The second section of Psa. 68 speaks of the enjoyment of God in His house; in His house we are loaded with God as good (the good is God Himself as our salvation and everything), He delivers us, He gives us victory, and we praise the Lord! Hallelujah!
In the first section of this psalm we see five main matters: God’s move on the earth (with Christ as the center), God’s victory in Christ, Christ’s ascension, Christ’s receiving the gifts, and Christ’s building up the house of God. In Christ God arises, and His foes are scattered; when Christ came, God moved on the earth, and Christ is the center of God’s move on earth.
Today God moves on earth in and through the church, the enlargement of Christ, and the center of the church is Christ Himself.
In Christ God obtained victory; the enemy tried to defeat Him, and his armies swarmed around Him at the cross, but He overcame them, He won the victory, and He defeated all His enemies – all by Himself, with no help from us.
But hallelujah, we can enjoy and partake of His victory today, for we are in Him!
After Christ obtained victory over the enemy, He was ascended – He ascended to the heights, even to the highest point in the universe, the third heaven.
Now Christ is seated on the throne, being ascended by God, and we are in Him; when Christ was ascended, we also were ascended, and we were seated with Him on the throne.
In His ascension Christ led a train of vanquished foes in a triumphant procession to the Father; He led captive those taken captive, and He brought these captives as gifts to the Father. The Father, in turn, gave us – those who were captives of Satan but were captured by Christ and brought to God – to Christ, and Christ gave us as gifts to the Body.
In Christ’s ascension there was a lot of gift-giving: Christ gave us as gifts to the Father, the Father gave us as gifts to Christ, and Christ gave us as gifts to the Body.
All believers in Christ are gifts given by Christ to His Body; no matter how insignificant we think we are, we are members of the Body, and we all have a function and a portion in the Body, being gifts to the Body.
Christ gave us as gifts to His Body for the building up of the church, the house of God, the dwelling place of God. Hallelujah, we all can function by exercising our spirit so that we may build up the church as the Body of Christ, the dwelling place of God!
Enjoying God in His House, being Loaded with God as Good, and enjoying Christ’s Victory
Psalm 68 reveals the enjoyment of God in His house, which comes after the building up of His dwelling place, the church (v. 18).
After Christ gave gifts to the Body for the building up of the church, we enjoy God in His house, and we are daily being loaded with good. Blessed be the Lord, who day by day loads us with good; God is our salvation!
The good here is the Triune God – the dove wings covered with silver and its pinions covered with greenish-yellow, glittering gold (vv. 19, 13; Rom. 8:28; Matt. 19:17; Phil. 1:19-21). We need to ask God to daily load us with good, with God as good.
Good here and in Rom. 8:28 refers not to anything material or psychological but to God Himself, who is the real good. For us to enjoy God as good we need to be in His house.
For us to live a victorious life, we don’t need to do outward activities such as praying with fasting and even without sleep….and we don’t need to merely reckon ourselves dead to sin and to the world…what we need is not more instructions, concepts, teachings, and suggestions, but we need to be in the meetings of the church!
When we come into the local church and stay in the local church, where God dwells, every problem is solved and every enemy is overcome. When we stay in the local church, the world, our temper, and all our problems are gone.
When we are in the meetings enjoying God and being loaded with God as good, all our problems disappear and the will of God is spontaneously made clear.
We may try to solve our problems by ourselves, we may even pray much, but there may be no way; when we come to the meetings of the church, however, our problems are solved, all our enemies flee, and we can overcome our temper.
The way to know God’s will, obtain the Lord’s blessing, solve our problems, and overcome the enemies is to come to the local church and praise the Lord!
This doesn’t mean that we don’t pray for our problems and we don’t bring our situations before the Lord, but when we realise that we can’t break through, we shouldn’t give up – we should simply bring our problems to the meeting.
In God’s dwelling place – the local church – God doesn’t merely supply us little by little, but He loads us with good, that is, He loads us with God as good. It is here, in the meetings of the church, that God applies His victory over all our enemies.
When we as an individual try to defeat the enemy, we will be defeated by Him; but when we realise that the battle has been won and simply place ourselves in the Body and remain in the Body in a practical way, the victory is ours.
Are we sorrowful? Let’s go to the meeting. Bring your sorrows to the local church and even tell Satan, the one who bothers us and wants to make us sad, to come with us to the meeting.
When you take Satan with all his bothering to the meeting, he will leave us; as soon as we enter the meeting place, Satan will flee and our problems are gone, and we are loaded with God as good.
As we enjoy God in His house, our God is to us a God of deliverance, and with Jehovah the Lord are the goings forth – even from death (Psa. 68:20; Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 1:8-9; 4:16). We may feel we are in a situation of death, but once we come to the meeting and place ourselves in the house of God, God delivers us even from death.
In God’s house we also enjoy His victory over the enemies (Psa. 68:21-23). The gates of Hades are there, attacking the church, but they will not prevail against it (Matt. 16:18).
The God of peace will crush Satan under our feet shortly; as long as we’re in the church life, enjoying God in His house and being loaded with God as good, we enjoy Christ’s victory over the enemies!
