The Progressive Prophecy of Psalm 68

Bless ye God and the congregations, even the Lord from the fountain of Israel. There is little Benjamin with their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the princes of Zebulun and the princes of Naphtali. Thy God hath commanded thy strength. Strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us. Let’s just pause there a second. Listen to that verse one more time, verse 28. It says, thy God hath commanded thy strength.

Strengthen, oh God, that which thou hast wrought for us. It’s amazing. Not only do do we require God’s strength for everything that that we have. It says, God hath commanded thy strength. The reason we have it is because God gives it to us. But the second reason, the second thing that to note in verse number 28 is that is that we’re asking God to strengthen what he has done.

We’re not asking God to strengthen what we have done, but we’re asking him to strengthen what he has wrought. In verse 20, I just It’s kind of like reminds me of the verse where it says that Christ is all and in all. In other words, all things are of Christ and for Christ and to Christ, that’s kind of like what this says, God is the one who does it, God is the one who strengthens it, God is the one who keeps it going.

So we’ll continue verse 29, because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee. Rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the people, till everyone submit himself with pieces of silver, scatter thou the people that delight in war. Princess shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth. Oh, sing praises unto the Lord, Selah.

To him that rideth upon the heavens of heavens, which were of old, lo, he does send out his voice and that a mighty voice. Ascribe ye strength unto God, his excellency is over Israel, and his strength is in the clouds. O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places. The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God. Let’s pray together.

Our Lord in heaven, we thank you for, the opportunity again to study your word, to meet together, to pray. Thank you for those that are here. Thank you as well for those that that would be here but just cannot. The body is just will not cooperate. Lord, I pray for them that your grace and blessing and comfort would be with them, that you would strengthen them quickly, that they might be with us again.

And bless our time in your word as well, Lord. Help us to understand, help us to grow and be stronger in the faith and in the truth, and teach us your ways, teach us your word, Lord, we ask in Jesus name. Amen. Alright. So I wanna just say a comment about verse number 19 just to start, and then the majority of the rest of what I wanna say is from verse 20, especially down to verse number 32.

And so, look at verse number 19, the Bible says, blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us with benefits, even the God of our salvation, Selah. Now, you know, we might we might have a tendency, and we always have a tendency to do this when we read the Bible, to we read a verse or we read a word and we we stuff that word, what we think that word means, basically from what just from our own ideas, from our own heart. For instance, God gives us benefits and we think immediately of, you know, the the advantages that we might have of you know, of maybe our our job or we’re gonna get the promotion before the next guy or what you know, things like that.

The Lord’s, I think the Lord what is he’s aiming at is something way higher and what we stay down, we stay down at like ground level and the Lord wants us in the clouds with with truth, right? Things far more important, far more eternal. And so I don’t I don’t think although the Lord gives us many benefits, I think what he’s aiming at here is something far greater than just maybe earthly benefits.

Notice because this has a context, the context is in verse 18, which is what we studied last week. Thou has ascended on high, thou has led captivity captive, thou has received gifts for men. Yea, for the rebellious also that the Lord God might dwell among them. Blessed be the Lord who daily loaded us with benefits, even the God of our salvation Selah. So, you kinda wrap them together because Selah kinda ends that part, right? It’s like the refrain.

And so I would I would suggest you that the benefits that are being mentioned here, when we say benefit, we’re talking about we’re talking about the the graces, we’re talking about the the blessings, if you will. The the marks of God’s goodness to us, these are the benefits that God gives gives to us. And notice in verse number 19, it says, blessed be the Lord who daily loadeth us, and notice with benefits is in italics, which we know, we study the Bible, which means that that those words are honestly marked as words the translators added for clarity. And so the benefits that are being referred to here that God is loading us with are filled in, the word benefits is filled in from verse 18, the gifts that God gives us. And we saw last week how these gifts, which are the benefits, are the first and foremost one that is mentioned, and the fountain from which all the other benefits and gifts we get is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, His constant presence with us. And notice that God’s benefits, even if they are those kinds of benefits related to the Holy Spirit or other benefits in our life, whatever they might be of whatever sort they might be, we have to remember that they are renewed daily. They’re renewed daily. You see, you’ll find this principle in scripture that God’s interaction with us, God’s dealing with us, God’s care of us, God’s attention to us is something that is daily, it is renewed all the time.

