Two Basic Questions

In this part of the sermon: The first reason for the Psalms' unique helpfulness is their poetic form and the fact that they are largely direct addresses to God. Martin uses analogies of Moses' library, the…

Moses is likened to a man with a library of history and law, and the prophets to men with a bullhorn (calling to repentance) and a telescope (peering into the future). This illustrates the distinct nature of other biblical books compared to the Psalms.

And this is one of the reasons why they are uniquely suitable for the cultivation of our communion with God. If I may use a rather crude way of illustrating it, by the superintendence of the Holy Spirit, Moses, as one of the great penmen of the Old Testament, stands before us, with a small library. And in his library there are primarily several books of history, starting with creation, following on through the patriarchs, and then the exodus of the people of God,

14:44 - 15:27 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't pray your private prayers when you're the mouthpiece of the congregation. Be my mouthpiece. Pray we. So that when you're done, I can affirm the amen that you have expressed the yearnings of my heart.

The Psalms are compared to a box containing cassettes (recordings of prayers from 'bugged prayer closets' of the psalmists) and a stethoscope (to hear their heartbeats). This vividly conveys the intimate, personal, and direct address to God found in the Psalms, making them uniquely suitable for communion.

in the judgments upon his own covenant people, in aspects of the coming of Messiah. So here is Moses standing before us with his little library. The prophets standing before us with their bullhorn and with their telescope. But when we come to the Psalms we are handed a box.

16:48 - 17:10 Read in full sermon

The point: Don't pray your private prayers when you're the mouthpiece of the congregation. Be my mouthpiece. Pray we. So that when you're done, I can affirm the amen that you have expressed the yearnings of my heart.

Martin gives an example of how public prayer should be corporate ('we') while private prayer is intimate and personal ('I'), highlighting the first-person nature of the Psalms as suitable for personal communion.

in which we have the tapes and the stethoscope, it makes them uniquely suitable for the cultivation of our own communion with God. For though you may, in public situations and properly so, pray, O Lord, we thank you, we confess our sins. And may I say to any of you men who lead in prayer in your various prayer meetings, don't pray your private prayers when you're the mouthpiece of the congregation. When I'm in a prayer meeting and a man says, and Lord, I pray, I pray, I want to stop and say, hey, buster, I'm here.

19:52 - 20:37 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: The second reason is that the Psalms reflect the full spectrum of Christian experience, from ecstatic praise to agony, yearning, and renewed repentance. Martin quotes John…

The life of a child of God is described as not monochromatic but like light passing through a prism, breaking into a full spectrum of colors and hues of valid Christian experience. This illustrates the varied and comprehensive conditions of heart and life reflected in the Psalms.

The life of a child of God is not all the bright yellow of exuberance and felt joy and delight. Neither is the life of the child of God all the dark, murky, dismal purple all the time. And as the light that God has created passes through the prism and breaks up into the full spectrum of color, so the grace of God operative in the heart of the child of God breaks up into the full spectrum all of the colors and hues

24:17 - 25:00 Read in full sermon

Driving home: I have been accustomed to call this book, the Psalter, the book of Psalms, I think not inappropriately an anatomy of all parts of the soul. For there is not an emotion of which anyone can be conscious that is not here re…

Martin quotes John Calvin's preface to his Psalms commentary, where Calvin calls the Psalter 'an anatomy of all parts of the soul,' emphasizing its comprehensive reflection of human emotions and experiences, which makes it uniquely helpful for self-examination and communion.

The Psalmist speaks of his heart and of his flesh crying out for the living God. And then there are Psalms where there is the chastened disposition of renewed repentance. Psalm 51, Psalm 32, the plaintive cry of an old man, remember not against me the sins of my youth. Now on this very point, that is, the unique contribution of the Psalms to our communion with God, because of this varied and comprehensive condition of heart and life reflected in the Psalms, I can do no better than to read a section from John Calvin in the author's preface

26:23 - 27:08 Read in full sermon

The point: You must have a saving knowledge of God based on a believing response to the Gospel.

The character Talkative from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress is used as an example of someone who can discuss theological concepts intellectually but lacks genuine internal experience. This illustrates the necessity of a saving knowledge of God for truly profiting from the experiential nature of the Psalms.

tells us that the natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness unto him neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. And there's a vital principle here. Though natural men, unconverted people can find a kind of intellectual satisfaction and fascination in the more objective doctrinal aspects of Scripture. John Bunyan understood this principle when he set before us the incident of Talkative.

46:48 - 47:22 Read in full sermon

The point: You must be convinced that God is neither shocked nor made uncomfortable by stark honesty in your dealings with Him.

Pouring out the contents of a glass completely, rather than just dribbling, illustrates God's injunction to 'pour out your heart before Him at all times,' emphasizing the need for stark honesty and frankness in prayer without fear of shocking or irritating God.

by your stark honesty in your dealings with Him. In the New Testament we have this gracious invitation Hebrews 4 in verse 16 Let us draw near with boldness unto the throne of grace. And that word translated boldness paresia it means with openness frankness unfettered pouring forth the Old Testament counterpart would be God's injunction pour out your heart before Him at all times you people and if it wouldn't make a mess on the platform to illustrate it

53:39 - 54:22 Read in full sermon

The point: I say be patient be patient and pass on to the next and in due course God will give you an ever growing corpus of Psalms that are exegeted in the classroom of the heart as God leads you on in the experience of his grace.

Martin paraphrases Calvin, who stated that his own varied experiences enabled him to competently interpret the Psalms. This illustrates how God's dealings in a believer's life serve as a key to unlocking the deeper meaning of the Psalms.

recognize that God's own dealings with you will be the key to the gradual unlocking of the meaning of many of the Psalms here I will simply paraphrase what Calvin said in his preface to the readers he said the bottom line as to why I feel I am at least in some measure competent to write a commentary on the Psalms is that God has brought me and my experience through so many things that have parallels in the experiences of the various human authors of the Psalms that I feel a stewardship

60:01 - 60:44 Read in full sermon

The point: I say be patient be patient and pass on to the next and in due course God will give you an ever growing corpus of Psalms that are exegeted in the classroom of the heart as God leads you on in the experience of his grace.

Martin shares his personal testimony of how certain Psalms, like Psalm 128 (seeing children's children) or those about betrayal, gained profound sweetness and meaning only after he experienced parallel life events, demonstrating that experience is the crucible for understanding the Psalms.

of that experiential dealings of God with me to interpret these Psalms that have been open to me in the crucible of my own experience and over the years if I may just say this briefly by way of personal testimony there are Psalms that at one time it was simply the discipline of commitment to read through the Psalms and pray them through consecutively that took me through them there was no particular sweetness there was no particular answer of deep unto deep

60:44 - 61:26 Read in full sermon