All right, you can open your Bibles now that Psalm 132 I should have mentioned the sister Karen Galt and her recovery from shoulder replacement surgery last Wednesday. Pray for Gary as he tends to her. And that's why I'm teaching in his turn this morning. So pray for the Galts. Psalm 132 will be our focus group. Psalms of boundless praise. This psalm is very pivotal to the life of David or reminiscent of the life of David, Psalm 132. The lesson is remembering the promise to David. King David, the second king of Israel, longed to build a house for God. He wanted to build a temple. He wanted to be the one to take the Ark of the Covenant, the meeting place with God from the tabernacle. I don't know how well-maintained the tabernacle materials were. It had some hard years, had some difficulties. I can't imagine how it has endured all those years. Maybe God protected the materials of the tabernacle, I don't know. But the years it was at Shiloh, and then finally brought to Jerusalem, but David longed to build a house. And the house that eventually is built, I showed you last week, this is a artist's cutaway version of what the Temple of Solomon may have looked like. We know the square footage, we know the dimensions, we know the size. We don't have any video or photographs from 1,000 years before Christ. But apparently, what Solomon builds was absolutely spectacular. The furniture of it is another view of Solomon's temple. It was called Solomon's Temple because he was the one privileged to build it. Our text is Psalm 127 through 132 and we'll look at Psalm 132 verses 1 through 18. Key verse 7, we will go into his tabernacles. We will worship at his footstool. Your textbook, if you have your manual with you, has some good information here. Psalm 132 is another of the songs of degrees. Again, not temperature degrees, not academic degrees, but degrees of ascent as they walk up. Jerusalem was on a high mountain, and so the journey to Jerusalem would have been Steve Klein, and they would have sung songs as worshipers traveled to Jerusalem for special feast days. Verses 8 through 10, your book points out, are quoted in Solomon's prayer of dedication. There's a... A lot of attention given to the dedication of the tabernacle in Exodus 40, and then the dedication of Solomon's temple in 2 Chronicles. There is a descent of the presence of God Visibly, perhaps physically, it's sometimes called the Shekinah glory or the glory of God, comes down and envelops the tabernacle and then the temple, there's a great cloud. It is prophetic of what happens in some measure on the day of Pentecost when God is authenticating and accrediting His new, place of worship, which is not a building, but it's a gathering of born-again baptized believers. But this 132nd Psalm is one of the Song of Degrees. Your English Bible probably Question, how do you experience the special dwelling of God in the church of your membership? Keep that question in your mind. Here's the outline. David's desire to build the temple, verses one through six. Solomon builds the temple, verses seven through 12. And then verses 13 through 18, the Lord finds his dwelling place. I do have some sympathy for David in this story. You know, David's reign was troubled at the beginning because the first six or seven years of David's reign, there was actually civil war between the house of David and the house of Saul. There was not this orderly transition from Saul to David. There was warfare. that those still loyal to Saul continued to fight against David for six and a half years, I think it was. And finally, that civil war is put down. And so David has great trouble at the beginning of his reign. Then at the end of his reign, he has trouble again. There's actually civil war again led by David's son, Absalom, yeah, I knew it would come to me. It's out there somewhere. I was looking around for somebody with a lot of hair, and not having much success with the men here, but, you know, looked like a, Well, anyway, go with what you got, I guess. But anyway, Absalom won the hearts of Israel. He actually led a civil war. It was briefer, not years, probably just days. But David had trouble at the beginning of his reign and the end of his reign. He fought a lot of wars. And most Bible students know that The reason that God gives David for refusing David his desire is the fact that David was a man of war. Now, Israel was glad that David was a man of war when it was time to slay Goliath, when it was time to defeat the Philistines, when it was time to defeat Israel's enemies. Apparently, David was a tremendous warrior. I mean, not just as a leader, but as a soldier, actually slaying enemies at his own hands. He wasn't just somebody who sat on a throne and ordered men into battle. Matter of fact, the great tragedy of his is when he doesn't lead his men into battle, doesn't go with them to battle. So David was a king who was on the front lines, as it were. And so he truly did have bloody hands. And that's the reason that God declines David's request. I say it's kind of a bittersweet thing because David was the sweet psalmist. We think David wrote many, we won't say most, but many of the psalms that would later be sung in the worship system. David plans for the Order of services, he plans for the servants who would make physical things. The administration of the temple would have