You know, I think it’s the book of Nahum that says that the Lord is a stronghold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him. And those, I’m missing the verses in Nahum, somebody help me with that verse.

His mercies are renewed every morning. That’s what I was thinking of. I think I missed that phrase. God’s mercies are renewed every morning. So the idea of daily strength, daily bread, daily care, daily benefits. And this is the way the Lord deals with us. And we talked about this when we were in Sunday school. Remember, we were talking about the way we measure time, how God has set up time to where we measure it by the day.

And and that’s the way the Lord reminds us of his care for us is renewed. He never he never slacks, he never fails, and so we have reason to give thanks to God every single day that we live. And I think the biggest problem we have or the biggest maybe shortcoming that we have in this regard is that we just don’t take enough time to think through the benefits that God gives us.

The blessings, the graces, the gifts, if you will, from verse 18, that God gives us. Because if we did stop and think of them, God says they are more than we could number, they are innumerable. And it is, so if we do not see those benefits, like you say, you might read this, if you’re maybe in a bad way, maybe you’re in a bad mood, maybe you’re not having a good day, maybe things aren’t going well in your life.

And you look at this verse and you say, who daily loaded us with benefits. What benefits? I don’t feel benefited at all. I don’t feel blessed or I don’t feel feel like that at all. Well, he tells us that’s the case, but it is for us to recognize those benefits on a daily basis. And he’ll he will show us. And, but if we think, if we look look through them and we meditate on what God does for us, there are, especially if you focus on the things that cannot be moved, cannot be moved in your life, in your walk with God, in your eternal life.

Some things cannot be moved. The worst thing that can happen to you and to me, although we loathe to think about those things, the worst thing that can happen cannot touch any of those things at all. And I would say those are benefits, wouldn’t you? I would say those are benefits. So, those are things we can give thanks to God for each day regardless of any circumstance. Now, let’s move on to verse number 20.

Now, I’m not going to read the whole Psalm just for time sake, we’ve already read the whole Psalm together in our few times that we’ve studied it. But let me just propose to you this and then I’ll show you the various verses I want you to see. This Psalm is is what I put in my notes as a progressive prophecy. This Psalm contains, if you will, a progressive prophecy.

What I mean by that is that this Psalm is prophetic. Now, we know for a fact it is prophetic, that it is not just referring to David, in history, although it no doubt is reference to that. David was no doubt thinking about that when he wrote it, but there is a prophetic element in this Psalm that you can see. How do we know that? Because of verse number 18.

We saw verse number 18 last week when it says, thou hast ascended up on high, thou hast led captivity captive, thou hast received gifts for men. And we saw how that that is quoted in the New Testament in the book of Ephesians. And that verse is not talking about David, or even really talking about talking about the Lord, although we know Christ is Lord, but it’s referring specifically to Jesus Christ in his ascension.

So, that tells us there’s a there’s an element of this Psalm that is prophetic. Now, notice the prophetic features of this Psalm, and I call it progressive because because it starts at one point and it continues through. Look if you would at these. Look at verse number eight. Verse number eight, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped down at the presence of God. Even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel. What what event is that referring to?

Yes. The giving of the 10 commandments, giving of the law at Mount Sinai, which we know in scripture is a major event. Look down at verse number 16. Why leap ye, ye high hills? This is the hill which God desireth to dwell in. Yea, the Lord will dwell in it forever. What hill are we referring to? This is the Hill Of Zion, which is the hill where God would establish his Would set up his The temple. Remember, he chose Jerusalem, and he chose the place where he would he would put his name forever, if you remember from your Bible reading. And so we go from Sinai to this important day where the temple, where God’s place, where he would dwell with Israel is established, then go to verse number 18.

Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive. We know what that’s referring to, we just talked about that, which is the ascension of Christ. And whenever just like in Ephesians, whenever you’re talking about the ascension of Christ, he can’t ascend unless he first descends, which is what Ephesians says, to the lower parts of the earth, which is his death. And his, his descending into the heart of the earth, and then after that his resurrection and his ascension. So, you have the work of Christ is in verse number 18, mentioned.

