Returning to God's Word in the Psalms, Book III

It was April 15, 2019. Some last-minute tax-filers might have had their thoughts fixated on finishing their returns. But most of the world was watching in horror and grief as Notre Dame Cathedral was burning. I remember where I was standing in Doris Henderson Newcomers School in Greensboro, North Carolina, when my teacher-friend Vanessa told me in her endearing Australian accent that Notre Dame Cathedral was on fire. I looked at her dumbfounded as chills of disbelief and dread ran through me. My first thought was terrorism. What next? I didn't know until that moment that I had any personal emotional connection with Notre Dame Cathedral because it had been almost 30 years since I had been there on a tour of Europe with alumni from my college. We had spent four days in Paris, longer than we had spent anywhere in the other eight countries we visited, and we had stopped one August afternoon to attend an organ concert in Notre Dame Cathedral--a concert I would never forget, not only because of the breathtaking beauty of the cathedral itself but because hearing that famous pipe organ being played by a master organist was a musical experience of a lifetime, especially for a music-lover like me.

Notre Dame Cathedral burned for 15 hours. Just as no one could believe that this 856-year-old cathedral--having survived Hitler's plot of three tons of explosives during World War II--was now burning, no one could believe anything was left standing when the blaze was finally put out. But not only was most of the cathedral still standing; the Grand Organ survived the fire. How was this possible? Almost as riveting as the fire itself were the thousands of Parisians who stood vigil almost all night--holding candles, kneeling in the streets, weeping, praying, and, yes, singing. The sweetness of their voices often rose above the roar of the flames, sirens, and helicopters. They clung to hope for love alone when hope itself seemed gone. Gasps of physical pain when the spire itself collapsed only intensified the prayers. It was one of the most thrilling things I have ever seen. See companion blogpost, Notre Dame Cathedral: A Monument of Beauty and Faith.

And the question that haunted me was whether Americans would ever have found the humility and dignity to do what these supposedly sophisticated and arrogant Parisians did--at least, that's how Americans often see them. If something like this had happened here, I can hear certain types of people cheering for the loss of "class privilege"; I can hear many others cursing at who knows whom; I can see others filming on their iPhones and still others picketing government officials for their ineptitude in letting something like this happen. We would be complaining instead of singing, reacting instead of acting--and many of us would be acting like total idiots with no "class" whatsoever. But not the Parisians. And the world learned a lesson that day: God hears the prayers of the brokenhearted, and for thousands of people, the burning of their nation's spiritual and cultural center was indeed heartbreaking.

If we can't understand the depths of emotion and devotion a nation feels for its greatest house of worship, we aren't going to understand Book III of the Psalms, either. Not only is this the deepest and most heart-wrenching section of the Psalter; it is heartbreaking for much the same reason: the nation of Israel had lost their beloved city, and their Temple had been utterly destroyed. Yes, the Jew-haters long before Hitler had been the ones to torch their house of worship, but the ultimate cause was human failure--not unlike the cigarette dropped by a worker into Notre Dame Cathedral during its already ongoing restoration. For the Parisians, resilience rose out of the ashes that day, and President Emmanuel Macron vowed that the cathedral would be rebuilt in no more than five years. President-elect Donald Trump attended the rededication of the newly renovated cathedral in December of 2024. I watched as dignitaries from all over the world streamed in, and I listened as the newly restored Grand Organ played, after all 8000 of its pipes had been meticulously cleaned from the lead dust that engulfed the organ when the cathedral's lead roof melted and burned.

Book III of the Psalms is especially poignant because it presents, not the united voice of thousands of people, but the lone voices of those few watchmen on the wall whose prayers cry from the depths of hell itself for the Lord to restore their nation. Up and down, hopes rise and fall like breathing, first one Psalm sounding almost victorious but then another sounding utterly dejected. Book III includes Psalms 73 through 89, beginning with eleven of the twelve Psalms of Asaph included in the Psalter. Of these eleven, ten were likely composed by the Asaphite guild much later than the Levitical prophet Asaph whom David appointed to lead worship. The Davidic Asaph, who wrote both Psalm 50 and Psalm 73, sets the tone of the later Psalms written by the guild that bears his name. Psalm 50 in Book II not only serves as a precursor of the themes in Book III; it sets up what becomes a sharp contrast to Asaph's angst in Psalm 73 by celebrating his ultimate hope for the perfection of Zion (Psalm 50:1-2), when all the moral beauty of Israel will be restored (Psalm 50:5-6, 23).

