are revealed before Him. We live under His judgment and feel the force of His wrath in our minds and hearts and we seek to be forgiven and brought near to our God. He sees all our sin, open sin and hidden sin, throughout all the meagre years of our life, in His all-searching light. We need to have regard for the days of our life that we might find Him.

The psalmist asks to be allowed to be glad for as many years as he has been afflicted. He asks that he would know the unfailing love of the Lord every morning and be able to sing every day of his life, and not be full of sorrow. The Lord can fix this. Only the Lord knows the root cause of all our sufferings and only he can release us. He will vindicate His people and be the blessing to their families and children’s children. The psalmist prays that the Lord will bless the work of his hands, and give him success and satisfaction in what he is doing.

Please read Psalm 89 (52 verses)

This Psalm is the answer and antidote to the previous Psalm 88. It begins with praise to the Lord, which is the remedy for the hurting soul. As we open our mouth and sing our witness to the faithfulness of the Lord, so God begins to heal the hurt. We bolster our faith by reminding ourselves of the great love of the Lord and His abiding promise that binds us to the Lord Jesus and His people. The skies also proclaim the goodness of God along with the might of the heavenly beings. The earth belongs to God and everything in it, which He upholds in His power and controls the mighty sea, the weather, and the storms.

Our comfort is the righteousness of the Lord and that we have learned to acclaim Him and exalt His name. We walk in His light for He is our glory and strength. The Lord has upheld His king, David, and protected him from all his foes, exalting him over all kings of the earth forever. This reminds us of our Saviour Jesus, who is exalted in heaven for us. Love is forever maintained by Him and the covenant remains secure until eternity. As God raised up David, so Jesus is raised as the Saviour of the world and the Lord of all created things. He is the suffering Saviour and has bourn the penalty of sin for His people. God cast Him into death that He might be lifted up as the perfect Saviour of all. He will deliver all out of sin and bondage because of who He is. We must not be downcast in following Him or give up when God’s purposes seem to be against us.

If we should disobey the Lord, He will bring us back with this faithful intervention and will not hold our sin against us. The Lord Jesus Christ has humbled Himself and been subjected to much suffering on our behalf, but has been raised again for our justification. We are made righteous in Him and kept for the eternal kingdom by the power of God. He has suffered shame for our sake that we might never have to suffer it. God remembers that we are frail humanity and must face death, the last enemy, and so will sustain us and forgive us. He has endured great mocking from the godlessness all around and in His great love will surely deliver us. We praise His name forever, the antidote for all our troubles.

Please read Psalm 88 (18 verses)

In this Psalm, the psalmist cries out to the Lord day and night. Our prayers and cries are not wasted when we come into the presence of the Lord. The psalmist is in deep trouble and his life draws near to the gates of death and hell. He feels he is counted as those who are already in the grave and are cut off from the living world. His mood has plummeted so low that he cannot find his way out of the Depression.

The psalmist thinks and feels that his Lord has put him there because of the anger of the Lord towards him. He thinks he is being punished and deserves to be trampled underfoot and to be held captive in this place. The waves of despair overwhelm him and he has become antisocial and rejected by his social group. He wonders if God will do something to answer his constant prayer and thinks that God would have nothing to do with a person like him. He is so low that his inner eyesight, and his life, is nearly gone from him. He knows he is heading further and further into the darkness to a place where the mercy of God is not known. He asks God if the dead praise Him and if he can be released from his mind prison. The psalmist seeks oblivion, or even just unconscious sleep, but it does not come to him.

He cries out continually to the Lord. Even so, he still suffers. He has suffered from his youth up and the pains of gloom seem to engulf him and drag him down into terror and despair. His friends and companions have all gone and there is now no hope left. Darkness and Depression are his only friends. This is the end of this Psalm that outlines the symptoms of Depressive illness. The Lord’s King suffered mightily and yet had God’s heart in him. God will rescue him through strengthening him in his despair and sense of coming doom…

Please read Psalm 87 (7 verses)

The Lord loves His holy people. He has made them holy through the blood of the everlasting covenant and has brought them into His family through the new birth. Every child of God is born in Zion.

Zion, the holy city of God built on righteousness and holiness. The Lord loves the holy city of His people more than any other and all the chosen people of God are included. All the unworthy and castaways are brought into the glorious fold of the people of God. All who are rejected by so-called polite societies and organisations of good social standing, are brought into this beloved city. It is a place of mighty refuge for those who fail and have found redemption through the blood of Christ.