And then look at verse number 22. You see how we’re progressing through time with these major events? Look at verse 22. The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan. I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea. From the depths of the sea. Now he says, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea. Think about that, why are they there? What could that possibly be referring to?

Well, who’s in the depths of the sea? These are talking about the dead who have died as his people and he raises them from the dead. You know Jonah, you remember Jonah? Jonah is Jesus used the story of Jonah when he went down to the bottoms of the ocean as a figure for what? For his own death. And here it says, he’s gonna raise my people again from the depths of the sea. This is a reference to the resurrection of believers, which we know to us is future, right? So we’re going through these major events, we’re going through these major events. Now, here’s why I wanna mention this. At this point, I wanna read you some verses and we’ll look at a couple passages, not many, but I wanna read you these verses why this is prophetic.

And some of these things you might not have ever heard, but I wanna show you the supporting scripture from other parts of the Bible that show that this is prophetic, clear prophetic scripture. Look at, if you would look at verse 22 again, he says, I will bring my people again from the depths of the sea. So this is a reference to the resurrection of the saints. Psalm 49 verse 15, if you wanna write down the references, I’ll I’ll say them before I read it. But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave for he shall receive me. Selah.

Daniel 12 verse two says this, and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Hosea 13 verse four says this, I will ransom them from the power of the grave. I will redeem them from death. Oh death, I will be thy plagues. Oh grave, I will be thy destruction. Repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.

John five and we this is going of course in the into the New Testament but it it reflects the same truth. John five verse 28. Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming into which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth. They that have done good unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.

So, as we go through this, and and and I know you know that, right? You know verse 22, you know you know and believe in the resurrection of the saints, what I want you to see is this is long before any of that was revealed in the New Testament, are you know, First Corinthians chapter fifteen, First Thessalonians chapter four, and other places of scripture. It’s long before that, because this is a prophetic truth.

But there’s more, look at verse 21. But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his trespasses. Drop down to verse 23, that thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs in the same. Now verse 23 is a little confusing, but notice, he’s speaking of his people from verse 22.

And he says, not only will God wound the head of his enemies, which speaks of God’s judgment of the wicked. Right? This is God’s judgment of the wicked. Now, in in combination with the resurrection of the saints, you can start to see a picture of the coming of Christ. Because that’s one of the main reasons Jesus is coming. He’s coming to judge this world and I’ll I’ll show you in just a minute but notice it but in verse 23, not only is his he coming to judge but in verse 23, he says that the foot of his people will be dipped in the blood of their enemies And that the tongue of his people’s dogs will be dipped in the blood of his enemies. So not, it’s not only that God will come and judge, but that the saints will also come and and be with him and enjoy that victory and that judgment with him.

And that is also a very very clear truth taught in scripture. Listen to these verses. Isaiah 11 verse four, but with righteousness shall he judge the poor, and reprove with equity for the meek of the earth. And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked. Zechariah 14 verse five says this, and he shall flee to the valley of the mountains for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal.

Yea, ye shall flee like as you fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, king of Judah. And the Lord, my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. You know that’s a clear truth taught in scripture, not only is Jesus coming, but the saints are coming with him. Did you know that’s in that’s in the Bible? Old Testament, New Testament? The book of Jude verse fourteen and fifteen says this, and Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these saying, behold, the Lord cometh with 10 thousands of his saints.

To execute judgement upon all and to convince all that are ungodly among them, of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches, which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. As I said, one of the purposes of Jesus return, I know we think of the return of Christ primarily as our escape from this world, right? The resurrection of the body. But in the bigger picture, on a global scale, the return of Christ is really about judgment.

And the saints, that’s you and that’s me that have been resurrected, will be with him. And will, now this might be hard for us to wrap our minds around, but will be with him in that judgment. That’s, you read Revelation, when when the heavens open and and Christ comes in Revelation 19 on the white horse, and it says, and the armies which are in heaven come with him clothed in white raiment. That is the saints who are coming with Christ, who are there with him and are coming back with him.

And so, and so we move forward in this progressive prophecy. Look at verse 27. So we’ve covered Sinai, we’ve covered the selection of the temple location, we’ve covered the death and resurrection and ascension of Christ, we’ve covered the resurrection of the saints, we’ve covered the revenge on his enemies with his saints. Now, verse 27, he says, there is little Benjamin with their ruler, the princes of Judah and their council, the princes of Zebulun and the princes of Naphtali.

