Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Adult Sunday School Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/bb/bb19990131.htm

PSALMS: DIARIES OF GODLY OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS
Psalm One Hundred and Twenty-Two - Helping Abraham's Descendants TODAY For God's Blessing
(Psalm 122:1-9)
  1. Introduction
    1. Over the centuries, the Jewish people have suffered untold persecutions for no other reason than that their heritage or religious beliefs have been despised. Such persecution is certainly unrighteous.
    2. However, though Psalm 122 tells us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the modern Christian wonders how he can justly do so for sinful political parties with unbiblical goals who are in power in the current city!
    3. The true Christian must have a very accurate view of the Jew to find God's blessing today, and Psalm 122:1-9 with the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 12 details this for us as follows:
  2. Helping Abraham's Descendants TODAY For God's Blessing, Psalm 122:1-9.
    1. To interpret and apply the message of this psalm properly today, we must keep in mind that the Jerusalem of the psalmist's era represented the capital of the Hebrews who were then in right relationship to God! It does NOT picture the modern Jerusalem with Arab, Israeli factions in power that are often outside of the revealed, Biblical will of God!
    2. Accordingly, we have the following lesson provided for us in the One Hundred and Twenty-Second Psalm:
      1. This song of ascents, a song sung as the people of God made their ascending trek up Judaea's hills toward Jerusalem to worship the Lord, opens with David's report of rejoicing, Psalm 122:1a.
      2. David rejoiced when fellow pilgrims urged him to join them in going to God's temple to worship, v. 1b.
      3. Having arrived in the city gates, David reports that fact in verse 2, and then describes the impressive construction of the heavily compacted walls and citadels around the nation's capitol, Ps. 122:2-3.
      4. The reason David focuses on Jerusalem as a place of importance is due to God's stipulations as to its import in the nation's worship of God and its legal jurisdiction and thus public welfare, Ps. 122:4-5:
        1. The Jerusalem of the psalmist's era, of David's day, was to be visited three times a year by all the Jewish adult men for worship, and that according to Biblical directives, Ps. 122:4 & Dt. 16:16.
        2. According to Scripture, the city was to be a place of gaining a final, fair justice, 122:5; Dt. 17:8-11.
      5. Since Jerusalem in that Davidic era was the nerve center of the worship and legal order of God's people, David urged that the godly pray for the peace of Jerusalem that the nation's worship and order would continue, thus edifying the people of God, Ps. 122:6a.
      6. Specifically, there is a BLESSING of peace for those who pray for this peace of God's people, 122:6b.
      7. That prayer is for the peace within and security from enemies without that would otherwise disrupt this worship and orderliness for God's people, Ps. 122:7-8, 9.
    3. This Davidic call for praying for Jerusalem's peace fits the import of the Abrahamic Covenant in Genesis:
      1. God promised Abraham to bless them that blessed him and curse them that cursed him in Genesis 12:3a.
      2. Thus, God is disposed to provide Gentiles very temporal and practical compensatory blessings or the absence of such blessings based on how they treat the descendants of Abraha m, the Jewish people!
      3. Thus, David's call in Psalm 122 to bless those who pray for the welfare of the Jerusalem, which welfare spelled welfare for the seed of Abraham under the Mosaic Law, fits the general Abrahamic Covenant. As Ge ntiles treat the Jew who represents the key to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic Covenant's blessings on the world (Gen. 12:3b), so God is disposed to reciprocate such treatment to the Gentiles.
Lesson: In keeping with the stipulations of the Abrahamic Covenant, as the Gentile BASICALLY treats the Jew,so God reciprocates either compensatory blessing or its lack. Thus, it will go well for us to seek to treat the Jew with support, k indness and honor in accord with that Covenant.

Application: In the current era where the parties that control Jerusalem may be anything BUT godly, though we may not be conscientiously able to pray for the advance of the CAUSES of such parties, we should still pray that there be a peace and welfare for the Jew as BEST as can be righteously achieved. (2) Our DISPOSITION should always be to WANT to treat the Jew with FAVOR as WE would want to be treated by the God of Israel, our OWN Lord Jesus Christ!