The Psalms are a vast storehouse of human experience touching all the notes in the keyboard of human emotion. There is love and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, peace and strife, faith and despair. This is the stuff of which life is made, so it is no wonder that God's saints in all ages have felt the tug of the psalms.

In times of trouble, especially, we turn to this book. Jonah's prayer from the belly of the whale is saturated with quotations from it. Jesus loved them, he went from the upper room with the strains of them still sounding in his soul. They enabled him to face Gethsemane. He endured Golgotha, quoting from them. On the day of Pentecost, Peter turned instinctively to them to find words to explain vital truth to the stricken Jewish people in Jerusalem. Paul, in summarizing the Holy Spirit's great indictment of the human race in Romans 3, found the language he needed in the psalms.

In handling the psalms, John Phillips expounds on some psalms in a number of ways. Sometimes it is in light of the author's experiences, sometimes he discusses the historical setting, sometimes he emphasizes the way a psalm relates to a struggling soul today.

Sometimes he has taken the prophetic aspect of a psalm and handled it in light of the coming tribulation or millennial reign. Prophecies in the psalms anticipate both comings of Christ. They foretell his birth, his life, his character, and his death, burial and resurrection. They speak to his ascension and his coming again. Some anticipate the horrors of the rule of the Antichrist, while others dwell with joyful anticipation on the glories of the golden age.

The John Phillips Commentary Series is designed to provide pastors, Sunday school teachers, and students of the Scripture with doctrinally sound interpretation that emphasizes the practical application of Bible truth. Working from the familiar King James Version, Dr. Phillips not only provides helpful commentary on the text, but also includes detailed outlines and numerous illustrations and quotations. Anyone wanting to explore the meaning of God's Word in greater depth - for personal spiritual growth or as a resource for preaching and teaching - will welcome the guidance and insights of this respected series.

---

John Phillips (1927-2010) served as assistant director of the Moody Correspondence School as well as director of the Emmaus Correspondence School, one of the world's largest Bible correspondence ministries. He also taught in the Moody Evening School and on the Moody Broadcasting radio network.