THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION

Psalms: Living By Faith In God

CXXXIV. God’s Call For Devout Male Responsibility

(Psalm 134:1-3)

Introduction: (To show the need . . .)

Many people are debating over how to solve today’s pressing problems in our society:

(1) A letter by Brian Burke of Branford in the July 27, 2025, Sunday Republican, told of the “failure of public schools” in urban centers to better urban society (Republican-American, July 30, 2025, p. A7).

(2) Al Manning of Waterbury responded to Mr. Burke’s letter in the July 30^th Republican-American, writing that though he agreed with Burke’s view, Brian Burke had failed to mention an important cause behind this failure of urban public schools, that of “the waning strength of the family unit since the mid-1970s.” (Ibid.)

(3) Mr. Burke replied to Al Manning’s letter in the August 1, 2025, Republican-American, admitting that Mr. Manning was “right,” but adding, “The urban-schools problem I addressed, and many of the family issues he described have a common root cause – federal government programs that were created by the so-called War on Poverty in the 1960s, particularly Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC).” (Ibid., August 1, 2025, p. A6)

(4) Chris Powell went a step further than Mr. Burke did to claim that “welfare policy” was a “war on fathers,” for it has “subsidized and thus encouraged childbearing outside marriage,” leaving fathers not responsible for their children (Chris Powell, “‘Social equity’ is euphemism for patronage, redundancy,” Ibid., August 5, 2025, p. A6). This “impoverished countless households, depriving them of income and parenting, diminishing children’s education, demoralizing them, depriving them of work skills, and incentivizing them to try to gain a livelihood in the drug trade. Catastrophically damaging as this was to the communities without fathers, most of the income from the drug trade was also earned in those communities. The trade was so lucrative that it never could be stamped out despite the many casualties of the ‘war on drugs’ – the murders and other violence, convictions, and imprisonments.” (Ibid.)

(5) Lest we think that the answer is more government programs, a Republican-American editorial noted, “One trait most politically engaged people share – whether conservative, liberal, or moderate – is the baked-in assumption that for every social problem there’s a public-policy solution, or at least some sort of trade-off that approximates one . . . And yet . . . when people are intent on doing serious harm, it can be practically impossible to stop them. If the allegations against Kimberly Sullivan – the Waterbury woman who police say kept her stepson in captivity for two decades, starving him nearly to death – are true, they’re a case in point . . . If government can’t be the answer, the only solution . . . if such a solution exists, is for communities to engage in compassionate vigilance to ensure the health and safety of their neighbors” (“Captive case indicates govt’s limits,” Ibid., August 1, 2025, p. A6).

(6) However, people in a community are hampered from identifying neighborhood crises since they lack the government’s right and authority to spot behind-doors abuse. Making things worse, legislators are “more interested in making government bigger than in making it more effective” as they “know that many recent child-protection failures are getting a pass even as child neglect and abuse are always being manufactured by the welfare system, which also gets a pass” (Chris Powell, “Who’ll notice prison audit? And Bronin’s health issue,” Ibid., August 6, 2025, p. A6).

Need: So we ask, “What would God direct on handling society’s problems that are fueled by the ‘war on fathers’?”

I. Psalm 134:1-2 addressed the adult male priests and Levites who were assigned personal night duties in the temple complex functions in accountability to the Lord for His blessing:

A. The psalmist called for the priests and Levites who ministered in the Lord’s temple by night to bless the Lord.

B. These servants of God were adult men between the ages of 25 and 50 (Numbers 3:39-4:3; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, ftn. to Numbers 4:3) who were largely married family men.

C. Their night duties called for dedication in tasks that were unseen by the rest of the nation when it was asleep:

1. The temple priests were to keep the fire on the altar burning throughout the night, Leviticus 6:13-14.

2. They were to keep the lamps of the lampstand in the Holy Place lit throughout the night, Exodus 27:20-21.

3. They were also to burn incense on the altar of incense when they serviced the lampstand, Exodus 30:7-8.

4. The temple Levitical singers lived in the temple complex, serving God day and night, 1 Chronicles 9:33.

5. They were also to guard the temple’s holy places at night from trespassing by non-Levites, Num. 3:5-10.

D. The psalmist called upon these servants of God to worship and bless the Lord, Psalm 134:2.

II. Consequently, the psalmist asserted that the Lord, the Creator of heaven and earth, would bless these servants of the Lord in their nighttime duties from the temple in Zion, Psalm 134:3.