But in Psalm 73, Asaph has lost his bearings. As the antithesis of the Psalmist's delight in Psalm 1, he watches the wicked with envy. No godly person would ever do that, we say. But Asaph's candid self-criticism sweeps us up into his own soul's honesty, for he asks the questions we torture ourselves with daily, at least in our subconscious minds: why do the wicked prosper? Why do they get away with the heinous things they do? God doesn't even seem to notice. But where we really begin to feel alarmed is when Asaph moves from complaint to all-out bitterness. We cringe that he could say, "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency" (Psalm 73:13). Oh, dear. How could anyone think such a thing? Surely, innocence and a clear conscience are their own reward! But even the saints of old did what we do far too often: they not only set their eyes on people; they set their eyes on the worst people! This is the argument Satan wanted Job to embrace: that serving God wasn't worth it if he wasn't prospering.

But Asaph gets his bearings and regains his footing that had badly slipped (Psalm 73:2, 23). The glorious pivot of the Psalm occurs after his bout of envy when he says, "Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end" (Psalm 73:17). We cannot help remembering Isaiah when he, too, found his life-changing vision in the sanctuary of God. And from here, Asaph finds not only his renewed vision of God but also the correction to his warped worldview that had seen only a little way down the path of the wicked as they sit in the seat of the scornful. He sees in a flash their final end, when God sets them in slippery places (Psalm 73:18). It's not that he wants this to happen; the final outcome is inevitable. And Asaph reiterates not only his penitence at having lost sight of the Lord; he voices his intention to follow God alone: "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory" (Psalm 73:24). No longer trusting the counsel of the ungodly, he returns to the word of his God. He knows that God is lovely in Himself, and all His words are true.

Psalm 73 hands off both Asaph's spiritual and national passion to the guild bearing his name. Psalms 74-83 explore the depths of Israel's judgment at the hand of their enemies. In these ten Psalms, the theme of the sanctuary continues in varying shades of torture and melancholy. Asaph's vision of the glory of God in Psalms 50 and 73 only heightens our horror at seeing God's house in flames. "They have cast fire into thy sanctuary, they have defiled by casting down the dwelling place of thy name to the ground. They said in their hearts, Let us destroy them together: they have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land" (Psalm 74:7-8). The Asaphite Psalms read as a unit reveal a pattern of rhetorical questions that should come as no surprise as the Psalmists pour out their souls' complaints to God. Although it sometimes sounds as if these Psalmists are blaming God for their nation's fate, despite its deserved judgment, the frequent shifts from Israel's point of view to God's reveal otherwise. Not only do the Psalmists see God as just; they appeal to His mercy amid judgment, fulfilling their unique role as intercessors and as watchmen on the wall.

Psalm 80 is a beautiful, selfless prayer for God to turn His people again to Him. Three times, the Psalmist here prays, "Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved" (Psalm 80:3,7,19). But what happens when a nation is so far gone that it will not allow God to turn it again to Him? The Psalmist understands this very real danger of apostasy. It was, after all, his nation's turning away to admire the ways of the ungodly that brought about its severe judgment. Israel's disregard for God and His Word reaped the curses His Word promised for such apostasy during the days of Moses. This fate is never far from the Psalmist's mind, and in Psalm 81 he records some of God's most haunting words of the entire Psalter: "Oh that my people had hearkened unto me, and Israel had walked in my ways!" (Psalm 81:13). This is none other than God Himself calling His people to turn to Him, and now it is God's turn to ask "why."

He would have given His people the finest of the wheat, the honey out of the rock, if only they had listened to His voice and obeyed His word. "But my people would not hearken to my voice: and Israel would none of me" (Psalm 81:11). So He gave them up to their own hearts' lust and let them walk in their own counsels (Psalm 81:12). To the one who believes in God's unconditional election, verses like this do not make sense. But they make perfect historical sense because that is exactly what happened, as Book III of the Psalms shows. And the tragedy doesn't stop at the rejection God's people show Him; the tragedy is compounded by the fact that they don't even comprehend the depth of their loss. Only a handful of faithful souls--souls like the Davidic Asaph--stand in the gap. And even Asaph was temporarily mesmerized by the ungodly man's worldview.