Now this is referring in the next step in prophecy, now Christ has returned. He has set up his kingdom, he rules. And he mentions that these various tribes of Israel ruling. He says, Benjamin, their ruler, the princes, those are ruler, council, rulers, princes of Naphtali, rulers. Did you know that the scriptures bear that out as well? Not only will Christ come with the saints, but the kingdom that he sets up will have the nation of Israel at its center. Listen to these verses, and we’ll actually turn to some of these verses, or actually, we’ll turn to some in just a minute, but in the similar passage.

Isaiah 11 verse 10 says this, in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people, which is the ensign of Israel, the banner of Israel. Isaiah 60 verse 11 says this, therefore, speaking to Israel now, thy gates shall be opened continually and they shall not be shut day nor night, that men may bring unto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be brought, for the nation and the kingdom that will not serve thee, God is speaking to Israel, shall perish.

Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. Jeremiah 23 verse six, in his days Judah shall be saved and Israel shall dwell safely. And this is his name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our righteousness. Now, this point, some people get messed up. Some people get messed up. They hear that well, Israel is going to be a central nation, a preferred, if you will, nation, a favored nation among the people in the world during the kingdom, and that’s true.

But you know the difference between the Israel now and the Israel then, is the Israel now does not believe in Christ. And the Israel then will believe in Christ. Because at this point in prophecy, there are no unbelievers left, at least when Christ The Lord is the one who takes care of those people at His coming. And so, not only will it be Israel, but it’ll be Israel who believes, and important to remember. So, you see in his kingdom as we move forward in this progression, you see in the kingdom, Israel has a central place.

Then you go to verse number 30. He says this, rebuke the company of spearmen, the multitude of the bulls with the calves of the people, till everyone submit himself with pieces of silver, scatter thou the people that delight in war. Here the Lord is speaking of scattering, the scattering of those who love war. This is the end of war. Listen, you’ve heard of these verses I’m sure. Isaiah two verse four, speaking of the kingdom, it says this, and he shall judge among the nations and shall rebuke many people and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, that is a weapon will be a farm implement, and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. And then Isaiah eleven nine, they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

And so this is the putting down of war forever. And so as we move forward, the next thing and probably the the one of the significant ones that I want us to look at is in verse 29 and verse number 31. Look at verse 29. Because of thy temple at Jerusalem shall kings bring presents unto thee. Verse 31 says, princes shall come out of Egypt. Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.

These two verses talk about the kings of the earth, specifically Egypt and Ethiopia, giving presents to God and worshiping him. Again, this is a picture of the future kingdom of Christ.

Look if you would at Isaiah, we’ll come back here in a minute, but look at look at Isaiah chapter 11. Isaiah chapter 11, look at verse 10. Verse 10 says this, and in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an incident of the people, to it shall the Gentiles seek. Notice the mention of the Gentiles. Now remember, in the context, we’re talking about the kingdom of Christ, which is not now, that is not on earth anyway, And and it says, and to it shall the Gentiles seek and his rest shall be glorious. And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shinar and from Hamath and from the islands of the sea. And he shall set up an ensign for the nations and shall assemble the outcast of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

The envy also of Ephraim shall depart, and the adversaries of Judah shall be cut off. Ephraim shall not envy Judah, and Judah shall not vex Ephraim. But they shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines toward the West, that they shall spoil them of the East together. They shall lay their hand upon Edom and Moab, and the children of Ammon shall obey them, and the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea.

And with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left from Assyria like as it was to Israel in the day he came up out of the land of Egypt. Look at chapter 19.

Chapter 19. Chapter 19 verse 19. In that day shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the Lord. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the Lord of hosts in the land of Egypt. For they shall cry unto the Lord because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a savior, a great and a great one, and he shall deliver them. And the Lord shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day. That’s exactly what our Psalm says, right? It says that Egypt and Ethiopia would hold out their hands to God. They would worship Him. They would give Him presents.

And here it’s confirmed by other passages of scripture. It says in verse number verse 21, and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day and shall do sacrifice and oblation. Yea, they shall vow a vow unto the Lord and perform it. And the Lord shall smite Egypt and he shall smite it, smite and heal it. And they shall return even to the Lord and he shall be entreated of them and shall heal them.

