6.14.26 Sunday Drive to Church

Psalm 34 is an interesting psalm.

We have verses 12 to 22 this morning, the last half of the psalm.

It's a beautiful psalm.

It's kind of a normal psalm.

I don't think that's the right thing to say, but it's kind of a, you're like, ah, this is just a real psalmy kind of psalm.

I mean, verse... 19, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers them out of them all.

He keeps all his bones.

None of them are broken.

Verse 18, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

You're like, ah, sounds really like a psalm.

But when you look at it in your Bible, you'll notice, and they don't have these notes in the hymnal, but just in the Bible.

When you look in your Bible, you'll notice that this is a psalm that was written by King David when he feigned madness before King Abimelech.

So there was this time, it's in 1 Samuel 21, when David has to flee from uh saul the king who's trying to kill him and he goes down to gath in philistia and remember david and the philistines are not best friends i mean he's killing them all the time this is kind of in fact david goes down there and he hears them singing about himself uh saul has killed his thousands but david is tens of thousands so david's like oh no what do i do and so he pretends like he's crazy and he starts drooling in his beard and acting kind of nuts and the king there abimelech according to the preface of the psalm he says this is one of these great lines he says am i short of madman that i need another one This is such a, we got, look, I got plenty of crazy people here already.

Don't add to the list.

So he sends David away and David escapes with his life because he acted like he's crazy.

Oh man, what a story.

And Psalm 34 says that's when he wrote the Psalms.

So then it kind of has a different ring to it.

Verse 12 goes like this.

What man is there who desires life and loves many days that he may see good? Keep your tongue from evil, your lips from speaking deceit, turn away from evil and do good, seek peace and pursue it.

It just has a different angle.

And you might recognize those words.

You're like, why are those words so familiar? That whole section is quoted by Peter, 1 Peter 3.

He says, if you would desire life and you want to see many good days, then here's the instructions.

Keep your tongue from evil, your lips from speaking deceit, turn away from evil, do good, seek peace, pursue it.