Then, almost out of nowhere, Book III bursts into delightful victory and serenity in one of my very favorite Psalms--Psalm 84. Written by the sons of Korah, who also authored Psalms 85, 87, and 88, Psalm 84 helps the reader of the Psalter to get his bearings--just as Asaph did--in none other than the house of God. This theme of God's house and of the holiness of the sanctuary not only unifies Book III; it provides the exact counterpoint needed to balance out the judgment of God. Who could even think of bringing idolatry into the glorious city of Zion? And the one who would dare deserves what he gets. But here in Psalm 84, we see one of the most endearing vignettes in all of Scripture--the wisdom of the sparrow and the swallow who have found their home in God's house, "even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God" (Psalm 84:3). Can you even picture a bird as tiny as a sparrow building her nest and laying her young on God's altar? Would that we all built our abode there!

And in this beautiful Psalm with its mysterious journey "from strength to strength" after life has dragged us through the valley of Baca (Psalm 84:6-7), we find that the strength of this journey comes from the vision of its destination: Zion. And in this beautiful setting, the Psalmist would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of his God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. As if answering Asaph's angst at seeing the wicked prosper as he wondered why he had bothered to live his life so scrupulously, this Psalmist says "phooey" on all the rest: just let me be an usher in God's house all my life, and I will ask nothing else! And then we hear some of the most glorious words in all the Bible: "For the LORD God is a sun and shield; the LORD will give grace and glory: no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly" (Psalm 84:11). Did you catch that, dear Asaph? God isn't unfair; His gifts are without measure, which is exactly why the godly man in Psalm 1 keeps walking right past the alluring ways of the wicked.

David has one Psalm featured in Book III, and in this Psalm he focuses on God's forgiveness, mercy, and truth (Psalm 86:15), which is exactly what Israel needed to hear during this time of captivity and judgment. Although this Psalm was written long before Israel had been taken into captivity or the Temple burned and Jerusalem destroyed, David's prayer fits the theme of Book III because of its focus on the Lord's longsuffering and comfort. It is as if his prayers have gone on ahead to resound loudest here. And this prayer not only becomes exquisitely poignant here; it leads us to ponder an astounding thought: only God can convict a people whom He will comfort upon their return. Imagine if the opposite were true: if, when we returned to Him admitting all our nation's failures and grievous sins, He scolded us and chastised us and disciplined us even more! To see the judgment of God as His highest calling to repentance is what most of us miss individually and nationally. But are we not there?

Psalm 89, which closes Book III, is a Maschil of Ethan the Ezrahite. If anyone ever doubted the historicity or authenticity of God's Word, he needs to read one of these historical Psalms that lays Israel's blunders right out there. No one would do that who was making up a story, but it's all right there: all the backslidings, the slighting of God's mercy--and His ever-faithful provision for His people, from Egypt to the Promised Land. And here Ethan reiterates the Davidic covenant in Messianic terms. This glorious conclusion to Book III of the Psalms points as clearly to Jesus Christ as did Psalm 72 in Book II. Until Christ's millennial reign, nations will slip and fall like Asaph did, unless they get their bearings in the sanctuary of God and return to His Word to rectify and to beautify their lives. Book III ends with a double Amen, just as do Book I and Book II. To what is Book III saying "Amen"? "Blessed be the LORD for evermore" (Psalm 89:52).

Chilling stories have been told about churches that have abandoned God and His Word and that have turned into something terribly sinister instead. There are also many still standing that have already become enemy camps, truth be known. The Lord who promised that the gates of hell would not prevail against His church also promised that judgment would come against those who abandon Him and His Word. I doubt that Notre Dame Cathedral today holds any service even remotely like what you and I would consider evangelical. And yet even there, we learn that the founding fathers in 1163 envisioned a sanctuary where the light of God would shine through the storied stained glass windows like the Holy City of Revelation (Revelation 21 and 22). In that City, there will not only be no need of the Temple; there will be no need of the sun, for the Lord God is the Sanctuary and the Sun (Revelation 21:22-23). Until that day, let our God find sanctuary in our hearts as we return to His Word amid a culture that has all but forgotten Him.