Now notice, I won’t read any more of that, but notice what I want you to see another another revelation in the progression of prophetic progression is that in the kingdom of Christ, the nations of the world will give presence and will worship the Lord. All of the nations of the world. Here Egypt and Ethiopia, but all of the nations of the world. Daniel says this as well.

He says, I saw in the night visions, Daniel seven thirteen, and behold, one like the son of man with the clouds of heaven, and came to the ancient of days and they brought him near before him, and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. Micah four verse one, but in the last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and the people shall flow into it, and many nations shall come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and to the house of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths, for the law shall go forth of Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

Zechariah 14 verse 16 says this, and it shall come to pass that everyone that is left of all the nations which come against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles. And it shall be that who so will not come up of all the families of the earth unto Jerusalem to worship the king, the Lord of hosts, even upon them shall be no rain.

So the kingdom has all of these features and one one thing you you see is that the kingdoms of the world who are not Israel are worshiping God. And the last thing I want you to see back in the Psalm is this, Psalm 68 is in verse 32.

Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth. Sing praises unto the Lord, Selah. Notice who’s singing. It’s the kingdoms of the earth. See, that’s how you pick up that the Lord’s talking about something bigger, because of who’s singing. Egypt and Ethiopia have not ever given homage to God ever, and they will.

And here, the kingdoms of the earth are going to be singing to the Lord. Habakkuk two fourteen, for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Malachi eleven one, for from the rising of the sun, even to the going down of the same, my name shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall be offered under my name and a pure offering.

For my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord of hosts. Now, what presented to you, I basically gave you the cliff notes version of the supporting scriptures that show you what the prophetic timeline is. Now, I do wanna make one note before I finish. It’s a note on theology. How many of you have heard of replacement theology? You’ve heard of that word? Those that hold to replacement theology, they don’t call it that, they call it something like supersessionism or fulfillment theology.

But replacement theology basically says that, it’s the view that the church, which is Jew and Gentile, has superseded Israel as the people of God, and has inherited the promises that God originally gave to ethnic Israel. And there’s a lot of theological stuff that goes along with that, that’s kind of the one sentence version.

But the reason I wanted to show you this and I want to make a note about this theology is because if you take that theological point of view and you read this Psalm, it creates some issues. So basically here’s here’s what replacement theology or fulfillment fulfillment theology would say. They would say that we are Israel. That’s basically we are Israel. So what was called Israel in the Old Testament, we are the fulfillment and extension of that in the New.

Okay, that’s basically how it goes. And so, as you read this Psalm, you see various things, you see mentions of Israel, mentions of Jerusalem, mentions of the temple, mentions of the tribes. You see various things that are related Israel, and someone who holds to this theology would read this, and they would read it to say that this is all referring to us. And some of them would even go so far as to say, there’s not a literal kingdom where all of these things will literally be done, but this is this is all kind of figurative or spiritual referring to the church.

Okay? For instance, 32, sing unto God ye kingdoms of the earth, sing praises unto the Lord. I said, see, this is all the nations worshiping God. They would say, this is actually referring to people from every nation who believe in Christ. That make sense? Okay.

Now there’s some issues though with that in this Psalm. When you read this Psalm from the time you see Israel at the very beginning, when you see them at Mount Sinai, verse number eight, even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel, and look, we have We can look back. So back in that day, when God said Israel, what was he referring to?

What That was just Alright. Step back even further. The word Israel refers to what originally? It referred to Jacob. And then that And then it became the children of Israel, which is the descendants of Jacob. And so throughout the Old Testament, the nation of Israel, right, is the ethnic descendants of Jacob. That’s what it meant throughout the entire Old Testament. And I can prove it to you, look what it says.

It says, verse number verse number seven. Oh God, when thou wentest forth before what? Thy people. When thou didst march through the wilderness, Selah. When God brought Israel out of the wilderness, who were those people? Were they all believers? No. It was mixed. There were some believers and there were some unbelievers. Okay? Because what is in focus is not whether they believe, but the fact that they were descendants of Jacob. That’s what you see here, it’s very clear.

