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Psalm 92 reads as follows from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible > 1.It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to thy name, O Most High; 2.to declare thy steadfast love in the morning, and thy faithfulness by night, 3.to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. 4.For thou, O LORD, hast made me glad by thy work; at the works of thy hands I sing for joy. 5.How great are thy works, O LORD! Thy thoughts are very deep! 6.The dull man cannot know, the stupid cannot understand this: 7.that, though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction for ever, 8.but thou, O LORD, art on high for ever. 9.For, lo, thy enemies, O LORD, for, lo, thy enemies shall perish; all evildoers shall be scattered. 10.But thou hast exalted my horn like that of the wild ox; thou hast poured over me fresh oil. 11.My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies, my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants. 12.The righteous flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13.They are planted in the house of the LORD, they flourish in the courts of our God. 14.They still bring forth fruit in old age, they are ever full of sap and green, 15.to show that the LORD is upright; he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. Central to this psalm is the idea of God’s fresh anointing. In he Revised Standard Version of the Bible, verse 10 says, “But you have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox, you have poured fresh oil over me." God has heightened his presence to this individual. What God is doing here, is very specific to an individual person and then the onus in on the person to do something with this fresh anointing. At the same time, this fresh oil would be something that is enabling. It might be that God is now enabling you towards something that had an obstacle or two, and he is giving the fresh oil, to move past the obstacles and to keep things from stopping you as you set on another and a newer course. Horn is considered a metaphor for strength. Maybe God has communicated to you on this in the past, but events and time have intervened and you want a fresh communication. Or you had good plans, and they seem to have gotten lost somewhere, and you want fresh insights and fresh perspective as to the way to go. In relating this psalm to the New Testament, fresh oil would be the presence of the Holy Spirit. The appearance of the Holy Spirit is always fresh. An example would be a freshness of the Holy Spirit in a prayer meeting, amidst the gatherers. Verse 5 says, “How great are your works, O Lord. Your thoughts are very deep." Obviously the superficial matters and the Bible does say every hair on your head is counted. You wouldn’t paint your house if the superficial didn’t matter. But for the purposes of prayer, we need to search and wait in the Lord’s presence for what He might be saying that is on the deeper level and corresponds to thought. This might involve sitting in a quiet church for a couple of hours and just waiting on the Lord. It might be just one thing that He will communicate to your heart, but you need to understand that God does operate on this level and you need to find God out and get that deep thought that He has for you now. It is good to get away for the superficial chaos that is sometimes out there and spent personal time in an away location with the Lord to get this deep thought. Then this also goes into what you actually want. It might be the superficial that attracts, but the Lord knows that you want something of depth and that this is what your true wants are containing. Verse 11 says," My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies, my ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants." For the psalmist God’s works have come into a fruition that has clear visibility to him as we focus in on the words “my eyes have seen." From this psalm, we can ask God that he let us see what the story is in prayer, asking for increased visibility on a matter of concern that you are facing personally. Indeed, a degree of visibility might be very helpful and is at times the way God might work for an individual, where he will give his grace towards special sight. We can ask in prayer that we see the Lord’s actions for us and others. Psalm 119 verse 17 says, “Deal bountifully with me O Lord, that I may live and observe your word." The psalmist is asking that he be giving the chance to observe the Lord’s actions. Part of the aliveness of the Holy Spirit for you is giving you observation of his doings. Verse 6 thru 8 says," The dullard cannot know, the stupid cannot understand this, though the wicked sprout like grass, and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction, for you O Lord, are on high forever." Here the evildoers are flourishing as are the righteous, and it appears that God will not differentiate. Later in the psalm it says the wicked fade and the righteous continue on. There is a hidden fence not seen at first, that when it obtains fuller visibility, you want to be on the right side of. There is a depth of knowledge and understanding, that if it is not obtained and searched for thru prayer, does leave a shortfall, and no matter how smart someone thinks they are, they may be dulled to important truths and