Introduction to the Book of Psalms Week 1

If you don't have the notes, if you'll raise your hand, wave at Ricky. He'll bring them to you. Again, if you're watching online, you can download them at ohana.urch/live. Now, before we get into any of the chapters in Psalms, we want to kind of do an introduction here. And if you've got a study Bible, and if you don't, I would recommend you get yourself a good study Bible. There's a lot of different ones we have in our bookstore as well. And in my study Bible, right at the beginning of every book of the Bible, it it gives you about two or three pages of background information and uh just help you understand who wrote the book, when they wrote the book, why they wrote the book, understanding the different things from the Bible.

And that's always a good thing when you're going to study a a book in the Bible. That's a good place to start. And if you don't have it in your Bible, then you can Google it and uh look up somewhere where they just give you kind of synopsis and an introduction to uh different things. It's good to look up where who wrote it, um why they wrote it, where they were when they wrote it, who they wrote it to, uh what we know about them. Uh there's a lot of information you want to get when you study a Bible, a book in the Bible. So, we're going to do kind of an introductory thing here first. And so the book of Psalms um the the word psalms comes from actually uh the a Greek word and the idea of the word the title in Hebrew means praise or book of praise.

Uh praise or book of praise. And and so when we look at psalms, it's a it's a praise book. It's a hymn book. It's a a list of praises. and and most of the psalms were either sung or they were recited together. Uh and and often times probably in a you know where you the preacher would recite one verse and the congregation would recite the next and so they're written along that line. So it was the the hymn book for the Hebrews is what it was and it was a list of praises and um a lot of them we look at and say well how would they ever sing that and their style of singing is different than ours and and if you think of like uh some of them would have been along the line of watching a musical and others would have been along the line of watching a concert and others would have been like we do in our worship service.

It would be congregational singing or there would be a choir or a group that would would present it to the church as well. And uh we the writers of Psalms, there's not one writer. Uh the the one that wrote the most of Psalms and we know about is David. And and David uh letter A there, David wrote 73 of the Psalms that we know for sure. Uh there might have been more but at least 73 of them were written by David himself. And then uh the second person who wrote the psalms, not necessarily second number was Solomon uh wrote two of the psalms that we know of. And um so we have David, we have Solomon.

And then the letter C there is a man named Asaf as SA P. And Asaf wrote 12 of the Psalms. And as best we can tell, he was the minister of music in the temple during David's time. So he would have been the music pastor or we would call him probably today the worship pastor. And so he wrote 12 of the psalms that we know of. Um my guess is that he also edited some of David's psalms. Uh because David David was a musician, but yet many times uh like we would have for many years we had a theme for the church and uh and and we choose out a verse to go along with that theme and then we would have a song that we would do an original song and at least three of them I wrote the songs based on that scripture and that theme, but we'd always have somebody with more musical talent than me that edited them though.

So it's possible, but ASF wrote 12 of them. And then the the next one, letter D, is the sons of Kora. K O R A H. They wrote uh 12 of the Psalms. Now, if you remember Kora, Kora was the one that stood against no Moses in Numbers chapter 16. So, he was not a very Kora was not a very good guy. Uh he opposed Moses and leading the people and there was a problem. But in Numbers 26:11, we are told, in fact, hold your place in Psalms and go over to Numbers 26 and verse number 11. Numbers 26 and verse number 11. So we we know in verse 10 that um Kora was the one that strove against Moses and Aar and and Aaron.

And if you go down to verse number 11, it says, "Notwithstanding, the children of Kora died not." So Kora died because of his opposition. God uh took his life but his children were spared. And and so it's interesting when you read the psalms that we believe the sons of Kora wrote. And there's some question on all of them for sure. Exactly. But we believe that those 12 were written. They were they're primarily psalms of gratitude and humility. See, these guys could have gotten mad that that God took their dad's life, but they realized, but God spared us. And and and and because of that, their psalms express a lot of gratitude and and a lot of humility.