Hallelujah, blessed be the Lord, who day by day loads us with good; God is our salvation! Amen, Lord, we come to You and to the meetings of the church to be daily loaded with God as good! We come to enjoy God in His house, and we come to be loaded with the Triune God and all His accomplishments and attainments as good! Lord, You are to us a God of deliverance, and with You there’s the goings forth even from death! May we enjoy You as our saving life to escape death and be built up into Your habitation, the church!
Praising God for His Accomplishments in His Redemption and in His Salvation
In the second part of Psalm 68 we see the praising of God according to His New Testament economy. Verse 24 says, They have seen Your goings forth, O God, The goings forth of my God, my King, in the sanctuary. Here, “they” refers to the enemies, “goings forth” refers to God’s activities, and “the sanctuary” refers to the church.
Praise God, the enemies have seen His activities and are scattered, and His accomplishments and attainments are clearly seen in the church, where the saints enjoy God and are being loaded with God as good.
“Singers go before; players, after; in the midst of virgins sounding the tambourines” (v. 25) – here virgins signifies the believers (2 Cor. 11:2; Phil. 4:4).
“Bless God in the congregations, even Jehovah, o you who are of the fountain of Israel. There are little Benjamin, who rules them, / And the princes of Judah in their company, / The princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali. / Your God has commanded your strength; / Strengthen, O God, that which You have done for us” (Psa. 68:26-28).
We need to ask the Lord to strengthen what He has done for us in His house.
In the praise rendered to God by us, His chosen people, there is portrayed a scenery in typology concerning God’s New Testament economy in the accomplishment of God’s redemption for His salvation by Christ and the spreading of the glad tidings of Christ’s accomplishment with the beautiful words of the gospel.
“Little Benjamin” refers to Christ; when he was born, his mother Rachel named him Ben-oni (the son of my sorrow) as she was departing to be with the Lord, but his father called him, Benjamin, the son of my right hand.
As the son of sorrows, Ben-oni, Benjamin typifies Christ who, as the man of sorrows in His incarnation and human life on earth, accomplished God’s redemption for His full salvation (Gen. 38:18a; Isa. 53:3).
As the son of the right hand, Benjamin typifies Christ who, as the Son of the right hand of God in His resurrection, victory, and ascension, ministers in the heavens to carry out the application of God’s redemption for His salvation (Gen. 35:18b; Heb. 1:3; 5:5-10; 7:25; 8:2).
In His ascension Christ is doing two primary things: He is praying for us and He is ministering God into us. He is able to save to the uttermost all those who come forward to God through Him since He always lives to intercede for us (Heb. 7:25), and He is a minister of the heavenly places to minister God into us (Heb. 8:2).
And we as His believers need to give ourselves to prayer (to cooperate with His praying ministry) and the ministry of the word (to cooperate with Him in ministering God into people), as seen in Acts 6:4.
In Psa. 68:27 we see “the princes of Judah”; Judah typifies Christ as the victory for God’s people (the lion with the power and the scepter) and the peace (Shiloh) to God’s people (see Rev. 5:5a; Gen. 49:8-12).
Judah reveals the victory of Christ (vv. 8-9), the kingdom of Christ (v. 10), and the enjoyment and rest in Christ (vv. 11-12).
Judah, as the kingly tribe, was accompanied always by Benjamin, as a warrior tribe, for God’s kingdom on the earth (Psa. 68:27; Rom. 5:17). Hallelujah, praise the Lord for what He has done and is doing for us!
We praise You Lord for what You are doing in God’s New Testament economy to accomplish God’s redemption for His salvation by Christ and in the spreading of the glad tidings of Christ’s accomplishment with the beautiful words of the gospel! Amen, Lord, strengthen what You have done for us, and make us those who cooperate with You in Your heavenly ministry today by giving ourselves to pray and minister the word. Thank You Lord for accomplished God’s eternal redemption for Your full salvation, and praise You for being the One who carry out the application of Your redemption!
Read this article / blog post in Romanian – puteți citi acest articol și în limba română la următorul link – Îl savurăm pe Dumnezeu în casa Sa, suntem încărcați cu Dumnezeu ca bine, și Îl slăvim pe Dumnezeu.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of the Psalms, msg. 28 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 12, Christ as the Center of God’s Move on the Earth from His Incarnation through His Ascension to His Second Coming.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Blessed be the Lord forever: / Day by day He loads with good, / E’en the God of our salvation— / Spread His worthy praise abroad. / His the goings forth from death, / Every foe He conquereth! / Hallelujah, hallelujah, / Hallelujah, Amen! (Hymns #1100, stanza 6)
# They have seen, O God, Thy goings / In Thy holy dwelling place, / Thy triumphal, high processions / Midst a mighty voice of praise. / See the singers go before, / Praising, praising o’er and o’er: / Hallelujah, hallelujah, / Hallelujah, Amen! (Hymns #1100, stanza 7)
# In the Holy City with His own He dwells; / O Lord, our Lord, how excellent Thy name! / He’s enthroned upon the praises of His saints; / All His delight in Zion does remain. / The local churches are His move today— / He is our portion, we are satisfied. / Oh, what a goodly heritage have we; / Oh, what a goodly heritage have we! (Hymns #1222)
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