graces or not so smart in relation to getting to know God’s thoughts which can carry with it fresh oil for you. So even if your excelling in some profession, with various rewards that you may in fact be enjoying, dullness to God’s thoughts and works, counts as a shortfall that puts good things in jeopardy in the longer run if not right now. It does say the dullard cannot know. You might say in prayer to the Lord, I just don’t know. Or you might also say, you know and I know to get to points where you are concurring with the truth of the matter. It might be a case where you say to the Lord, you know and I know that I don’t know enough about this to be enabled to go further. Maybe a response to this could be the fresh oil of God’s enabling you individually. Verses 12 thru 15 say," The righteous flourish like a palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon, They are planted in the house of the Lord, they flourish in the courts of our God, in old age they will produce fruit, and they are always green and full of sap, showing the Lord is upright, he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." Some pretty powerful works and words. A corollary verse to this is proverbs 14 verse 27 where it says," The fear of the Lord is the fountain of life, so that one may avoid the snares of death." The palm tree can flourish, is it gets the proper water and is in the proper location and conditions. The Lord does give us gifts that can flourish; the potential is there with the watering of the Holy Spirit. The cedars of Lebanon would more concur to images of prosperity for those times. There is an awesomoe presence to the prosperity that is found, like the appearance of the mighty cedars. It is easy to contemplate just how beautiful and alive a palm tree is flourishing maybe in some tropical paradise. This is symbolic of how the Lord wants us to be alive to our gifts. Also, psalm 1 is a psalm that relates to these verses where it says,” ”They are like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.” These verses also are talking about a kind of fountain of youth, where older people could even grow taller physically as well as spiritually, this being outside the boundaries of what would normally happen. It is happening however to the point where it is obviously an intervention of God’s presence, as it says in the final verse of the psalm, where this is showing the Lord's works, again pointing to visibility, a general theme of this psalm. The visibility is to where we can see the actions of the Holy Spirit, that have observable qualities to the psalmist. It is interesting as well that it says, they are always green and full of sap, a protective substance for a tree. This is not sometimes, once in a while, or just flashes but with emphasis always, an even more powerful statement of God’s presence in his courts and what happens to the people that are under his brilliance. And the metaphor of the tree also contains the idea of oil, as trees do emit a type of oil called sap. Also, the giant cedars and palm trees are quite visible on the landscape, especially in the brilliance of the sun. What this is also saying though, that there is a responsibility to be there, even later in life, that is to be in God’s courts. Just as in the earlier verses where it talks about God and his communication in the depths, meaning we have to go there too, that is to the depths of communication... Two things that we need to do from the psalm are to get to God’s courts, stay there and realize that being older or advanced in any number of ways not just age but in advancing status, wealth, sports ability ect, doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility to get there and stay there and the other is to get to a place where we can seek and find the Lord and depth of his thought for us as unique individuals under his careful watch. Hopefully, we might be advancing in some of the benchmarks of what we want by our own or societal standards but that is not the first priority at any point in that continuum, as the first order of the day is getting to God for his deep thought and his fresh oil. It may take a prayerful watch of hours to get that one thought from the depths of the seas of God’s deep thoughts, but there is a calling to go and get it, fish it out with patience and diligence. The Lord will give and give out of His own abundance, so this is how the righteous can flourish like the palm tree. And a major theme of this psalm, is to be alive to the all the gifts the Lord has given. As we continue on and make varied decisions, we can ask the Holy Spirit to help bring us along in ways that are alive to the gifts we already have, so they can flourish like a palm tree. These gifts also might be many and varied, and there is the possibility we are brushing aside some gifts that are less important. But the message here it to seek to bring life to our gifts, to not brush them aside, or bring them to life only at some way down the road point arbitrarily thought of by us. We can apply the image of the palm tree flourishing not only to our lives as a whole, which is part of the image that is presented here, but also to individual gifts and potentials that we do have, gifts perhaps we can be more alive to and also allow them to flourish like the palm tree.
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