Podcast: Play in new window | Download (21.3MB)
Shabbat Shalom. This morning I have the privilege of beginning our summer series going through our favorite Psalms. Lord willing, we will examine together a favorite of mine Psalm 33. Psalm 33 is a beautiful encouraging psalm about trusting in the Lord with a beautiful message about faith, hope, and love. So, it makes perfect sense for me to start my message this morning on the topics of “Meme stocks” and Cryptocurrencies.
For those of you who are unaware, one of the hot news items of this year is the rise of so-called “Meme Stocks”. Stocks for companies like AMC, Gamestop, and others that have been propped up from investing by mostly younger people online. On certain social websites they create an almost cult-like atmosphere pushing everyone to invest as much as possible into these stocks to get rich and achieve financial security. The hope is that these stocks will take off to insane levels and you will be able to get rich.
The same thing has also happened in the realm of Cryptocurrencies. Besides the kind in the news often like Bitcoin there are literally hundreds of lesser-known currencies with fanatical groups behind them trying to convince people to invest in them. They also promise the hope of financial security as the currencies take off.
Now I am not interested in discussing the viability or prudence of different Cryptocurrencies or stocks, you can bring that up during the next Financial Ask The Rabbi with Rabbi Loren. What is important though is the mindset behind these concepts.
At their heart is the belief that these gambles can make us rich and happy. They promise us great riches if we will only trust and act. Much of this “investing” is really nothing more than gambling that can become a serious addiction. Like with gambling there are stories of some people getting rich, but many more losing it all. Those that lose out may even commit suicide, there have been several stories of this reported in the news related to these stocks and cryptocurrencies.
I bring this up because anytime we trust in a stock, currency, set of gambling numbers, person, politician, or nation to make our lives better we will inevitably be disappointed. Much of our societies current depression, angst, and even suicide can be traced to this disillusionment with human efforts and organizations.
The solution for this darkness is found in our Psalm this morning. Psalm 33 is a song of joy, a song that reminds us that while we fail and falter the Lord endures forever. It is prayer that we will faithfully wait in hope on the Lord’s unfailing eternal love.
Let us begin by reading this psalm first.
Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous;
it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
Praise the Lord with the harp;
make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.
For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
he puts the deep into storehouses.
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the people of the world revere him.
For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
From heaven the Lord looks down
and sees all mankind;
from his dwelling place he watches
all who live on earth—
he who forms the hearts of all,
who considers everything they do.
No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.
It is clear just by reading it the deep power of this psalm. We begin by consider our first three verses.
Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous;
it is fitting for the upright to praise him.
2 Praise the Lord with the harp;
make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre.
3 Sing to him a new song;
play skillfully, and shout for joy.
Our first verses call for those who love the Lord to praise Him with song. To play our instruments and shout for joy with a new song. Why a new song? Because God is continuously doing good new things. In many ways this psalm is a hymn, a song designed to worship and praise the Lord. I always joke that while we are called in this psalm to play our instruments skillfully, we are to just shout for joy. I may not be able to sing skillfully but I can make a joyous shout. But why is the Lord deserving of this song? We read on to answer that question.
4 For the word of the Lord is right and true;
he is faithful in all he does.
5 The Lord loves righteousness and justice;
the earth is full of his unfailing love.
Why do we praise God? Because everything He says and does is good. His nature is righteous and just, and the entire Earth experiences His love that never ends. The Lord is not just faithful some of the time, or when we do nice things for Him, He is always faithful. Much of our interactions with others is quid pro quo, I will do this thing if you do that thing for me. But everything the Lord says and does is right and true. He acts based on His will not our own. I always find myself coming back to Numbers 23:19:
God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
The Lord is faithful always and desires for all of us to be righteous and just as He is. His standard is to be our standard and the Lord’s standard is always perfect. But the Lord’s goodness and love is not just for one group of people, the entire Earth is full of his unfailing love. In Hebrew what we see translated as unfailing or steadfast love is the word Chesed, sometimes translated lovingkindness. The Lord’s Chesed is His endless kindness and love that He pours out to us. It is His Grace, most clearly given to us through the life, death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God, Messiah Yeshua.
So, we praise the Lord because of His great love for all people. We praise Him because He is Good, capital G, every day. Throughout all time, His goodness does not waver. How do we see His Chesed shown to us? We see the Lord’s lovingkindness in His actions, in His Word.
6 By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
7 He gathers the waters of the sea into jars;
he puts the deep into storehouses.
8 Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the people of the world revere him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
The psalmist through the Holy Spirit takes us back to the beginning of God’s Word. In Genesis 1 we experience Creation. Literally in the Hebrew the Lord says, “let light exist” and light does. The Lord spoke the world into being out of nothing. Adonai’s words are right, true, and incredibly powerful. There are an estimated 100 thousand million stars in the milky way alone. There are an estimated two trillion galaxies of various sizes. These are numbers we cannot begin to wrap our minds around. But if you have ever had the privilege of looking at a clear night sky away from the chaos and light pollution of our modern world, it is an awe-inspiring sight. Every night we see a tapestry of stars and galaxies stretched out in the heavens as far as our eyes can see. Each one is the product of an Artist without any equal. Each have been created by His Word alone.
Our Creator also divided the seas from the Land both in creation and during the Exodus, when our people crossed the Red Sea. The Lord is in control of all creation and the second half of verse 7 reminds us of the story of Job and this eternal truth.
So how are we to respond to the awesome power of Adonai? We are called to fear the Lord, the beginning of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is not shaking and hiding from Him but being filled with awe and respect. We should revere Him because of His power and His goodness. The Lord is so much more powerful, loving, and good than we are. Unlike human beings who die or change their minds what the Lord says stays firm, His love, goodness, and Word does not falter. His Chesed, His unfailing love endures forever.
