This is the longest of the Songs of Ascents and it concentrates on the main theme of these songs - that of a
deeper, richer and fuller communion with the Lord. This the Psalm of a heart that longs for such communion
with God and will not be satisfied until it reaches that goal. It is one thing to say that with our lips but quite
another to desire it with all our heart. God once said to Jeremiah, the prophet,
"You will seek me and find me, when you shall search for Me with all your heart."
God's complaint concerning His people of old was that they honoured Him with their lips but that their heart
was far from Him.
On the other hand, this is a Psalm which reveals that God also desires to enjoy full communion with His people.
So it is a full and complete Psalm. What we seek is what God wants too: it is God's will. Now, on an
individual level, we might well long for fellowship with God: "As the hart pants for the
water brooks, so pants my soul after Thee, O God." Here, in Psalm 132, however, it becomes apparent
that as we come to that full communion with the Lord, it is a fellowship with God AND with His people. It is not
just "Jesus and me". We have been baptised into one body and are members of that body.
"If we say we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the
light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another..."
Throughout this Psalm we find that God confirms everything by His desire for communion with us. If David says
to the Lord that he will never let Him go, the Lord assures David that He will never let him go. There is a glorious
unity of purpose as we desire Him with all our heart. Has He not promised?
"Delight yourself also in the Lord and He shall give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37 v 4).
Now, in verse 1, David speaks of his afflictions. These are the afflictions that he encounters in his upward climb
to know the Lord. Paul spoke of that same quest in these words:"That I may know
Him, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings..." (Phil 3 v 10) Moving on
to enjoy the presence of the Lord in a real way costs - but what glory!
When we have a desired goal in mind, we put ourselves to all sorts of trouble to achieve it. When an athlete
trains for a race, at times it is agonising. Or, if you are decorating, there are all sorts of unpleasant tasks to
do in preparation, if the job is to be done properly and with pleasing results. However, in your mind your
thoughts are focused on the marvellous results and so you endure the unpleasant tasks. Here David endures
the afflictions because he wants the Lord, and he pleads with the Lord not to forget them.
David's zeal is commendable. He will not seek his house, his bed, or his sleep until he knows the Lord. He will
not rest until the Lord is where He should be in his life. Everything else has got to come last. So the Psalmist
maps out for us the pathway to worship and full communion with God. In verse 6 he says,
"Lo, we heard of it..." (Notice that he changes from "I" to "we") "...at
Ephratah." Bethlehem was in Ephratah. That was where David used to live as a young man. That
was where he used to look after the sheep. That was where the Lord began to deal with David, and where He
called him when Samuel visited them.
What has David heard of then? He has heard about the presence and the glory of the Lord, which, in recent
years, had been something rare in Israel. That presence of the living God amongst His people was history.
The glory and the power of God was the stuff of tales from the past. Could we not say the same for the Church
of today? Is the presence and glory of God something strange, which we have heard of, but which we ourselves
have not experienced? Do you realise, that until David became king, the ark of the covenant of the Lord was
not in the place that it should have been? Therefore there was no manifestation of the presence and
power of God. All through the reign of king Saul, there had been no ark in Israel. Saul had not bothered to
consulted God (I Chronicles 13 v 3). Before Saul came to the throne, the ark had been captured by the
Philistines, but because it caused so much trouble, they sent it back on a cart. Where it came to rest, there it
stayed and nobody bothered about it.
Today, we need a people like David who are not satisfied with the dead, outward form, but want the reality of the
Lord's presence.