Psalm 132

Psalm 132 is a prayer. It's a prayer to God to remember the promises that He made to David regarding the temple that the Lord might once again, honor that temple as the center of Israel's worship. And we have no doubt about the fact that this Psalm was probably written during a time of great difficulty, when the temple was either abandoned, or possibly, even needed to be rebuilt. We don't know the time frame of this particular Psalm, but remember something Christians. In the Old Testament the temple in Israel, and specifically, in Jerusalem, was the place where God chose to put His presence in a very real and dynamic way. And that's why the Jews were to go to Jerusalem during those feast times, and go there to worship, offer sacrifices, and meet with the Lord. And there the high priest would go into the temple once a year to deal with issue of sin for himself, and then also the nation on the day of atonement. And many things went on at the temple that were very key to the worship of Israel. It signified the center of worship. Now, we have to understand as we go through this Psalm, that the dynamics have changed under the New Covenant because now you are a temple of the Holy Spirit. God has chosen to put His presence in you. It's no longer in a building, it's no longer in a city that's part of a nation. In fact, you are now that holy nation the Bible says. (1 Corinthians 6:19) Things have changed. It is different. But as we go through this psalm, you can see the heart of the psalmist. You can see his cry to the Lord, even though it's not something that we would pray, specifically, today related to a building. We might be praying in a more general sense today for the body of Christ. For God to show His glory through the people of God, and so forth. Which are now the collective temple of the Lord. (1 Corinthians 12:27) But this begins this way. Verse 1. It says,

Now you remember that it was in David's heart to build a temple for the Lord. And even gave his plan to the prophet and said, I want to build a temple for the Lord. And Nathan said, let it... Go for it! May it be so! And then later on got a word from the Lord saying, no David's not to be the man who builds the temple. He's a man of blood. I'm going to have his son build the temple, who will be a man of peace. And David never got to see the temple being built, but he spent the rest of his life preparing for it. But the psalmist is recalling to the Lord, the passion of David to see that temple built and, so forth. And it says in verse 6,

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--- 13 For the LORD has chosen Zion; he has desired it for his dwelling place:" The promises given to us again, to David, that the LORD swore to him that one of his sons would always sit on the throne. But of course, there's a farther and longer sort of a prophetic fulfillment of that, in the person of Jesus Christ. And as we get to the last few verses of this Psalm, you'll notice in verse 14 through the end, the whole tenor of this thing changes. This Psalm turns prophetic, from the standpoint that the Lord now speaks in these final verses, in the first person. And you'll notice, He speaks of the coming of Messiah. He says,

Verse 17,

Now again, that's prophetic and poetic language. Remember, horn always refers to strength. And He's saying, I will increase David's strength. And He's talking here about the coming of Messiah. Okay? The ultimate strength of David, is the Messiah. And He says, in fact, at the very end of that verse,

This is really a... It's really a beautiful Psalm. Which begins with this passionate prayer for God to restore His center of worship in Israel in the temple. Reminding Him of all that He promised to David. But then the Lord, goes on and takes this thing further. In the bottom, or the last part of the Psalm, the Lord goes on to remind of this greater prophetic picture of the coming of Messiah. And how God's plan goes beyond David and even beyond Israel. And how the Lord will bring forth His Messiah. ---