And so, it's very interesting to see that. And then uh letter E, we know that Moses wrote at least one of the Psalms, and that's Psalms 90. Psalms 90. And Psalms 90 is primarily a a prayer is what it is. And um there's some other ones that may have possibly been written by Moses, but we do know what the Psalms 90 was. And then anonymous or others were somewhere around 50. Uh I've read also up to 61 depending on who you who you assign these ones to. Again, we don't know. Some of them they tell us right there written by David or written by whoever it might be. But other ones we don't know. We we but we believe from the context and from other factors they were written by certain people but there are at least 50 of them.

We just don't know who wrote them for sure. And uh and so when you're reading the individual Psalms, what is interesting is to go back and say, "Well, who wrote this?" Because when you read the Psalms of Kora and you see that gratitude and you see that humility expressed, it really kind of it just kind of opens it up and say, "Here's some young men that could have been bitter and angry, but they chose to not become bitter and angry against God and against the leadership." And and so knowing who wrote the psalm, I think, is helpful as you read each individual ong. Now, you say, "Well, how can I know that?"

Well, if you if you look in the Psalms, for example, I just turned to Psalms chapter 8. There's a title to it, and in there it says to the chief mi musician who was Asaf and upon uh Guinness, a psalm of David. And so many of them right there in the title. Now, in my Bible, I have titles throughout the scriptures into different sections, and those were added by the editors of the Bible. Like I originally had a Ryrie study Bible. I don't have many more one anymore, but that's what I had for many years. And Ryrie kind of would put headings kind of outlined and put headings to different sections throughout the Bible.

And those were his. They were not inspired of God. That was his way of trying to break it up into chunks that were easy to understand. But in the Psalms, the titles are part of the original Psalms. And so they are inspired of God. And so in most cases, you can look at the title and it will tell you who it was written for, the occasion, and the name of the writer. And that will open it up to you a little bit more if you pay attention to that. And then um the book of Psalms number number three there is is a book of poetry, prayers, and hymns. It's not necessarily all of these were actually sung. Some of them were recited like poetry is recited.

Some of them were actual prayers to God and some were hymns and some were combinations. Uh a prayer could be a hymn as well. And uh like um Mary when she found out she was pregnant, she uh prayed uh but she also sung her prayer to the Lord. And uh and and so it's it's combination of all three. Now, Psalms use four different literary styles and uh and looking at that. So, um you know, I I'm not a big poetry guy. I don't know if you are or not. In school, I never got poetry and I never I remember there's one about walking on a path and which path I'm going to choose. I think Walt Whitman wrote that and that's about my best on poetry besides the classic fairy, you know, fairy tale ones as kids.

And um you know I'm not big on poetry but there are ways of writing poetry that if you understand how they wrote it again it'll help you to understand the psalm. And so you have parallelism where it it parallels two different things together back and forth. And then you have a a repetition where it repeats the same thing again in different words over and over again. And then you have development where it starts with an idea and then develops it throughout the psalms and builds upon it like like in a concert you have a tempo building till the the climax of that of that uh of that song. And then you have contrast where they say they contrast good against evil or two different things against one another.

And and and those are the basic styles. You can again go into a lot more detail on that and especially if you're interested in poetry, but Hebrew poetry is very different than our poetry. It was not it was very rarely based upon rhyming. Um you know our most of our poetry is is it rhymes with each other. Uh Hebrew poetry did not. And and and so it's a different style to it. uh they use an acrostic style and acrostics, you know, is like when a preacher uses uh you can use a um different letter, the same letter to start each of your points or you can use a word and and and use that word to make your points or something along that line.

Uh you know, an acrossic an alliteration along with that. And then anthrop um anthroporeism or something like that. uh and uh it's a big word which I don't fully understand but there's just different styles and and one of the things that's interesting in there is is to understand the style that it was written but to be honest with you most of us are going to struggle with the style because number one it's taken from one language to another and so you lose the the some of the poetry of it when you do that. If you've ever heard some of our hymns sung in another language, it's hard to do that to get it to rhyme the way we are used to.

And and so we're we're reading Hebrew poetry in English and and so that's difficult. And and then again, some of their styles that they use were based upon their culture and their understanding. And we're not used to that. But it is important to understand that there's different styles that come into play when you're looking at the Psalms. Psalms as a whole covers a period of about 1,000 years. And so they weren't written like like a lot of our books of the Bible were written right at one time period in a very short time period. Psalms is everything from Moses all the way up through Solomon. And uh and so there's a long time period you're dealing with.