been an extraordinarily complicated thing. There would have been literally hundreds, probably thousands of sacrifices. caring for the animals, bringing the animals, and then since the animals were sacrificed, it would have been, I can't imagine being a custodian, or the one who cleaned up after all that, or the one who took care of all that, and took away all the carcasses and all that you think about. You see that golden temple there, and you think, well, how beautiful and pristine. But temple worship would have been a bloody outpouring. One of the reasons the temple was located where it was is so that the blood could be washed away down the hill. And there would have been times, they say, The hillside outside of the temple would have run red with the blood of bulls and goats. It was a dramatic illustration of the consequences, the wages of sin, bringing death. But David plans for all that. He plans for the singers, the choirs, the servants to make all that happen. forces the plan so that as soon as the temple is built and dedicated they were ready to go so you have to have some sympathy of course God is right it's God's temple we call it Solomon's temple but it's really the temple of the Lord just happens to be Solomon who is privileged to build in verses 1 through 6 Lord remember David All is calm. David had hard life and blessed life, but there was conflict between David and his brothers. You know, they quarreled with him for coming to the battlefield. You might have thought that David was everybody's hero, but not everybody liked David. David had problems with his father-in-law. That was Saul. David had problems with, you know, the house of Saul. Before David was even king, he was a hunted. He had to hide from King Saul because Saul wanted to kill him. Saul was jealous over him. So David had a lot of afflictions. He had marital problems. He had problems with his wives. Plural tells why he had some problems. But anyway, he had problems with his wives. He had problems with his family. He made some serious mistakes. He committed sin with Bathsheba. He caused her husband to be murdered to cover up his sin. He lost a baby in childbirth. He had one of his sons committed rape. One of his sons committed murder. One of his sons led a civil war. One of his most trusted advisors that hit the fell turned against him at the end of David's life. I think Bathsheba's grandfather, who sought revenge against David. But so David had. Sometimes we think of him as the sweet psalmist, Psalm 23, and, you know, the sweet singer. I imagine at the end of David's life, there were wrinkles, there were furrows knitted into his brow. I can't believe that his back wasn't bent a little bit, that his heart wasn't just broken in some ways. Now, he was a man after God's own heart. We think, what does that mean? Well, I'm not sure what that means. I think it's someone who's pursuing God, who longs to know God, But still in all that, David was a sinner. And so it's interesting that this psalm opens up and says, remember David, your Sunday School manual suggests that Solomon writes this psalm. Or it could be autobiographical. I mean, David could speak of himself in the third person. He could say, remember David. But usually when David says that, David says, remember me. He was on a first name basis with God. So your manual, I think he might be right. Some have suggested that Solomon is the author, and Solomon did write If you turn back the page in your Bible, well, we might have turned back the page. Psalm 127 says a song of degrees for Solomon. Perhaps he wrote that psalm, or it may have been written for him. Psalm 132 Your book says, perhaps written by Solomon, we cannot say for certain, but it does seem that this song was written at the time or near the completion of the temple as the people traveled to Jerusalem. They would remember all that God had done in bringing about this magnificent building, but it was less about the temple and more about the God who dwelt among his people in the temple. So remember David and all his afflictions, how he swore to the Lord and vowed unto the mighty God of Jacob. Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, nor go up into my bed. I will not give sleep to mine eyes, or slumber to mine eyelids, until I find a place for the Lord, a habitation for the mighty God of Jacob. Lo, we heard of it in Ephratah. We found it in the fields of the woods. a reference to the region around Bethlehem. I think this paragraph is designed to tell us just how much David longed to build a house for God. It wasn't just a passing whimsy, it wasn't just a, you know, it'd be a good thing if If we built a nice temple to honor God, I think David was, I think he was almost consumed by it. I think he was, if you will, obsessed. You think, well, can you be too obsessed with things of God? Yes, sometimes if there are things God doesn't want you to do or God doesn't want you to have, and sometimes we can decide what God's blessings for us should look like and what they have to be and where they have to be. I remember a pastor, young pastor, wanted to be a pastor. He said, this was, oh, this was 40 some years ago. He said, I'm looking for a church that needs a pastor. I said, Say no more. I said, there's some churches that need pastoring. He says, but it has to be within 30 minutes of this geographical point