Sermon Book: Psalms

About this sermon

In Psalm 50 God summons heaven and earth to witness a covenant lawsuit against his own people. He needs none of their sacrifices, because the cattle on a thousand hills already belong to him, and he wants thanksgiving and faithful obedience. Israel had absorbed pagan ideas of gods who depend on their worshipers, and God corrects those ideas. He warns the wicked who recite his covenant while hating his discipline, and he shows his salvation to all who turn to him in repentance and faith.

More sermons from Psalms · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word. As we continue our study through the Psalter, the Book of Psalms, and various select psalms tonight, we are going to consider Psalm 50. Psalm 50. This psalm is entitled A Psalm of Asaph. The mighty one, God the Lord, has spoken and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shown forth. May our God come and not keep silence. Fire devours before him, and it is very tempestuous around him. He summons the heavens above and the earth to judge his people. Gather my godly ones to me, those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. And the heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is Judge, Stele. Hear, O my people, and I will speak.

O Israel, I will testify against you. I am God, your God. I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, and your burnt offerings are continually before me. I shall take no young bull out of your house, nor male goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains, and everything that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all it contains. Shall I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of male goats? Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon me in the day of trouble. I shall rescue you, and you will honor me. But to the wicked God says, what right have you to tell of my statutes, and to take my covenant in your mouth?

For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. When you see a thief, you are pleased with him, and you associate with adulterers. You let your mouth loose in evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother. You slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done, and I kept silence. You thought that I was just like you. I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. Now consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you in pieces and there will be none to deliver. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, and to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God.” Thus far the reading of God’s holy word, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.

Please join me in your hearts in prayer. Lord God, Heavenly Father, we do pray that by your spirit you would once again cause your word to find a lodging place in our souls. We do pray that you would bless the proclamation of your word this evening. We ask, Lord, that this would be food to our souls and that you would edify us and build us up from what we consider this evening from this portion of your inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. We pray these things in Jesus’ name and all of God’s people said. Amen. Congregation, you may be seated. The title of my sermon tonight is God Himself is Judge, and you’ll notice on your sermon outline, again, a number of words that you can be listening for in my sermon this evening. Well, dear ones, the Holy Scriptures teach us that God created humanity in His own image and likeness.

But in our fallenness and sinful rebellion against our Creator, we too often return the favor by seeking to remake God after our own image, and by imagining that God must be very much like us in terms of our creaturely needs. In our sinful folly, it is very easy for us to fall into thinking unworthy thoughts, indeed blasphemously unworthy thoughts, and entertaining unworthy conceptions. of God our Creator. For example, it’s very tempting for us as limited, finite, dependent creatures to imagine that God himself must also, at least in some sense, be limited, finite, and dependent in his being. And just to kind of offer a concrete example of this, I recall one time, this was many years ago, I think it was in the early 2000s, I was pastoring a church at that time in New Jersey, and I remember one evening driving in my car, and I decided, as I often did, to turn on the radio and tune into a local Christian radio station.

I had tuned into the middle of a sermon, and I recall, as I recall the contents of this particular sermon, I think the preacher was basically trying to make the point that because God is a personal, relational God, because God is interested in entering into and and being involved in a personal relationship with us, that therefore God must have created us because He was lonely. I want you to think about that for a second. If the Almighty Creator God of the universe created us because He needed companionship, He was lonely, then that would mean that God depends upon something or someone outside of Himself for His own happiness. In other words, that would make God a dependent being. So much for the Bible’s teaching that God is the ever-blessed God, the God who is eternally sufficient in and of himself, and whose three co-equal, co-eternal persons—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—enjoy perfect inter-Trinitarian fellowship and communion, one with another, in the one divine being.

No, dear ones, God did not create us because he was lonely, or because he needed us, or because he was in any way dependent upon us, or anything outside of himself. On the contrary, God’s word reveals that God is absolutely self-sufficient and independent, dependent upon no one, dependent upon nothing outside of himself. Well, our psalm for this Lord’s Day evening powerfully drives home this point. For it seems that in this psalm, which is a prophetic psalm, a psalm of prophecy, God confronts a gross misinterpretation of the sacrificial system that had become very common among his people, Israel. Namely, the idea that God depended upon the Israelites’ sacrifices in the temple in order to satisfy his hunger. And therefore, they thought that by their sacrifices, they could place God in their debt, essentially bribing him into fulfilling their wishes.

For after all, We feed our God, so he’s got to do what we say. Now, what type of psalm is Psalm 50? It is a psalm that is filled, if you noticed, if you were paying attention carefully to the reading of this psalm, you may notice that this is a psalm which is filled with legal courtroom terminology. The legal courtroom language of this psalm would seem to reflect the elements of what Bible scholars call a covenant lawsuit. This is where God summons the earth to witness his case that he brings against his wayward people. This psalm has been described as an oracular hymn, meaning that it is a hymn which contains an oracle. It’s a hymn that contains oracle language, prophetic language, a word of the Lord from the Lord to his people, which addresses them and corrects them in order to confront them with their sin and their error.

But the ultimate purpose of this covenant lawsuit, Psalm, is not to condemn, but to correct. It is not to cast out and reject his people, erring though they are, but to bring them to repentance and restoration, that they might be shown, as verse 53 says, the salvation of God, as it says in in verse 23. He who offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me, and to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God. That is the ultimate goal of this psalm. And so let’s dive in and consider this psalm. Let’s first of all consider the first six verses, the opening section of this psalm. And we note in this portion of Psalm 50 that Yahweh is here, Yahweh the Lord, is here presented as the Almighty God who speaks and who judges.