People who belong to the cities of this world are also brought in, names we associate with ungodliness are brought into the glorious kingdom. Babylon, Philistia, Tyre and Cush, those who are associated with the enemy, or rejection, are all included in the holy city. God has chosen His people from before the foundation of the world, and will surely bring all His sons and daughters to glory. There will be the great in gathering of souls in the church of Jesus Christ from every tribe and tongue. It is the Lord who writes the register of the peoples and keeps the Book of Life with the names of every one recorded there. They will all enter in and that is a certainty for their names are written there with the blood of Christ – every one born in Zion.

As we sing to the Lord we know and express our emotion that all our blessings and outpourings of the Holy Spirit are in Him… the song of the redeemed will be for the blessing of the nations.

Please read Psalm 86 (17 verses)

This is a prayer that indicates the close relationship between the psalmist and God. It is honest and intimate and so encouraging and comforting to read. The psalmist takes his low position before the Lord, as poor and needy. He asks for joy, protection and mercy because this is his all-day, daily need. He acknowledges the Lord as forgiving and good and with amazing love toward anyone who will call on His name. The Lord will accept anyone who comes in humility and faith and will accept them into His holy presence in personal fellowship. The writer knows this because of past experience of calling on the Lord and always receiving an answer to his requests and having power from God.

There is no one like the Lord and no one who can touch His holiness, mercy and love. All the nations will bow down and honour Him, because of who He is and what He has done. All human and created life will bow down in worship of the Lord for all His marvellous deeds, of which there is no comparison. God alone dwells in heaven as the singular and almighty God.

The psalmist asks to learn the way of faith that he might have a heart that is wholly devoted to God and not distracted by anything or anyone else. He will forever glorify and praise the Lord for all that has been done for him, especially his eternal life, which delivers him in life and death.

His foes are always around him, but God will never leave His belovèd servant because He is a faithful and constant Lord. The writer asks God to always have His face towards him as his friend and confidant and to save him, just as God saved and walked with his mother. He asks God for a sign of His goodness in the life of the writer, that he will be vindicated before his enemies and be encouraged in the Lord his God.

Please read Psalm 85 (13 verses)

The mercy of the Lord goes down in history in the psyche of His precious people. When they go astray, He teaches them the right paths and brings them back again into fellowship with Himself. He freely forgives all our sin and our wandering away from His righteous pathway and brings us back to a right personal and collective walk with Him.

Every time we wander we pray again for restoration. The psalmist asks that God is not angry forever nor remember the sins of the generations of His people, but to restore them again to love and peace. He asks for the unfailing love of Christ that the people might again know the salvation of the Lord, as they repent and turn back to the path of life. We will listen to the Lord, who promises peace, and not to walk the pathways of folly. If we walk in the fear of the Lord, then our nations will be healed and the work of salvation will take hold in the life of the people. When we repent, God can work in us and restore us again.

Love and faithfulness can again meet together in a glorious love affair. Righteousness and peace, also, meet us greet each other with a holy kiss. This is the way of God and the blessing of God. The land itself will yield a great harvest and God will shower good on His people. The precursor for this beautiful blessing is righteousness. Righteousness exalts nations and individual people, so we must pursue it and find the peace and blessing of the Lord.

Please read Psalm 84 (12 verses)

The desire of the truly repentant heart is to dwell with the Lord and to frequent the courts of the Lord. The psalmist expresses his deep desire to inhabit the dwelling place of the Lord as a fainting soul in need of the constant refreshment from his Lord and God. His love for God is supreme and the closeness is so real that he cries out to the Lord with all his being, body and soul. He expresses his longing to be like the little sparrows that can make their nests in the courts of the Lord.

Those who trust in the Lord with all their heart and travel through this weary world on their pilgrimage to heaven, refresh every place they go and create oasis of blessing and succour for the weary souls of this world. When they pass through a wilderness they make it a place of refreshment with springs of living water and cooling Autumn rains. They are a bonus wherever they go and bring many souls to righteousness.

The psalmist asks for favour from his Lord and to be a servant, a door keeper, an usher in the house of the Lord rather then dwell in luxurious tents where the wicked live for themselves. He would serve the Lord with a full heart and longs for just one day in the courts of God rather than a thousand spent in self-absorbed pleasures.

The Lord bestows life and protection on all who look to Him. It is He alone who can give favour and honour in our life and He will not withhold the blessing from those who walk uprightly and remain blameless. Not faultless, but following earnestly after God and His holy law. We obey because we are blessed in His grace and kept by His tender mercies.

