Metaphysical Bible Interpretation of Psalms Chapter 85
Metaphysically Interpreting Psalms 85:1-13
For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
85:1Jehovah, thou hast been favorable unto thy land;
Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.85:2Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people;
Thou hast covered all their sin.85:3Thou hast taken away all thy wrath;
Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.85:4Turn us, O God of our salvation,
And cause thine indignation toward us to cease.85:5Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?
Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?85:6Wilt thou not quicken us again,
That thy people may rejoice in thee?85:7Show us thy lovingkindness, O Jehovah,
And grant us thy salvation.85:8I will hear what God Jehovah will speak;
For he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints:
But let them not turn again to folly.85:9Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him,
That glory may dwell in our land.85:10Mercy and truth are met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.85:11Truth springeth out of the earth;
And righteousness hath looked down from heaven.85:12Yea, Jehovah will give that which is good;
And our land shall yield its increase.85:13Righteousness shall go before him,
And shall make his footsteps a way to walk in.
March 26, 1916: Psalms 85:1-13
This is a song of rejoicing of the children of Israel, who have returned to Jerusalem after their long exile in Babylon. All the children of God who have returned to the Father's house, have come up out of the Babylon of error, should rejoice often after this manner. There is a wonderful mental law that produces firmness and fixity of good in the consciousness through rejoicing in it. Never repress the tendency to be thankful in happy songs or words of praise. It is the angel in you singing hosannas to the Lord. But let no negative idea weaken your positive affirmations of good. It was this double consciousness that made the children of Israel have such hard experiences. They praised the Lord for his goodness to them one minute, and the next begged that he withdraw his anger.
In this lesson, the first three verses, are an acknowledgment of freedom from all evil; then in the fourth verse begins a wail, “Cause thine indignation toward us to cease; wilt thou be angry with us forever?” In the light of our present understanding of the formative power of thought, we plainly see why such a diversity of good and evil came into the lives of God's chosen people. This diversity is not at all necessary. We now understand the truth about God, and also our relation to him as formers of the phenomenal world. Only that can be formed which we hold in thought. If we hold in thought that our evil comes from God, it will be visited upon us with greater severity, than if we hold that it comes from the devil, because we vest God with greater power. Again, if we hold that our evil comes from our own ignorant thoughts, it will be weak indeed; and when we perceive how easy it is to erase ignorance through understanding, then our evil and all its effects are easily dissipated.
October 29, 1911: Psalms 85
As a central thought this morning, let us take this:
“My sins are forgiven, and I rejoice in the law of the Lord.”
If you enter heartily into this realization, a great freeing uplift will come to you. Man has power on earth to forgive sins; he can forgive his own sins and the sins of others. You will relieve yourself of a great burden by letting go of all sense of sin and affirming your joy in the Law of the Lord. So let us begin our service this morning by freeing our minds from all condemnation of ourselves or others; and in the realization of our deliverance from sin, let us sing a psalm of praise and rejoicing.
(Silence.)
It has been said that the history of a nation is the history of a single individual. With this concept we can read history in a new light. Man does reflect his character into the world about him, and knowing this, we discern that all historical writings are our own soul's experiences, that we have passed through or are passing through. We are constantly coming into expression in new masks and under new names. When we know this, a new relation, a new consciousness of unity is established, and we see that, although we read of occurrences that took place 2500 years ago, we were there; we are the people, and we are reading, our own history. All souls are one in the Universal. So when we read how the children of Israel conducted themselves when freed from certain conditions, we know that their experiences are just like those we are going through from day to day, as we pass from sense consciousness to spiritual consciousness. This freeing of the mind from ignorant thoughts should be a daily practice.