As fallen human beings we like to pretend we are like God. We even have a term for it, “playing god”, emphasis on playing. We create, experiment, and congratulate ourselves on our progress. We dress ourselves in a costume and act like we are God. Our society encourages us to trust in the power of human ingenuity and human nature.
We are taught that people coming together can fix every ill in society. When I was young and attended Reformed Hebrew School, I was taught that as Jewish people it was our job to heal the world, tikkun olam.
Now I am not saying that we should not be trying to live upright lives and combating suffering. But in comparison to the creative power of the Lord we are just little people in a much wider universe. We see the foolishness of trusting in people, even governments in the next two verses.
10 The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
11 But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.
Again, this theme that the Lord is endless is on display. Our plans come to an end, but the Lord’s does not. We fail but the Lord keeps on going. Generation to generation He is our dwelling place, our shelter in an everchanging world. Throughout time He has made different covenants with us and revealed more of who He is.
But His love and plans have not changed. Since the fall in the garden the Lord has desired and worked to bring us back to Him. Through the seed of the woman, the promised anointed Messiah we see one purpose of His heart shown in every generation.
Throughout the story of the Word of God we see all sorts of people and nations pit their plans against the Lord’s. Time and time again we see how the Lord’s Will is never thwarted. Even what some intend for evil, God intends for good. We may not know how things will go day by day, but we do know how the story of humanity ends. We read in Revelation that our Messiah will return from Heaven and put an end to all sin, war, and suffering. The plans of every nation and Satan at that time will be completely thwarted, but His plans will stand firm forever.
Our hymn continues with how the Lord sees and judges all our human plans and desires.
12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
the people he chose for his inheritance.
13 From heaven the Lord looks down
and sees all mankind;
14 from his dwelling place he watches
all who live on earth—
15 he who forms the hearts of all,
who considers everything they do.
The Psalmist narrows our view from all creation to Israel specifically, chosen by the Lord to be His inheritance. But the Lord who loves righteousness and justice looks down from on high to consider each of us. He knows us better than we know ourselves and examines our hearts. Those who have accepted the sacrifice of Messiah Yeshua are also part of His inheritance. We have a better covenant with a better inheritance than the one made with our people at Mount Sinai.
We see this truth beautifully expressed in Hebrews 9:15: For this reason Messiah is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant. We are richly blessed to be chosen by the Lord to be His children through Messiah Yeshua. How much greater is it to be a part of the Lord’s plans than those made by human beings? How much better is it to trust in the Lord than human leaders?
16 No king is saved by the size of his army;
no warrior escapes by his great strength.
17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
despite all its great strength it cannot save.
18 But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,
19 to deliver them from death
and keep them alive in famine.
If the point was at all hard to understand it has now been made crystal clear. Human beings, governments, politicians, and everyone else cannot save us. Only the Lord can save us from ourselves. If we trust influencers, politicians, or anyone else we will be completely disappointed. Even the greatest human beings die. Conquerors like Alexander the Great or great leaders like George Washington have passed away. We must hope in human efforts but in the Lord’s unfailing love. We must give up on fixing ourselves or our situations through human power alone and instead grasp hold of our Creator and His unfailing love.
The Lord does not grow weary or tired. His goodness and power will never change. Just like to our people of old, He has given us a way to experience His unfailing love. In this day it is through the sinless son of God, Messiah Yeshua. Yeshua reveals to us the goodness, justice, and Chesed of the Lord. Only through Messiah Yeshua can we escape death, the first death of this world, and the second death in the lake of fire. He alone holds the keys to eternal life.
So, we are called to praise the Lord, to trust by faith in His chesed, His unfailing love, but what does that look like? The end of our psalm gives us a picture of how we are to live.
20 We wait in hope for the Lord;
he is our help and our shield.
21 In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.
22 May your unfailing love be with us, Lord,
even as we put our hope in you.
As we close our psalm we see faith, hope, and love coming together. We are called to have faith in God’s character, which means waiting in hope for the Lord in all situations. In Him alone can we have real joy, by trusting in His holy name, in His holy nature. Here is the final prayer. That we would experience the Lord’s endless love as we continuously place our hope in Him.
In these final three verses Faith, Hope, and Love are on display for us. By faith we trust in Adonai and the unfailing love He has shown us. We wait in hope for Him to save and redeem us, to return and bring everlasting light to a fallen world. All of this is motivated by love. Not the selfish love of this world, but in the endless love given freely by the Lord, which in turn moves us to love Him back as His servants.
The beginning of Psalm 33 invites us to sing and praise the Lord. As we walk through this psalm, and the rest of God’s Word, we see many reasons to sing with joy and trust in Him. But daily we confront the temptations of this world of quick take easy solutions that work us up and ask us to trust in them instead. To trust plans and schemes made by human beings that will eventually fail if they even start. Only in the love of God, shown through Messiah Yeshua, can we have a hope that will never fail. He is the only one who can deliver us from sin, darkness, and even death.
Psalm 33 challenges us to examine just who and what we are placing our hope in. Have we been seduced by persuasively corrupt religious leaders, politicians, Youtube personalities, financial scammers, and the like? Whose plans are we really trusting in? Are we singing hymns to human beings or our great Creator? Are we hoping in the promises of our Messiah or in ourselves? The Lord who watches over all knows our hearts and invites us to turn back to Him if we have strayed away.
We might be able to fool other people and even ourselves sometimes, but the Lord watches and knows all.
As our time today draws to a close, I would like to conclude with Romans 15:13, a beautiful prayer from Rabbi Paul that I pray would be true for each of us: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. May each of us know the unfailing love of the Lord through His son and may we all wait in hope for Him alone.