that he named. And so I said, well, that's gonna narrow it down a little bit. And he says, yeah, we just really believe God wants us to be a pastor, but it has to be in this 30 minutes of this. I said, I don't know anybody. I'm not sure that's how you approach God, but I can see how you can become obsessed with something. You can think, well, I think God wants me to do this, and it sounds good, it sounds wonderful. It sounds like a good thing to do. It sounds like it ought to be done. But it may not be God's will for you. But David was consumed by this. Now, God does let David use that energy. There's always a way to devote your devotion to make it work. What God let David do was gather the materials. He let David gather the building materials and David assembled a treasury. Matter of fact, in the book of Revelation, we'll talk about someone who has the key of David. Evidently, David gathered the gold and the lumber and the building materials and the bronze and all that. He probably started assembling the work crews. He probably organized the construction crews. I think David did everything except build the temple. He got all of his materials together. He got all this wealth and the cedars of Lebanon and gathered all this. He was the supplier, the gatherer of the materials. And so, God directs him And I'll say this, I'll commend David about this. David did not become bitter toward God and say, well, if I can't build it, I don't want anybody to build it. If I can't build it, I'm not gathering the material, I'm not planning the services, I'm not planning the servants. If I can't do what I want to do, I'm not doing anything. I'll commend David, I agree with him a little bit that he was not allowed, God knows best, but I do appreciate the fact that David said, well, what am I allowed to do? What do you need me to do? What can I do? And so his love for building a house is known. Verse seven, Solomon actually builds the temple. You can find the parallel passages in 2 Chronicles. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles are written, they're not contemporaneous history like Kings, like 1 and 2 Kings are written for the most part as contemporary, maybe like current events. Chronicles are written after the 70 years of captivity. They're written to teach a new generation about their history. In some way, they're like Deuteronomy that way. The accounts in 1 and 2 Kings, including Samuel, 1 and 2 Samuel, they're written by prophets. Chronicles seem to be written by priests, so it's much more religious emphasis in Chronicles. If you have a good study Bible, it will give you the harmony passages or the parallel passages between Kings and Chronicles. But Solomon is permitted to build the temple. Verse 7 says, we will go into his tabernacles, we will worship at his footstool. Arise, O Lord, into thy rest, thou and the ark of thy strength. Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness, and let thy saints shout for joy. For thy servant David's sake, turn not away the face of thine anointed. Emmanuel says this is reminiscent of Solomon building the temple. Solomon assumes the throne in 1 Kings chapter 1. In his fourth year as king, our text says, he began the construction of the temple and completed it in seven years. At the completion of the temple, there was a glorious dedication service. First Kings Chapter 8 and Second Chronicles 5 through 7. Amidst the dedication, the Lord sent fire down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices and the glory of the Lord filled the house. Second Chronicles 7, 1. As magnificent as the temple was, it was just a heap of wood, metal and stone. But when the glory of the Lord filled the house, it was an exalted house. 1 Kings 8, 13. It was the Lord who made the temple glorious. King Solomon prayed a dedication prayer on dedication day, and much of it was a reminder of how the Lord had kept his promises. The Lord had promised David an eternal kingdom, and Solomon was the first of the sons of David to sit on his throne. The Lord had promised that David's son would build the temple, and Solomon acknowledged that the Lord had kept his promise in his dedicatory prayer. Psalm 132. And I believe that should be Psalm 132 there, not Psalm 137. 7 through 12. I didn't ask you to do that, but anyway, Psalm 132, verses 7 through 12, is a record of Solomon acknowledging the completion of the temple. Psalm 132 acknowledges how the Lord kept His promises. As the travelers entered the temple of the Lord and worshiped at His footstool, they were reminded that His temple stood in fulfillment of promise. Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest. There is something about worship that the Bible connects with Sabbath. When God created the world in six days, on the seventh day, God rested. And that day was meant to be a day free from labor and a day given to worship. In the Old Testament, the day of rest and the day of acknowledging God's provision was the seventh day. Even in the wilderness when the children of Israel were sojourning They were to do no work on The Sabbath day there was some very strict rules about it even to the gathering of sticks for a fire They didn't even gather manna on the on the Sabbath day. They were allowed to gather extra on the sixth day and It would not spoil If you gathered extra on other days, like on a Monday, if you went out and gathered and said, I'm going to gather manna for Tuesday, it would spoil. You had to go out every day and get your daily bread, except for the sixth day. You could gather enough and you would have manna for the Sabbath. So the Sabbath is associated. When God inaugurates the Mosaic Covenant, he really emphasizes that Sabbath day. It became synonymous. I think the Sabbath day is probably one of the, not the only thing, but one of the most unique things about Israel. This idea that there would be a day of rest. The idea which still persists to this day in And I think most cultures is the idea that, well, you should have a day of rest. Now, the cultures may disagree about why you have the day of rest or when you have the day of rest, but the weekly system persists. Now, every Christian, every Bible student knows that in the new covenant, the day of worship, the day of rest has changed. In our Articles of Faith, the Old Baptist like to call the Lord's Day, the first day of the week, which commemorates the resurrection, they called it the Christian Sabbath. And some people quarrel about that, and they say, well, we're not under law anymore, we're under grace, and we're not bound by a lot of man-made rules, or not bound by a lot of rules about how to observe the Lord's Day. Although the Bible does say forsake not the assembling of yourselves together and we are to take time to worship God and together in a place where God appoints for us and that is to be a place of rest. And even verse 8 talks about the Lord, Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest. We don't often think about this, but God wasn't tired when He created the world and said, boy, I need a nap, you know, at the end of the six days. But it does say that He rested on the seventh day and in a sense the day of the Lord is a time for God to rest among us or to rejoice among us. Jesus says in Hebrews that he loves to meet with us and sing with us. Now we know he does that in the person and the power of the Holy Spirit. But when we meet for worship, and we are honoring God by saying, all right, for this time, I'm not gonna be building, hammering, nailing, sewing, cooking, I'm going to rest. I'm gonna just sit and rest and think about God's blessings, rejoicing God's blessings. The Bible says God actually rests with us. He said, well, what exactly does that mean? Well, I'm not sure all it means. I'm just saying rest is a wonderful blessing that God gives. Rest is an acknowledgment that the work is done. One of the reasons we rest on the first day of the week is because it acknowledges salvation by grace. Under the old covenant, it was work, work, work, work, work, work, and then you rest. Under the new covenant, you rest, and then you go to work for God. Then you serve God. Then you go about your business. You put the rest of the Lord, R-E-S-T, first. And it's a beautiful paragraph here, verse nine. Let thy priest be clothed with righteousness. Now, how many priests do we have here this morning? All of God's children are priests. Amen. You just got a raise. You just got promoted. You just, you say, well, I'd like to have one of them robes. It's like, you don't need one of those robes. You don't, we don't do that. I hope nobody here is sad, but like, when are we going to slaughter the bull, you know, or I am not sorry that that economy is gone, are you? I don't think most modern people have any idea of what the Old Testament economy of animal sacrifice. I'm afraid a lot of people have never been around the slaughter of any animals. And good for you, I'm just saying. My daddy took me to the Somerset slaughterhouse. And I gotta tell you, it was awful. The smell, the stench, the whole idea of it. Now, you're saying, are you criticizing God's system in the Old Testament? No, I'm just commenting, saying our system's better. And the warrant I have for saying that is Hebrews says we have a better system than the old system. We don't have to offer the blood of bulls and goats anymore. It wasn't a way of salvation anyway. It was a picture. I think it was designed to make people aware of how horrific sin is, how awful it is. These innocent animals slaughtered because of sin. It was like God's warning signs, God's caution signs, God's neon sign saying, sin causes death. And death is horrific. So we're all priests. The Bible says we are all believers, are kings and priests. What does that mean? It means you have direct access to God. You do not have an earthly mediator. You can ask your brothers and sisters in Christ, your pastors, your deacons, your Sunday school teachers, you can ask them to pray with you and for you, but you do not have to go through some other person to talk to God. You have direct access to God. You have boldness to enter the presence of God. You gather here and say, how many priests does your church have? You are here to worship God and serve God as a priest. Now, your duties are different, but we have a call to righteousness, righteous behavior, and also let thy saints, how many saints do we have here? Any saints? Some more than others, but no, I think Friday was Brother Steve's birthday. But it kind of got overshadowed by Halloween or something, I don't know. All Saints Day, that's why it's called Hallowed Eve. Roman Catholicism taught that there were some special saints through which and to which you