Have you ever had someone break a promise that they had made to you? Or have you perhaps broken a promise you made to someone? Most of us have had a promise made to us broken, or we were the ones doing the breaking. Very few, if any people keep every single promise they make. Sometimes these broken promises can be upsetting. They are especially for children, but adults can be disappointed, as well. There is Someone who makes promises, yet never breaks a single one, and that is our Lord God. In our psalm today we read of one promise that He made, and which despite all odds, has been kept.
Psalm 89 was written by a man named Ethan the Ezrahite. He was of the tribe of Levi, and along with two others, were assigned by King David to lead in song at the Tabernacle and in his court. He served during parts of the reigns of both King David and that of his son King Solomon. Ethan was also mentioned in I Chronicles 6:44, and in I Chronicles 15:17-19. Ethan was said to be one of the wisest men in the country during his life. He also wrote one psalm, one that focused mainly on the promise or covenant that the Lord made with David, and on giving Him praise and glory.
The psalmist Ethan spoke of the special promise or covenant that the Lord made to King David. The promises that God makes, and which we read of in the Bible, generally fall into two categories. There are conditional and unconditional promises. Most of the promises in the Bible fall into the category of conditional ones, where if we obey God, He promises to do this or that. The conditional promises depend on whether we keep our end of the deal. Some conditional promises are that God promised to bless the people of Israel in their land, if they obeyed Him and did not worship false gods. They failed to keep their end, and ended up losing their land. Other promises in the Bible are unconditional ones. Unconditional promises are guaranteed, no matter what man may do. God’s promise to Noah that He would never again destroy the whole world with a flood is one. The covenant that Yahweh made with King David, that He would send the Messiah, and that this Savior would be a descendent of his is another unconditional promise. We read about this unconditional promise here in this psalm (vs. 3-4).
God had promised David that his family would sit on the throne of Israel. That promise might seem like it was conditional, but in truth is unconditional. They would reign in Israel as long as they obeyed Him, and they did for several hundred years. Right away, David’s son King Solomon, turned away from the Lord God, and started worshiping the false gods of his many foreign wives. Though some of David’s royal descendants stayed true to God, many didn’t, and eventually God lost all patience with the people, and the Babylonians came and conquered the country, destroyed the Temple, and took the people captive. No more did David’s family line sit upon the throne. However, the promise of the Messiah coming from David’s descendants was unconditional. This was a promise that God made to David in II Samuel 7:8-16. Though after the Babylonian captivity the Davidic family line no longer reigned upon the throne, the family line still existed. The Lord Jesus came from that line, and He was the promised Messiah. As the Son of God, and also being of David’s line, His reign is forever. He reigns in heaven now, and someday He will return to earth, and set up His throne again in Jerusalem.
Knowing this promise was sure to be kept, despite all odds, brought a song of praise to God from the psalmist Ethan (vs. 15-18). He knew that when God makes a promise to His people, He keeps it. He knew that God was righteous, He was moral, ethical, and did what was right. His Name, His countenance was holy. We can glory in His strength.
Though the Jewish people are still looking for the Messiah, we know that He has already come in the Person of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is the rightful heir to the throne of David. He is reigning in heaven at the right hand of God the Father, and one day soon He will return, and will fulfill the promise God made, and sit upon the throne of David in Jerusalem.
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