And so again, it's kind of good to know who wrote it, when they wrote it to what's going on in the nation at the time or what's going on in David's life. Some of the psalms are really more understandable if you if you realize this was written when David was a shepherd boy or this one was written when he was being chased by Saul in the wilderness or this one was written when he was king after he sinned like Psalms 51 that was after his sin we believe with Basheba that he wrote that as a confessional psalm and and so understanding who wrote it and when they wrote it will really help open up your understanding of that and uh and and trying to look at that.

And then number six there, the types of psalms. There's different types. And this is I was before church night reading through my introduction to the psalms in my Bible here. This is a newer Bible to me, so I'd never read it before. And and they have some different categories than I do, not exactly the same, and they've added one or two. Uh there's room for that in there. Um you know, and and going with that. But uh the the different types of psalms is number letter A is a lament a lament of the individual or the community. Uh look at Psalms chapter 3. You know Lord how are they increase that trouble me?

Many are they that rise up against me. He's lamenting look at all that's going on around me now. and and and so he's dealing with that aspect of it and and and just kind of almost like they're complaining uh and is is is it's like like we will say, man, our politicians look look how terrible they are or look how many you know how this war is going on or or all the wickedness on TV now or whatever else it might be. He's lamenting what's going on. And a lot of the psalms are are expressions of just Lord look at the world how bad it is. And then you have a next kind of psalm is either thanksgiving or praise.

Psalms 100 is one we probably well know. You know make a joyful noise in the Lord. All you people come into his presence. You know this is a thanksgiving song. And and so a lot of them were praise to God. A lot of them were thanksgiving. uh many of the lamenting songs ended up praising God and saying the world is bad but praise God he's good and so they they would kind of combine together. Then letter C, you have psalms of trust. And these are psalms where is saying, "Lord, I don't understand what's going on, but I trust you. I I trust you." And and so psalms of trust. And I, you know, I'm giving you examples of some.

These are not all of them, but just so you can look at them, say, "Okay, that's what that is." And then you have the royal psalms, and these are ones that are talking about Christ. They're referring to the kingdom, to Christ, to his sacrifice, his rulership, whatever it might be, but they're they're psalms about Christ. And uh they're more of the more more based upon the kingdom idea that God is going to rule, that God is going to be in charge. There are messianic psalms, that's letter F there, messianic psalms. These are ones are more prophecy of the Messiah to come. So the royal psalms focus more on the king.

The messianic psalms focus more on the savior. And then letter E are wisdom psalms. And these are ones that would, you know, psalm one is a great example of that. They talk about having wisdom. How can I have wisdom and what does that involve? And they would be called wisdom psalms. And then number is impregatory psalms. I M P R E C A T O R Y. Now, how many of you know what an imprecatory psalm is? Okay. Impregatory psalms, what are they, Frank? They put down the person there writing about. Yeah. They're writing about a person and usually it's got saying, "God, you see that guy over there? What he's doing?

You should zap him." It It's really calling on God to judge them. either an individual or a group of people saying, "God, look at the wickedness and you should be you should be calling down fire from heaven on these people." And they're it's an impregatory psalm is what they're called. And um and and so David did this quite often where he was saying, "God, you need to you need to judge these people and and asking for God's judgment and and and sometimes even questioning, well, why why aren't you judging them? Why are they getting away with this? Why aren't they being you know destroyed before who they are?

And uh those are the way the psalms are. Okay. Number seven is the psalms are arranged in five books or divisions. Now this is more of our arrangement. It's not necessarily that that they're exactly arranged in that but we've kind of divided them up into five groupings. And um just off the side, you might want to write that 116 of the psalms have a title like I showed you. So a few of them don't don't have an introductory title, but 116 of them do. They say this is a psalm for this reason to this person for the choir to sing or is written by this person. So 116 have titles and um and and so the divisions would go about this way.