Now, here’s the problem. As you go through the Psalm in the prophetic progression, you get into sections that are prophetic, that are future. But it’s the same Israel being spoken of without distinction. That’s a little bit of an issue. You can’t just say, oh well now we are Israel. Because in this Psalm that is what that kind of thing is what creates issues. But notice in verse number seven it says this, the people of God, it says, before thy people, the descendants of Jacob are here called the people of God. There’s no question about that at all.

God’s people were the descendants of Jacob. We call them the nation of Israel. Verse number nine calls those same people his inheritance, his inheritance. And then in verse number 10, he calls them his congregation. All referring to the same group, the descendants of Jacob. Now you say, well, hold on. Are you saying that if a person was just born to end the line of Jacob that that means he’s going to heaven? No.

Remember what Jesus said to the Jews or John the Baptist? They said, we are Abraham’s children and John said, god is able of these stones to raise up children of Abraham. That means nothing as regarding your repentance and your personal salvation. That’s what they trusted. What we’re talking about here is God’s promises and His covenant, okay? Now notice in verse number 26.

We read verse 26 to 31, clearly prophetic, clearly prophetic. And we established that before. Notice Israel is mentioned in verse number 26, and then in verse 27, you have Benjamin, Judah, Zebulun, Naphtali, what are those? Those are tribes. Now here’s the problem, if we are now Israel, and this is prophetic, this must be talking about us, the church.

Then what are the tribes? Why are they mentioned? If this is intended to be understood spiritually, what are the tribes? The church has no tribes. You see the problem? So, me ask you a question. Based upon verse 27 and the Lord’s prophetically mentioning the tribes, does that not indicate that the God is still talking about the descendants of Jacob? That’s exactly what it indicates.

Now you you see in verse number 29, we’re almost finished here. You see in verse 29, he mentions Jerusalem. He mentions the temple. You know what those are? Those are locations.

Those are locations. The location of the temple is important because it is to that location in verse 29 that the kings bring presents. Now we could wave a magic wand and say, that’s just talking about heavenly Jerusalem. Then who are the kings? You see, one more point, and then I’ll I’ll wrap it up and we’ll be finished.

Verse number, 31. Princes shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God. You see, if we take this all of these prophetic verses that are are referencing the kingdom of Christ at which Israel, the ethnic Israel is at the center, but as believers at that point, if we say we are Israel and they’ve rejected Christ and we have inherited their promises and this is us, then what you It forces you into a point where you have to basically haphazardly interpret all of these features of this Psalm about nations, temples, locations, the tribes, and you have to kinda you have to kinda massage it to make it fit.

And let me give you an example, we’ll be finished. Verse 31 says, Princess shall come out of Egypt, Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God. You see, if you’re gonna hold that position, then you have to say, well, this is not actually talking about those nations worshiping God like verse 32. This is talking about there are some Egyptians and some Ethiopians, like all the nations who believe in Jesus and who worship Jesus.

But but to do that, you have to basically kind of massage the verse to say that, because that’s not really what the verse says. The verse says, they stretch their hands out to to God, and they bring gifts of silver in verse 30, and they sing unto Him in verse number 32, not just the nations, but the kingdoms.

So here’s the reason I wanted to bring this up and spend a little bit of extra time, is because replacement theology, fulfillment theology, however you want to term it, has become very common.

And it’s actually become a basis for some even worse doctrines. But at its core, it’s this idea, and you’ll hear the likes of like Tucker Carlson, you’ll hear hear him say things like, we are the Jews, we are Israel. Well the basis of that is in replacement theology, fulfillment theology. We are not, because Israel refers to the ethnic descendants of Jacob. Now, you say, well, isn’t there a verse that talks about the Israel of God? Yeah.

Because we know that there are people of Israel who are unbelievers. You know what, even if a person is a Jew, they are not going to heaven on that basis.

You don’t get to heaven by how you were born. Jesus said, which were born, remember in John one? Not of blood, nor of the will of flesh, nor of the will of man. Nobody’s born again that way. So although we are not Israel, yet those descendants of Jacob must also turn to the Lord Jesus Christ. And none of that negates the fact that prophetically, God still has things like we read in the Psalm as a sample, which is why I read all those verses.

He still has things that He’s going to do with them regarding His kingdom that He’s going to bring to pass once they repent and they turn to Christ. Alright.

Let’s pray.