Abner Chou Explains Psalm 62 from the Legacy Standard Bible (LSB)
Chapters
0:01:31 Psalm 62
2:35 Structure
11:25 Verses 11 and 12
00:00:00.920 | Hi, this is Abner Chow, one of the translators of the Legacy Standard Bible.
00:00:05.340 | This month, they're releasing certain psalms for us to read.
00:00:09.660 | And they've asked me, could I share any insights on these passages?
00:00:14.160 | Well, that's kind of tricky.
00:00:16.400 | It's a little bit tough because which passages do you choose?
00:00:20.280 | Which texts do you select?
00:00:22.040 | I have about 150 favorite psalms.
00:00:25.200 | So which one do we want to study?
00:00:28.360 | Well, I try to select a few where we not only learn some deep theology about God,
00:00:34.240 | some things that encourage us and convict us, but also that would give us some tips
00:00:39.480 | on how to study our Bibles better, tips on what to look for as we read our Bibles
00:00:45.060 | and all of that to help us not only remember the scriptures, because if you
00:00:49.560 | know how it all breaks down and how you all can put it together, then you can
00:00:54.560 | remember it and recall it more.
00:00:56.520 | You're familiar with it, but on top of that, it also helps us to be convicted by
00:01:02.040 | scripture better, because when you understand what each detail is doing and
00:01:06.160 | its significance, then you understand how it has significance in our lives and how
00:01:11.840 | it points on particular applications that need to happen in our heart to conform to
00:01:18.080 | the standard and the truth of God's word.
00:01:20.800 | So that's kind of the design of the next series of videos that they've asked me to
00:01:26.240 | do on various passages in the Psalms.
00:01:30.120 | And we're going to start with Psalm 62.
00:01:33.440 | This is an amazing passage.
00:01:37.360 | This is a wonderful text.
00:01:38.800 | I read this passage all the time because what it reminds us and what it molds us to
00:01:45.160 | do is to have our peace and our security and our trust, even our silence in God.
00:01:54.480 | This is so important how we need that.
00:01:58.280 | And there is so much going on in this text to accomplish that goal.
00:02:04.080 | There is so much happening, so much sophistication that all comes together to
00:02:08.920 | push us deeply and powerfully to that conclusion.
00:02:13.560 | Now, I can't share everything or observe everything in the text that I possibly
00:02:18.240 | could. That would take a long time.
00:02:20.880 | But let me give a few observations.
00:02:23.760 | And the way I'd like to work it is that we'll start broad, zoom out, and then we'll
00:02:28.720 | move our way inward.
00:02:29.880 | We'll zoom in.
00:02:30.960 | So we'll start general and then become more specific.
00:02:34.800 | And with that, we can start with structure, with the structure of this passage.
00:02:39.600 | Notice verse one, the psalmist begins with conviction.
00:02:43.000 | Surely my soul waits in silence for God.
00:02:47.320 | Verse two, surely he is my rock and my salvation.
00:02:51.640 | Two phrases of conviction right next to each other.
00:02:55.320 | And then there's some discussion.
00:02:56.760 | And then notice a little bit later, he says in verse four, surely they have counsel to
00:03:01.800 | thrust him down. So you have two parallel lines that begin with the word surely and
00:03:06.800 | then some discussion and then the word surely again.
00:03:09.880 | Well, if you have that in mind, watch this verse five, surely wait in silence for God.
00:03:16.200 | Verse six, again, a parallel line.
00:03:18.080 | Surely he is my rock.
00:03:19.960 | And then you have some discussion.
00:03:21.160 | And guess what happens then?
00:03:22.720 | In verse nine, it says, surely men of low degree are merely vanity.
00:03:27.720 | Do you notice a pattern?
00:03:29.280 | Do you notice two verses, each of them begin with surely, then some discussion, and then
00:03:34.320 | it concludes with the word surely.
00:03:36.480 | What we have now then are two parallel sections.
00:03:42.200 | This psalm breaks down into two major parts and you say, OK, what are the two major
00:03:49.120 | parts doing? How do they help us to understand how to have solace, how to have
00:03:53.720 | security, how to have peace in God all the more?
00:03:56.800 | Well, the first section you could say, at risk of oversimplification, is offense.
00:04:05.400 | Offense. And the second section would be what we might call defense.
00:04:11.560 | Another way to put it is that the first section is about something that is
00:04:18.360 | interpersonal and the second section is about something that is personal.
00:04:24.480 | The first section might be about boldness and the last section might be something
00:04:31.840 | about perspective.
00:04:34.840 | These are all ways to describe these two sections.
