God\u2019s eternal kingdom and his eternal reign in Psalms is hard to miss. Consider:<\/p>\n
Psalm 9:8\u2014 But the\u00a0Lord\u00a0sits enthroned forever;\u00a0he has established his\u00a0throne\u00a0for\u00a0justice\u2026<\/p>\n
Psalm 10:16\u2014 The\u00a0Lord\u00a0is\u00a0king\u00a0forever and ever;\u00a0the nations perish from his land.<\/p>\n
Psalm 45:7\u2014 Your\u00a0throne, O God, is forever and ever.\u00a0The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness;<\/p>\n
Psalm 47:8\u20139\u2014 For God is\u00a0the King\u00a0of all the earth;\u00a0sing praises with a psalm! God reigns over the nations;\u00a0God sits on his holy\u00a0throne.<\/p>\n
Psalm 95:3\u2014 For the\u00a0Lord\u00a0is a great God,\u00a0and\u00a0a\u00a0great\u00a0King\u00a0above all gods.<\/p>\n
Psalm 103:19\u2014 The\u00a0Lord\u00a0has established his\u00a0throne\u00a0in the heavens,\u00a0and his kingdom rules over\u00a0all.<\/p>\n
Psalm 145:13\u2014 Your\u00a0kingdom is an\u00a0everlasting\u00a0kingdom,\u00a0and your dominion endures throughout all generations.\u00a0The\u00a0Lord\u00a0is faithful in all his words\u00a0and kind in all his works.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And this is just a small sampling\u2014a taste.<\/p>\n
In light of this, have you ever noticed how Psalms begins and ends? Psalms literally begins and ends with God reigning over his kingdom through his Son the King. As we read with the grain of the Psalms, this wonderful reality moves us to praise our God who reigns forever.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The Beginning of Psalms<\/em><\/p>\n
Psalm 1 and 2 are wildly recognized as the introduction to the book of Psalms, and therefore they should be taken together. Psalm 1 describes the righteous man who delights perfectly in God\u2019s law. Psalm 1 begins with \u201cBlessed is the man<\/em>.\u201d Psalm 2 describes God\u2019s Son, his Anointed, the King, whom he has set on Zion to rule over the nations. Psalm 2 ends with \u201cBlessed are all who take refuge in him<\/em>.\u201d This intentional framing of Psalm 1 and 2 with promised blessing intends to reveal that the blessed man of Psalm 1 is <\/em>God\u2019s royal Son, the King in Psalm 2. Therefore, those who take refuge in this king, the righteous one will be blessed.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Jesus is the Righteous Man of Psalm 1, the King of Psalm 2<\/em><\/p>\n
We know this promised king to be Jesus, our resurrected Lord. The saints in Acts 4:23\u201331 recognized Psalm 2 to be about Jesus. And Peter in Acts 2 makes clear, that Jesus was the promised Son of David, the Messiah and King, who lives forever and sits at God\u2019s right hand until his enemies are made a footstool for his feet (Acts 2:22\u201336; see Psalm 16:8\u201311; 110:1).<\/p>\n
So Psalms begins with a proclamation of God\u2019s eternal kingdom and his King who will reign from Zion, and all who take refuge in him will be blessed. Jesus is that King. Therefore, this prophecy is for us<\/em>\u2014we are those who have sought refuge in the King of Zion. Well, if this is how the Psalms begins, how does it end?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The End of Psalms<\/em><\/p>\n
Psalms ends with five Psalms of praise to God for who he is and all his works throughout history (Psalm 146\u2013150). David himself leads into these five Psalms of praise with this declaration in Psalm 145:1:<\/p>\n
I will extol you, my God and King<\/em>, and bless your name forever and ever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Psalm 149, then, begins to close out the entire book by picking up with where Psalm 1 and 2 left off. It exhorts \u201cthe assembly of the godly\u201d, the saints, \u201cthe children of Zion\u201d to \u201crejoice in their King\u201d (Psalm 149:1\u20132), to \u201cSing to the LORD a new song\u201d (Psalm 149:1). Who then are these saints? Who are these children of Zion? They are all those who took refuge in the blessed, righteous man of Psalm 1. They are those who took refuge in God\u2019s King of Psalm 2, who sits \u201con Zion my (God\u2019s) holy hill\u201d (Psalm 2:6). They are those who have taken refuge in Jesus.<\/em> So when God ultimately executes his justice on all his enemies and the enemies of his people at the return of Jesus the King, these godly ones are blessed and honored; therefore they praise the LORD (Psalm 149:9). Indeed, they are the redeemed who will stand with the Lamb on Mount Zion and sing \u201ca new song\u201d before the throne of God (Revelation 14:1\u20133; see Psalm 149:1).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Praise God<\/em><\/p>\n
Psalms begins and ends with God reigning over his kingdom through his Son the King. Psalms lays out for us a royal roadmap. It reveals the trajectory of all of history. God has established his kingdom in his Son, the King, Jesus. Those who take refuge in him are and will be his children, children of Zion, when his kingdom comes in its fullness at Christ\u2019s return. Until then, we sing and praise God our King now, just as Psalm 150 exhorts us to:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nPraise the Lord!<\/p>\n
Praise God in his sanctuary;<\/p>\n
praise him in his mighty heavens!<\/p>\n
Praise him for his mighty deeds;<\/p>\n
praise him according to his excellent greatness!<\/p>\n
Praise him with trumpet sound;<\/p>\n
praise him with lute and harp!<\/p>\n
Praise him with tambourine and dance;<\/p>\n
praise him with strings and pipe!<\/p>\n
Praise him with sounding cymbals;<\/p>\n
praise him with loud clashing cymbals!<\/p>\n
Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!<\/p>\n
Praise the Lord!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
<\/p>\n
Amen. Praise the Lord.<\/p>\n
[1]<\/a> See Jason S. DeRouchie, \u201cLect 19-Psalms\u201d (Jason S. DeRouchie 2022: 6) at https:\/\/jasonderouchie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Lect-19-Psalms.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
God\u2019s eternal kingdom and his eternal reign in Psalms is hard to miss. Consider: Psalm 9:8\u2014 But the\u00a0Lord\u00a0sits enthroned forever;\u00a0he has established his\u00a0throne\u00a0for\u00a0justice\u2026 Psalm 10:16\u2014 The\u00a0Lord\u00a0is\u00a0king\u00a0forever and ever;\u00a0the nations perish…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,15],"tags":[828,2709,880,883,1894,2706,1254,2708,2707,2710],"class_list":["post-3410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-devotions","tag-jesus","tag-king","tag-kingdom","tag-kingdom-of-god","tag-psalm-1","tag-psalm-2","tag-psalms","tag-the-blessed-man","tag-the-righteous-man","tag-throne"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3411,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions\/3411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.desiringgodchurch.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}