Please read Psalm 83 (18 verses)

The enemy is continually plotting and looking for opportunities to destroy the people of God. He hates human beings and especially those who belong to the faith, and are alive to God. The psalmist asks God to speak the word of deliverance for His people and to not remain silent or deaf to their cries. The enemy cannot destroy the people of God but can make trouble and heartache and render them ineffective. He tries to do this by keeping us silent to the mercy of the Lord and making us doubt our witness to Him. He will undermine and discourage us, but we must be always aware of his schemes.

The enemy will plot together to overthrow the righteous and form all sorts of unlikely alliances, just to fulfil this one goal. Satan can motivate armies, cities and nations against God’s people, but we remember that God is always in control and will not allow His faithful ones to be shaken. All the traditional armies have lined up against the people of God, and all who have been rejected by God are now going to mobilise against Him. The nations of the world militate against the land of God and imagine that they are great enough and strong enough to overcome Judah and take the inheritance given by God. This is the folly of the human thinking. It is so common, for the people of God look weak and insignificant and easy to overthrow. But the might of heaven is with them and they cannot fail.

The psalmist calls to God to protect and wreck vengeance on the enemies of God’s people and to completely subdue and humiliate them and their leaders, like Sisera who was tricked and put to shame in his death with a tent peg. Jabin who was also humiliated and put to flight by the hand of the Lord against him. The writer prays that God will make enemies useless and ineffectual and their reputation and power will just dissipate and become like tumbleweed. He wishes shame and disgrace for them and that the outward manifestations of the power of God will be against all who set themselves against the Lord and His people. Everyone will know that the Lord is God and He alone vanquishes all evil.

Pleases read Psalm 82 (8 verses)

God alone is God. He rises in judgment on all the other gods, who are not gods at all. He calls us to do the same. Then will we be great and be set above all things with Christ, to rule in the heavenly kingdom. If we will be bow our knees to Him and honour Him and all His holy commandments, then we will be daughters and sons of the Living God, set on high.

But we do not love justice. We put down the weak and lowly people and give honour and equity to the rich and seemingly noble, and are prejudiced on their behalf. We show partiality to those who we think will benefit our personal causes and ignore the plight of the needy who can do nothing for us at all. We do not take bribes, but we load the dice against the helpless and take from them what they cannot afford. The widow and the fatherless who have nothing of this world’s goods nor the comfort of family and home we still leave destitute and ignore their pleas for mercy. We deny their case for justice and give it to the rich and influential instead. Indeed, we deliver them into the hands of their enemies for our own satisfaction and benefit.

The gods we follow lead us into darkness and spiritual poverty and death. We build ourselves up to the detriment of other parties and God labels us as unjust and unprofitable. It does not matter who we think we are or what we imagine we have accomplished, it is dross without Him. If we continue in our chosen way we will reach trouble and our whole world will be shaken. We will wreck our societies, institutions and organisations because we are morally and spiritually corrupt. The whole edifice will fall and God will allow it, so that His majesty and justice is seen. All who build for themselves will perish with their works.

The psalmist asks the Lord to rise up and intervene, that the world will be saved from us and our corrupt ways. No one is exempt from the justice of God because the nations belong to Him.

Pleases read Psalm 81 (16 verses)

If only we would follow the Lord and obey Him, we would enjoy the finest of all things, food from the table of heaven. But we think we know better and our fleshly desires draw our hearts after the blessings of this life and we lose out on closeness to the Lord. We lose our delight in the Word of God and prefers other things. We find ourselves enslaved by troubles and personal foibles, and lose out on the liberty of Christ.

The psalmist tells us to rejoice in the Lord and to express our praise on all the instruments of music that He has given us. The Lord has instigated feast days, happy days of pleasure and rejoicing in Him and we are to do so with a full heart. We can meet with others to share the name of the Lord and be thankful for all His rich and merciful blessings, in this life and in our souls. God has so richly blessed us and set us free from the shackles of the enemy and the slavery of this present life and set us at liberty to enjoy Him and live life in His light.

God has rescued us from our burdens and distresses and set our heart in the highest of places to serve and obey Him. His burdens are easy and light and resonate with our souls, for we are made for God and His closeness. This is the place of happiness and joy and true hearted rest. To enjoy this, God must be only and first in our life and no other dearest thing is to take His place – not ideas, beliefs, possessions or people. He must be central in all our mindset and considerations. He will set us on high and when we have need or desire, He will fill it with all His goodness.

The only hindrance, is that we will not put the Lord at the centre or top of our thinking. We will not trust the Lord so implicitly and we will not set aside our preponderances to sin and self. If only we would then all our enemies would be put to flight and cringe before us. Only in the Lord do we have the finest things in life and even death is ours, for we have the victory in Christ.