We have uh books chapters 1- 41. And then the next grouping is 42- 72. And the next grouping is 73- 89. I'll say these all one more time. And then 90 through 106. And then 107 to 150. Okay. 1- 41, 42-72, 73- 89, 90 through 106, and then 107 through 150. And um I think this is pretty well most Bible scholars would divide it this way. And one of the reasons we did this is because I get overwhelmed when there's too much information in front of me. I don't know about you, but I that's one of the reason I don't like Google. 1,273,664 results to my search. I can't handle that. I need it brought down in little groupings that I can handle.

That's why I'm glad they at least give me just one page to search to begin at a time. Uh, you know, and and same way with my calendar. I don't like everything on my calendar every day, all the different things. I I want to break it up and I want to look at just what's important or what's, you know, so it it's just grouping them. They seem to be grouped in how God put them together. And so we just said, "Here, here's some good groups we can divide it up into and study as a group or look together as a group." Um, doesn't mean they all all lamenting psalms are in this group and Chapter 2: Psalm all impregatory songs are that psalms are in that group.

It's not divided by time when they were written necessarily or who wrote them. It just seems like this was a good breaking point. And uh I'm not sure all the reasons why scholars decided that but they did seem to break it up in that way. And so that just helps us to study it. Okay. And then there's two musical notations that are used extensively in the Psalms. And because they are hymn books and so uh the the one of them is quite often it will say in the introduction to the chief musician and that's 55 times it has that phrase and so that probably means this was meant as choir music. Hey I want I want you to sing this in the choir.

Sometimes I'll come to the worship team or the choir and say, "Hey, I want you to sing this song." And and and so it's to the chief musician. This is a hymn that we want you to sing as a hymn. Okay? And then the other one is the word sila. How many of you ever seen that word in Psalms? You've seen the word, right? How many you know what it means? Well, you're in good company because we're not really sure what it means. It's one of those words that we don't fully understand. We we believe it's a musical notation and it's kind of the idea of an interlude or a pause. You know, some places in musicals, you know, it'll have a pause so you get the full effect and then then it'll come on again.

And so it seems to be sila means stop here, pause here, take a little breath here before you go on. And the idea that most Bible scholars say is if you had to put a definition word it would be think of that because sometimes I don't know about you does sometimes I'll be singing songs in church on Sunday morning and I realize I just sang that song and I didn't think about what I was singing and when I stop and think about it wow this is praising God. This is talking about God's creation. This is talking how great thou art. And so then what they what they're trying to say is listen because I don't know about you but when I read through the Bible, you read through Psalms, it's almost like you you're on a speed thing.

I got to get through Psalms because there's 145 chapters or whatever. And so you're you kind of race through Psalms rather than really stopping to think about what I just read. And so the writer said, "Hey, stop. Do you realize what I just said? I was talking about God. I was talking about the the majesty of the Lord. I was talking about his creation. Stop and think before you go on. And so that's the idea of the word sila. All right. Number nine there of 283 New Testament quotations from the Old Testament. The New Testament quotes the Old Testament 283 times and 116 are from the Psalms. Look at Luke chap 24 and verse number 44.

So the Psalms is the major book that Jesus and others would quote from. And part of that was it was probably the best known book. Um I would venture to say that everybody here has read more Psalms than they have of Deuteronomy or Numbers or any other book in the Old Testament. It's just probably the best known book. And uh Luke chap 24 and uh verse number 44, the Bible says, "He said unto them, these are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you that all things might be fulfilled which are written in the law of Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms concerning me." So you he Jesus refers to the Psalms.

And so it's a big book. It's got a lot to quote from and is quoted quite often in the New Testament. Okay. And then um number 10 there, the longest chapter in the Bible is Psalms what? 119. Most everybody knows that. Um what's the shortest and the middle chapter of the Bible? Anybody know that? 118. 117. 117. 117. All right. Close there. But 117. Does anybody know what the middle verse of the Bible? It's in Psalms. What the middle verse of the Bible is between. Psalms 118 verse number8 is the very middle verse of the Bible. Okay. Uh just interesting facts but Psalms is very much at the center of the Bible and it's a good book to get to know and to read through and and to study through.