If we let error, which in the Scripture is called sin, accumulate in consciousness, it burdens the mind and darkens the understanding. Consequently we should daily realize our freedom from sin through Christ, and sing songs of thanksgiving for our deliverance. The condition of the body depends upon the action of the mind, and we will never make a perfect body, until we learn the laws of mind. We are not bound by any outer law, but are free through obedience to the law of Being. People sometimes say “Oh, you can't overcome the natural law, gravity, for example.” But we can and we do overcome gravity every time we raise a foot or lift a hand. The will of man's mind is stronger than gravity, and through it he sets into operation the machinery that defies gravity. When we have the consciousness of the Universal Mind we rise superior to material limitations. It is when we overcome these limitations and come into the freedom of the Universal that we sing songs of deliverance. Our God really does deliver from the Babylon of sense. Babylon is typical of that confused state of mind in which sin has bound us. But if you have been taken captive and are in Babylon you can be delivered out of that captivity and brought into your own land (spiritual consciousness) by the knowledge of the Truth about yourself, demonstrated in psalms of deliverance.
The fact is, we live in two states of consciousness. That is why we feel the sense of bondage while perceiving the Truth that we are free. We must give up and willingly abandon the old state of consciousness, and by prayer and meditation make the perception of Truth an established state of mind. Daniel, in spite of the edict of the king, kept his windows open toward Jerusalem, the City of Peace. The Spirit in man keeps him in a certain unity with the more interior realms, regardless of surroundings or the limitations of the sense body. The sense body must be lifted up, transformed; and this is done by a thought process which we know as prayer and meditation, and a daily acknowledgment of God in songs and recitations of truth. There is power in music joined to words of freedom and joy. Mind and its outer expression go hand in hand. The great character molders of the race are those who write our songs. A philosopher once said he did not care who made the laws of a nation if he might write its songs. Words and music joined in consciousness really change the structure of the body. It is changed more readily by words and songs than by thoughts. The outer vibrations lay hold directly on the cells of the body and they quickly respond.
If we understand the laws of mind, we can apply them in every department of life. Old conditions will often break quickly away, in response to some word of Truth. This is the result of accumulated thought-energy. Don't be surprised at the sound of your own voice. If you have not been accustomed to singing, begin now. If you sing songs of rejoicing and deliverance, you will release the bound cells of your body and set them vibrating in the Divine Harmony, and the New Body in Christ will begin to form within the old. The children of Israel were amazed at the changes that came to them. After praying for seventy years for their release from the worst kind of servitude, all at once the gates of Babylon opened for them and they were free. This was a revelation. The Babylonian revelers were drinking wine out of the sacred vessels which they had taken from the temple of God, when Cyrus the Persian came to the gates of Babylon with his army. In a single night the transformation took place. Instead of the servitude of the Babylonians, Cyrus gave the Israelites their freedom and sent them back to their own land. In their return to Jerusalem they were in the desert from four to six months, where there were roving bands of Bedouin robbers, yet they made the journey safely. This was unexpected and consequently marvelous to them; but in it all they saw the hand of Jehovah. We find as we break away from the burden of sin, changes often come to us with just such rapidity. We can't conceive how they were brought about. True words produce results far beyond our understanding. The Law of the Lord is swift and mighty.
The union of words and music is found in many curative systems. The tom-tom of the savage, the Om, Om, of the Hindoo, our Omnipresent, Omnipotent, Omniscient, are all intonations on different planes of consciousness. Man can place himself in any of these he desires. He can have the outer material, or the mental, or the glory of the Spirit. We all have that in our souls which is attuned to the Divine Harmony, and we can express it according to our understanding. Many of the children of Israel preferred to remain in Babylon. During the seventy years' sojourn there they had made associations which they did not care to break. But the progressive ones went back to Jerusalem. So with us. We find ourselves encumbered with certain sense relations that we are unwilling to give up. We do not see how we can let go of one round of the ladder to take hold of the next round. Those who cling to the old and refuse to give it up for the new, tell us that the old religion is good enough for them. Their fathers got to heaven that way, and they choose to follow. They are not certain that their fathers are in heaven, but they prefer to stay in Babylon and be slaves rather than endure the giving up necessary to reach the Promised Land.
Transcribed by Lloyd Kinder on 11-28-2013