III. Applied to us, Scripture reveals what must occur for such adult male responsibility to occur in our era:

A. First, a man must believe in Christ to be justified by God and spiritually regenerated by the Holy Spirit to be given new life in Christ that equips him to live a consistently godly life, John 3:16; Titus 3:5; Romans 8:3-4.

B. Second, the believing man must rely on the Holy Spirit for the motivation and enabling to stay devoted to God’s assigned tasks that might be unknown, unappreciated or even opposed by others, Gal. 5:16 with 1:10.

C. Third, the believing man must then obey Scripture to be blessed and to be a blessing as a male head of household with resultant blessings spreading from him to influence others, 1 John 2:3-5; Psalm 127:1-5.

IV. Scripture elsewhere also provides God’s long-term, ultimate solutions to society’s problems (as follows):

A. At Christ’s Second Coming to earth, sin in society will be held strongly in check as Christ rules with a “rod of iron” (Revelation 12:5), and God’s blessing will permeate all of society (Amos 9:11-15; Isaiah 2:1-4).

B. However, after Christ’s Millennial Kingdom, Satan will be released to deceive unbelievers to rebel against Christ, God will destroy those rebels and create a new universe of eternal righteousness where only justified believers, all who have had their sin natures removed, will forever dwell in blessing, Revelation 21:1-22:5.

Lesson: Society’s problems caused by the “war on fathers” are overcome if adult men in particular trust in Christ for salvation from sin and rely on the Holy Spirit to obey Scripture even if such obedience is unseen, unheralded or opposed by others. However, only in eternity when God removes all sin will there be full blessing in society.

Application: (1) May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God's gift of eternal life, John 3:16; 1 Corinthians 15:1-11. (2) May we all – especially we men – rely on the Holy Spirit to obey Scripture in all realms of life. (3) May we anticipate Christ’s coming Kingdom and eventual eternal state.

Conclusion: (To illustrate the message and/or provide additional guidance . . .)

Though the night duties of the temple priests and Levites were unheralded by the rest of Israel, when viewed in their theological and typological contexts, their duties have become very important for God’s people in history:

(1) The fire to be kept perpetually burning on the altar represented the perpetual availability of the atonement of Christ, our Substitutional Sacrifice for sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). The unsaved can expect God fully to justify them and save their souls from sin and eternal condemnation even if they believe in Christ in the nighttime (John 3:1-16).

Also, a believer knows that whenever he confesses his sin to God to regain fellowship with Him (1 John 1:9, 7), even in the middle of the night, God will forgive him then so that he can be restored to fellowship with God!

(2) The perpetual lighting of the lamps on the lampstand typologically represented the light of God’s spiritual revelation of truth in His Word and in His Son, Jesus Christ (cf. Isaiah 8:20; 9:2). Thus, even in the middle of the night when a troubled believer longs for spiritual insight regarding a trial he faces or a pressing spiritual question he has, God’s Word is even then able to illumine his mind and heart to the truth for the answers he seeks!

(3) The perpetual burning of the incense on the altar of incense, with incense representing the believer’s prayers to God (Revelation 5:8c), typologically represented the believer’s having perpetual access to God in prayer even in the night! Though one faces a grave trial in the night, he does not need to wait until morning before God is willing and able to hear him, for God never slumbers or sleeps (Psalm 121:4), but He is always awake and willing to answer a believer’s prayer! We must then come boldly to the throne of grace in prayer even in the night that we might obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

(4) The perpetual ministry of the temple singers even in the night typified the perpetual praise believers can give God in thanksgiving for His grace and goodness to them. If God supplies an answer in the night to a great need, one need not wait until morning to praise the Lord, but he can rejoice and praise Him in the night.

(5) The perpetual task of guarding the temple’s holy places from non-Levitical trespassers even in the night pictured the need for guarding our current temple of the Holy Spirit as believers, that temple being our minds and bodies, from sin even in the nighttime (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Many evil deeds are committed in the darkness of the night, so God directs that we be careful to honor Him in the nighttime (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:6-10).

Thus, in view of the theological and typological significance of the priests’ and Levites’ temple duties in the night, though unseen and unheralded by the rest of the nation of Israel at the time, those duties testify of priceless truths for us regarding salvation, cleansing from sin, access to Biblical truth, prayer, praise, and holiness in the night! The ministry of those temple servants of God was very important even if it did not seem so in their day!

May we trust in Christ Who died as our Atoning Sacrifice for sin that we might receive God’s gift of eternal life. May we all, especially we men, rely on the Holy Spirit to obey seemingly unheralded, unseen or even unaccepted duties God assigns us in faith that our doing so is necessary for the welfare of God’s people!