Um the main ideas or themes of Psalm are trust. A lot of times the psalmist is saying, "Lord, look at how bad everything is around me." But I trust you even when everything's going bad. And it's just a it's a it's a time, you know, if you need to look, you know, if you're having struggles, trust in the Lord. If things are going bad and you're looking out there, look how bad the world is. Look how bad my life is. Look how bad everything is, then Psalms a good place to go to. Now to begin with it'll be kind of a downer because David especially was a downer in a lot of places. We we tell David David was one of the great men of the Old Testament.

Chapter 3: Luke He was but a lot of times he was down on everything but he always ends up in the same place but I trust in God. Things are bad but I trust in God. And so it's trust is a very much of a theme of it. Praise is very much the theme of the Psalms. And it's a great place if you want to praise the Lord. It's just a great place to go to. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Rejoicing. Joy is a is a very much a theme of Psalms and very very repeated over and over again. And then mercy. So those are some there's other themes of course in there, but those are some of the major when you go through that's you're going to see that in almost every psalms, one of these four things if not a combination of them.

Okay? So, it just kind of when you're studying the book of the Bible, you kind of going to get a bigger picture. Step back and look at the whole picture and just kind of see where this is going at. And then we're going to what we're going to do is we're going to look at Psalms. Before we do that, I think one of the one of the big themes in Psalms also is this idea of meditation. Now, I I'm not quoting from Psalms here, but go to Joshua chapter 1. Joshua chapter 1 and verse number eight. A lot of you have memorized this verse as well. Joshua 1:8, "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe you according to all that is written therein.

For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou show good success." Now, when Joshua 18 was written, most of the psalms were not written. Moses probably wrote his. They may have had a few of them to read, but the majority of the psalms were not written at the time. In fact, the majority of the Bible Joshua had was the law. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. That's what he had to deal with. Not even all that. And and I don't know about you, but reading the law is not my favorite place in the Bible. Just read all the the all the little details and and all the, you know, there you get bogged down there.

But God says to Joshua, "Meditate on the book of the law." Well, we have the book of Psalms, and it's even a a greater book to meditate on. And so if you're going to read through and study through Psalms, you have to know how to meditate. You have to know how to really think about it. Now the word meditation, the it it means the idea is not depart out of thy mouth. Go to Psalms chapter 19 and look at verse number 14. Psalms chapter 19 and verse number 14. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in my sight, oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. The idea of the word meditate in the Old Testament comes from a hebrew word hagatha and um it means to reflect to moan or murmur to ponder to repeat the words.

Now, it's interesting to reflect, of course, is just to kind of think about it. To reflect on the psalmist wants you to stop and think about what's going on in my life, what's going on around me, paying attention to these things and to think about it. And it also is to ponder, but it but it includes the idea to repeat the words. So, it's something you're going to say over and over again, not just one time. See what we do is we read through Psalms, we read a chapter and we walk away from our Bible and it's the last we think about it. And what he wants you to do is, hey, at least take some of these key points and think about that's one of the reasons that a lot of the Psalms were poetry because a lot of times that was that would help you remember because when you have when you have some kind of a saying like a proverbs or poetry, it's it's a memory tool as well.

And and what he wants you to do is to to ponder this more than just read it. To really think about what they're saying, but what I think is really interesting here, it means to moan or to murmur. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart. And so it's kind of talking to yourself. Meditation is learning how to talk to yourself. Now, there's nothing wrong with talking to yourself. It's when you argue with yourself, you need mental help. Okay? But uh talking to yourself is okay. And you can do it in your mind or you can do it out loud. Uh when I'm in the car by myself, I'll talk to when I'm working on ser my office.

Sometimes you'll come by there and I'll I'll be talking aloud to myself a little and I'll be honest. Sometimes I'll argue myself. Is this what it says or is that what it says? That's the idea of meditation. It's just to really think about this and to talk to have a self discussion about what you read. Um look at Psalms chapter 39. Psalms chapter 39 and look at verse number three. Psalms chapter 39 verse number three. Psalms 39:3. The Bible says, "My heart was hot within me while I was musing. The fire burned and spake I with my tongue." Now the idea of the word muse is to think. And so when we say amuse, what are we saying?