could pray and they could enter. And the criteria for being a priest in the Roman Catholic, a saint in the Roman Catholic system is pretty complicated. I think you have to have like three verified miracles It's very complicated, but they eventually got so many of them that they were having all these Saints Days. They said, well, we're just going to have all Saints on one day instead of having St. Christopher Day or St. Peter's Day. We'll just have All Saints Day. That's what All Saints Day was. And so the evening before All Saints Day was the hallowed Evening, the evening set apart. You say, how in the world did you get to that, to all the? It's a long story. It's a long story. But the Saints' Day kind of was a misname because now people, if you call them saints, but the old Christians, the old Puritans, the old Baptists, When they wrote letters to each other, they would say to all the saints at Addison, and nobody would raise an eyebrow about it. They knew they weren't talking about dead people or Roman Catholic saints. They were talking about every Christian, every believer is a saint. It says, let all the saints shout for joy. Worship is not only supposed to be about rest, It's also supposed to be about rejoicing. I think that's one of the reasons we sing. Not all songs are songs of joy. I think some of the most powerful hymns are very sobering. Man of Sorrows, what a name. But there's some rejoicing even at the end of that one. Hallelujah, what a savior. But not every song is what we say a happy song. But worship is supposed to be characterized by rest. You come and you sit down and say, well, I'm glad God saved me. I'm thankful God sent his son to die on the cross and pay for my sins. I know I'm going to heaven when I die. I know I'm... My sins are covered in the blood of Christ, and you can rest in that. You can have peace in that, but also a cause for rejoicing. Saints shouting for joy. I like to think that David in heaven, and I do believe the Old Testament saints were Part of that great cloud of witnesses, we can debate about exactly how God did that in the old covenant, but I think they were saved by grace through faith. I like to think that David could observe from glory the worship service, the dedication of the temple, the singing to the choirs, the musicians, the servants serving, and God remembered David when the temple was exalted. The Lord has sworn in truth unto David. He will not turn from it of the fruit of thy body. That means one of David's descendants. will sit upon the throne. Now, there's a near fulfillment of this, and there is a future fulfillment of this. The near fulfillment is Solomon to sit upon the throne of David. The distant fulfillment of this is Jesus. Jesus is the son of David, And he is the promised heir of David. And I believe he's literally going to sit upon a throne of David in the millennial kingdom here on the earth, 1,000 years he's going to reign here upon the earth. And that will be another fulfillment of this. I know there is also a far distant fulfillment of the Son of God, the Son of Man sitting on an eternal throne throughout all ages in the eternal state, but one of David's sons is going to sit upon this throne. If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony, that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne forevermore. Now there's a near and a future prophecy here. all of you Bible students, you say, I don't think it goes well. I mean, Rehoboam, David's grandson, will be the last king of the United Kingdom for a good long while, because under Rehoboam, the kingdom will divide. Judah, Benjamin will be called Judah, and Israel will be the 10 northern tribes. The northern tribes will be taken away by the Assyrians. The southern kingdom will eventually be conquered by the Babylonians, later subservient to the Persians. The Persians will allow them to come back, but Israel really has not had the throne of David since the Babylonian captivity. But God says, I will keep my covenant, my test. If your children keep my covenant, my testimony, their children shall also sit upon my throne forevermore. At the end of the tribulation, Jesus is going to return and rescue Israel. And they're going to turn in repentance and faith. And they will acknowledge Him as their Savior. And He will then inaugurate that Davidic throne. And He will save Israel. And this prophecy will be fulfilled again in the Millennial Kingdom, I think. For the Lord has chosen Zion He hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever. Here will I dwell, for I have desired it. There are some eternal promises God has made to Zion, Jerusalem, that he's going to fulfill. I will abundantly bless her provision. I will satisfy her poor with bread. I will also clothe her priests with salvation, and her saints shall allow for joy. There will I make the horn of David to bud. I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed. His enemies will I clothe with shame, but upon himself shall his crown flourish. I think this is a messianic promise. of what God is yet going to do when Jesus rules and reigns on the throne of David. There will yet be another temple, and Christ will be at the head of it. All right, let's bow for prayer. Brother James, you can dismiss us, please. Father, we're thankful that you've come into your house this morning to have this session.