00:04:38.960 | And let's think about them now, because if you understand that.
00:04:45.200 | Trust in God is for times that are interpersonal and personal, if trust in God is
00:04:51.160 | times for things that are on the offense or on the defense, if trust in God is about
00:04:55.880 | boldness to the outside world or perspective in your own personal life, then trust in
00:05:00.600 | God is about everything.
00:05:02.200 | It pertains to every single situation, every single moment.
00:05:05.560 | And that's what Psalm 62 is driving at.
00:05:09.040 | And let's get into the details of that.
00:05:11.440 | In verse one, what we have is that the psalmist's confidence, our confidence, it
00:05:19.400 | needs to be convictional.
00:05:20.840 | It is surely my soul waits in silence for God.
00:05:24.840 | It is about our determination, our certainty, our exclusivity, that we must, we must and
00:05:35.560 | we must only find our peace in God.
00:05:40.360 | He is my rock, no one else.
00:05:43.240 | And I'm going to seek him.
00:05:44.640 | That is our conviction.
00:05:46.960 | That is our determination.
00:05:49.320 | That's what we need to have.
00:05:51.520 | And when we meditate on him in this way with such confidence, with such conviction, with
00:05:58.640 | such exclusivity, and we contemplate that he is our salvation, he is our rock, he is
00:06:05.240 | our salvation, he is our stronghold.
00:06:07.920 | Notice what the text says.
00:06:09.880 | Well, well, we won't fear.
00:06:12.480 | We won't be greatly shaken.
00:06:16.360 | And in fact, it's more than just that we won't fear.
00:06:19.120 | We will even have, in a sense, an attitude of courage, an attitude of courage.
00:06:25.400 | Notice verses three and four.
00:06:28.200 | It says, how long will you assail a man?
00:06:33.200 | The wicked that maybe intimidated us, the wicked that maybe caused us to fear, we
00:06:38.760 | don't fear them anymore.
00:06:39.800 | We can stand up to them.
00:06:41.120 | We can show that they are wicked.
00:06:42.800 | We can point out boldly that they are in the wrong.
00:06:46.640 | Surely, as it says in verse four, they have counseled to thrust him down from his high
00:06:50.840 | position. They are in the wrong.
00:06:52.680 | And we are confident and courageous about it.
00:06:55.360 | When we meditate on who God is, the outside world won't scare us.
00:07:00.640 | We can stand up.
00:07:01.880 | We can be bold and courageous against them.
00:07:04.680 | And as we meditate and as the psalmist guides us in meditating on who God is, our
00:07:09.680 | confidence is building and that moves from the notion of offense to the notion of
00:07:14.920 | defense about something that is interpersonal now to something that is personal.
00:07:20.000 | Because yes, we have to deal with the outside world, but sometimes we have to deal with
00:07:24.320 | ourselves. And in light of that, verse five and six repeats.
00:07:29.120 | It repeats that we need to have, even in our own personal private lives, not when we're
00:07:35.240 | facing the outside world, but we're just facing ourselves in the private moments of
00:07:39.440 | our existence. We need to turn to God with the same kind of conviction, with the same
00:07:44.720 | kind of exclusivity, with the same kind of determination.
00:07:47.760 | Surely wait in silence.
00:07:49.840 | We command ourselves.
00:07:51.560 | We command our own souls to be in silence because our hope is from him.
00:07:57.680 | We look to him alone.
00:07:59.240 | He is our rock.
00:08:00.600 | He is our salvation.
00:08:02.040 | He is our stronghold.
00:08:03.800 | And notice this, because we are meditating and thinking about God, it says, I shall not
00:08:11.400 | be shaken.
00:08:13.000 | Now, notice this.
00:08:14.480 | In verse two earlier, it said something similar, but it said, I will not be greatly
00:08:20.800 | shaken here, it says, I will not be shaken.
00:08:26.520 | Why? Because before I won't be greatly shaken, I won't be shaken a lot.
00:08:32.640 | But somebody, a skeptic could step in and say, but would you be shaken a little?
00:08:36.160 | But by verse six, because we have meditated on God, we have lived it out.
00:08:40.840 | We understand our confidences in him.
00:08:43.080 | We have thought about him a lot and alone.
00:08:46.680 | Now, the psalmist says, and we should say with him, I won't be shaken implied at all,
00:08:51.960 | at all. That is our confidence in God, that kind of confidence, because he is our
00:08:57.320 | salvation. Our glory rests in him.
00:08:59.280 | He is the rock of my strength.
00:09:00.760 | My refuge is in God.
00:09:02.840 | These realities, they drive us to perspective.