Don't think to not think. Yeah. When we're being amused, that's what TV does. Amuses you. You don't have to think. They're doing the thinking for you. So amusement is to not think. But God wants us to muse, to think on it. And so he said, "Listen, turn your brain on. Put your brain in gear. Pay attention to what you're reading and listen to it. And and sometimes even repeat it over yourself." Look at verse number five. my wounds. I'm sorry. I'm reading wrong chapter. Verse five. Behold, thou has made my days as a hand breath, and mine age is nothing before thee. Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity.

Sila, remember what the word sila means. Think about that. And and so when we're doing the Psalms, when we're going through the Psalms, you need to meditate. You need to think and and and so stop. Don't rush through it. Don't you got to get through all the psalms. Take time to think about it and then talk about it to yourself throughout that day. Now, an important part of meditation is music. In Psalms um 40 and verse number three, it says, "And you put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord." So, the the song is in my mouth, but he says, "Many shall see it."

Now, we think of music as something you hear. One of the things I try to encourage the musician is when you're up there singing, let it show on your face. Don't let the words just come out of your mouth. Let me see the praise. Let me see the worship. Let me see the love. And by the way, that goes in reverse as well. I'm up there leading songs sometimes. You guys are in there. Oh, how I love Jesus. you know, uh you you got to let the words of your mouth and the face, you know, tell your face what you're singing. And and so, but this meditation idea, a lot of times music is involved with that. Go to Psalms 104.

Psalms 104:es 33 and 34 through and 34. I will sing unto the Lord as long as I live. I will sing praise to my God while my being. My meditation shall be sweet. I'll be glad in the Lord. Very often in the Bible when you read the word meditation, you're going to see something along the idea of of music in that verse or in the the verses before or after it because music and meditation go well together. Now, we're not talking about, you know, Easter meditation, you know, ringing a bell and stuff like that, but I think a lot of times when you're doing your Bible study, a good way to get yourself in in the right frame of mind is to listen to Christian music and then do your Bible study and then listen to Christian music or have a himnil and sing some songs, then do your Bible study and sing songs.

A lot of times with Psalms especially, one of the things I like doing is when I read Psalms, after I've read the chapter, I kind of think, what's a hymn that I know that kind of goes along with this and put the two together because these are hymns, but for me, they don't read as hymns. You know, when you read Psalm 19 about the God's creation, that's a great psalm, but then I think of how great thou art, you know, and and and and and so you can you put a hymn with it. But music really helps your mind focus and sing. Now, it's the right type of music. The the more jazzy the music is, I think the less it causes you to think.

And so, I think there's a type of music that helps you with that as well. So, music is important part of meditation. Number two, to meditate, you need to memorize. Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee. And and I and I and a part of meditation is me. You can't meditate on what you don't remember. And so again, when you're reading, anytime you do your Bible study, especially Psalms, when you read the Psalms, pick out a verse to memorize that day and just to really work on that verse and and trying to memorize it and and to hide it in your heart. And then throughout the day, you go back and reflect on that verse.

A lot of times what I'll I I'll do is write the verse down in a 3x5 card and carry it with me or I'll put into an app on the phone and and pull up that app and look at that verse again because I I can't remember it. So, a big part of meditation is memorizing. You got to remember what you're meditating on. And so, to pick out the main points, to pick out the main key verses, the key words to remember those. And then you have to learn to visualize. And visualizing is to take what they're saying and get a get a picture in your mind. A picture is worth a thousand words. So for example, when you're reading Psalms chapter 1 and in that Psalms, it talks about how that he's he should be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth fruit in season.

His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever do it shall prosper. You want to visualize that. Visualize a tree planted by the rivers of water and out, you know, and out in the desert and and um and and in rivers. It's it's flowing water. It's not stagnant water. You know, getting a visual picture in your mind. This is one of the things that I do in my preaching a lot and a lot of people really appreciate. You know, when I read about the fruit of the spirit, what fruits would I'm think about? Even like a tree. In Psalms, it talks about different kinds of trees, like a cedar tree or a palm tree.

What's the difference between a cedar and a palm? Look it up on Google. Cedar trees, they grow every year. And you got what what help what tells you how much they've grown? What when you what do you have to see? The rings in the tree. And the rings will tell you this was a good year or a bad year. This was a hard year or an easy year. But they grow, you know, they grow strong and they're used in the house of the Lord. But then palm trees, palm trees, they don't break very easily. During after a storm, you see a lot of the trees break, but palm trees don't. You know why? Because they bend. They're willing to.

They're flexible and they bend. And so when you visualize that, you kind of look at say, "Well, what kind of trees is he really talking about here? He's talking about a fruit tree here." Well, fruit trees are different, too, aren't they? And so if you begin to visualize that's going to change your understanding of the scripture. And Psalms is a great book to do that with to visualize the Psalms 23. Visualize a flock of sheep out there with a shepherd and the still waters and the green pastures. And to visualize that now for you and I, that's something is not as easy to visualize as it was back that day.

Cuz that day everybody was farmers and everybody knew what sheep were and they were everywhere. Most of us the only place we see a sheep is in in the zoo. So we have to maybe do a little bit of study to visualize better. What are sheep like? Why does it say still waters? What's what's got to be about still? You know, getting that visual picture in your mind will so open the scriptures to you. And then thirdly is to personalize. To make it personal. In Psalms chapter 1, it talks about blessed is the man. Well, how about blessed is me? I want it to be personal. So, how can I personally what does it mean to to walk not in the counsel of the ungodly?

So, how do I personalize that? Who should I not walk with? And and you know, it says walk not and stand not and sit not. What's the difference between walking, standing, sitting? Well, walking means I'm going the same direction as somebody else. When I'm standing, talking to somebody, it means I stop to talk to them. When I'm sitting means I'm going to spend some time there. See, that's the visualization. Now, how do I personalize that? Well, what kind of people should I be walking with? Am I going the right direction? What kind of people should I be standing with? Where do I do most of my sitting?

watching the TV or the internet. That's personalizing it. They didn't have TV or internet back then, but I most a lot of us, we sit with that TV and listen to it and it influences us and we don't we're not a godly man because that's what we're doing. So, what I want to challenge you if you're going to meditate, you got to learn to memorize, visualize, and personalize the word. Look at Psalms 119 and verses 9- 11. Psalms 119:9, "Wherewith als shall a young man cleanse his way by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee. Oh, let me not wander from thy commandments.

Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against thee." Look at Psalms 119 verse 130. The entrance of thy words giveth light. It giveth understanding unto the simple. If I want to be somebody that's going to understand the word of God, then I need to have the light bulb turned on. Yeah. You ever had that happen where you all of a sudden realize that's what that means? I love that. I love that feeling when I'm working on a sermon, you know, I I started working on this Sunday's sermon on um Tuesday and all through the week I'm thinking about it and all and and and and Thursday something will click and it's like, "Oh, that's it."

and I'll get this illustration or I get this picture and I it just opens up and it's like that's exciting. But if you don't do that, it's not going to happen. So, you got to you got to let it click on. You got to let it come come in there and personalize it for you to memorize it. Okay? And then talk about the word. Look at Psalms 119 and verse number 27. Psalms 119 verse 27. Make me to understand the way of thy precepts. So, so I talk of thy wondrous works. Talking out what you're reading helps. Talk it out with your spouse. I I want to challenge you if you're married here today for this study.

Read through the Psalms. We're going to read one chapter every night together. There's a couple. And we're going to talk about what we're reading. You know, when I preach, I learn so much more because I'm talking about it. you're you're getting probably 30% of what I study. I just can't give it all to you. But when I give it to you, I'm getting that much more out of it. And so talking about the scriptures is going to help you to meditate on. So talk to yourself again. Just moan, murmur, talk to yourself about it. Uh what does that mean? Why did he say this? You know, I just hit my switch by mistake there in my pocket.

That's why I got to keep my hands out my pocket. My wife always tell me to keep your hands out of your pocket. Um, talk about it to yourself in your mind. Doesn't have to be out loud, but in your mind. And then talk about it with others. You know, as you're going through Psalms, hey, did you read Psalms one? Did you read Have you read this? Did you see this? Look at this. I never read that before. I never saw that before. And it's going to open it up to you.