00:09:06.720 | Perspective. Notice verses nine.
00:09:10.040 | And ten, we have perspective, we begin to understand and see through the wicked, they
00:09:18.720 | may appear to be evil and they are.
00:09:21.720 | But they may appear to be intimidating in that evil.
00:09:25.520 | They may appear to be scary in that evil.
00:09:29.000 | But we can see through them.
00:09:30.080 | And here's what they are.
00:09:31.760 | And notice what the text says.
00:09:33.320 | They're just vanity.
00:09:34.320 | That's what they are.
00:09:35.880 | And notice they are together lighter than what vanity.
00:09:39.480 | Do you notice the repetition of vanity?
00:09:42.520 | Here is what the psalmist is reminding us.
00:09:45.040 | See through them.
00:09:45.960 | If your confidence is in God, you can see through them.
00:09:48.760 | They may look formidable, but they're nothing.
00:09:51.800 | They're vanity.
00:09:52.680 | Their work may seem powerful and effective.
00:09:55.480 | No, it's just a breath of vanity.
00:09:57.240 | It amounts to nothing.
00:09:59.080 | That's what they really are.
00:10:00.680 | And when we know God and think about him, all the concerns out there, they grow dim.
00:10:07.440 | They're no longer scary.
00:10:09.440 | They're no longer fearful because we have such a big and faithful and powerful God.
00:10:16.160 | And for that very reason, verse 10, don't trust in oppression.
00:10:19.720 | And notice the next phrase.
00:10:21.000 | Do not put vain hope in robbery.
00:10:25.880 | We don't act like the wicked.
00:10:28.280 | We don't follow the wicked.
00:10:29.680 | Why?
00:10:30.040 | Because what did we hear in verse nine?
00:10:32.000 | They are vanity and what they do amounts to vanity.
00:10:35.480 | Everything they are, everything they have, everything that they will be is vanity.
00:10:40.720 | So if you do what they do, all you have is a vain hope because they're just vanity.
00:10:47.120 | They're nothing.
00:10:48.080 | And so we don't follow them.
00:10:50.080 | Why?
00:10:50.680 | Because they're vanity.
00:10:52.160 | Why?
00:10:53.040 | Because our hope and our confidence and our rest and our silence and our solace is in who?
00:11:02.120 | It's in God.
00:11:03.400 | That's what the psalmist has been emphasizing.
00:11:06.720 | He has said it over and over again.
00:11:09.040 | Surely, surely, surely this is what we should be about.
00:11:14.880 | We should be determined about this and it should be the exclusive cry of our heart.
00:11:21.040 | It is all about God and it's for that very reason that our verses 11 and 12 sum it up.
00:11:28.280 | They provide the conclusion.
00:11:29.720 | Once God has spoken twice, I have heard this, that strength belongs to who?
00:11:33.680 | To God.
00:11:34.560 | Everything belongs to him.
00:11:36.760 | Therefore we turn to no one else but him.
00:11:39.720 | Surely my soul rests in him.
00:11:44.080 | That's why all loving kindness belongs to him.
00:11:47.760 | We go to him and him alone.
00:11:51.120 | These are such important lessons.
00:11:55.200 | If you're facing something on the outside world and it intimidates you, we need to go to God.
00:12:01.040 | If we are facing our own personal fears and doubts, we go to God.
00:12:06.120 | If we need boldness and courage, we go to God.
00:12:09.600 | If we need perspective in this life, we go to God.
00:12:13.000 | If something is disturbing us, we go to God.
00:12:15.960 | Surely we go to him.
00:12:17.960 | That's what this psalm is pressing us on.
00:12:20.480 | As verse eight exhorts us so eloquently, trust in him at all times.
00:12:27.120 | So people pour out your heart before him.
00:12:30.120 | God is a refuge for us.
00:12:32.920 | Surely we need to go to God.
00:12:36.160 | This is so powerful.
00:12:38.720 | This is so good.
00:12:40.000 | And the applications are so vast and so practical.
00:12:45.360 | We need this.
00:12:46.440 | And I pray that by looking at some things in the text, we not only understand our God better,
00:12:54.080 | we understand what we need to do in trusting him all the more and finding peace in him.
00:13:00.240 | God's word is so beautiful.
00:13:03.160 | It's so wonderful.
00:13:05.360 | And my prayer is that we continue to strive to see great and wonderful things in his word.
00:13:13.120 | And in light of that, I hope that we can have more opportunities where we can go and see
00:13:18.560 | great insights and beautiful things in the word of God together.
00:13:24.720 | Look forward to the next time.
00:13:26.280 | [BLANK_AUDIO]