This is the first point in your sermon outline. Yahweh is the Almighty God who speaks and who judges. Now, this psalm is entitled A Psalm of Asaph. Who was Asaph? Well, Asaph was one of King David’s three choir leaders who was appointed to the temple choir. Now, It is entitled of Asaph, but that could mean for Asaph or for his descendants who were to serve in his place, for their use in the liturgy of the temple choir. The NIV Study Bible Study Note introduces this psalm by saying, this psalm may have been separated from the other psalms of Asaph, which include psalms 73 through 83, because of its thematic links with psalms 46 through 49. It goes on to say, the Lord calls his covenant people to account as they meet before him in worship at the temple.

The psalm appears to have been composed for a temple liturgy in which Israel reaffirms her commitment to God’s covenant. A leader of the Levitical choir addresses Israel on behalf of the Lord. And what does the Lord by his spirit through the psalmist say to the people of God? Well, notice first one, the mighty one, God, the Lord has spoken and summons the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting. This is powerful. This is a powerful opening to this psalm because three names of God are used in this very first verse. The names El, the Hebrew word for God, El, and then Elohim, and then Yahweh, which is translated by the word Lord in all capital letters. So, the Mighty One, that’s El. God, that’s Elohim. The Lord. What is the significance that we are to attach to the psalmist opening this psalm, referring to God with these three divine names?

Well, according to one commentator, the threefold name represents God as the Almighty One, God in the fullness of His deity, and God as the Eternal and Gracious One who has made a covenant with His people. God is the mighty one. Think about that. He is the almighty, omnipotent one, the all powerful creator and providential ruler over all. But he’s not a distant God who is unrelated to his creation. He is a God who speaks. The mighty one God, the Lord has done what? He has spoken. My friends, many folks who say they believe in God, or a God, believe in a God who maybe got the universe started, created things, but then is not really involved much, if at all, in his creation. He kind of put the universe in place, and he’s kind of set all of the natural laws in order, and just letting it run on its own.

And he’s kind of withdrawn, just kind of observes us from a distance, if at all. But no, not so the true and living God, not so the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible, the true and living God, Yahweh, is a God who speaks. He is a God who communicates, and He communicates to us His will. He is a God not only of creation, but also a God of revelation. And here in this passage, He summons the earth, God, the mighty one, God, the Lord has spoken and summoned the earth from the rising of the sun to its setting, which is a poetic way of talking about, of speaking of God summoning the entire earth, all of humanity. What we have here is a divine summons for all of the earth to come to the divine court in order to hear God’s case against his wayward people.

And then it goes on to say in verse two, out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shown forth. Zion represents God’s temple in Jerusalem, God’s dwelling place in Jerusalem. And notice how Zion is described. It is described as the perfection of beauty. What made Zion, the temple mount, so beautiful? Well, what made it beautiful is that God had chosen it as his special dwelling place. And it is from God’s royal dwelling place, his royal palace amongst his people, that God is said to shine forth. Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God has shone forth. This language of God shining forth is the language of theophany, a language indicating a visible, supernatural self-revelation of God, similar to The revelation that God had presented of himself on Mount Sinai with the cloud and the thunder and the lightning and the earthquake and the trumpet blast and the words of God, the audible words of God addressing his people.

And so it goes on to say in verse three, may our God come and not keep silence. Again, he is not a God who keeps silence. He is a God who speaks, who communicates, who reveals. And notice the imagery here. Fire devours before him, and it is very tempestuous around him. This language, my friends, that the psalmist uses here in verse two and three, especially verse three, recalls the glorious and fearful scene of Mount Sinai, where God manifested his supernatural presence in a fearful, supernatural theophany. And what is this communicating to us as God’s people? It is communicating that the God of Zion is the God of Sinai. Let Israel know. The psalmist is saying, let God’s people know that the God of Mount Zion is the God of Mount Sinai. We are reminded, brothers and sisters, by passages like this.

We are reminded of that truth that is spoken of in passages like Hebrews 12, 29. which reminds us that God in his holiness is a consuming fire. He is a God of white hot holiness. And then verse four, he summons the heavens above and the earth to judge his people. God calls on creation to witness his prosecuting charge against his people. As one commentator puts it, God issues a subpoena for all creation to appear as witnesses when he judges his people. And this calling out of God to the heavens above and the earth to witness to him, this recalls the language that we find, for example, in the covenant renewal in Deuteronomy 31. In Deuteronomy 31, verse 28, we read these words. Assemble to me all the elders of your tribes and your officers that I may speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and the earth to witness against them.

And what does God want the creation to witness? Well, look at verse five. Gather my godly ones to me. And who are these godly ones? Or as other versions put it, faithful ones. Gather my godly ones to me. those who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice, and the heavens declare his righteousness, for God himself is Judge Selah. Gather my godly ones to me, God says, and these ones who have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.” Now, what is a covenant? Children, what is a covenant? Well, a covenant, we could spend a lot of time talking about biblical covenants. The concept of covenant is very rich and deep. But in summary, a covenant is basically a solemn, binding agreement that establishes a relationship between two parties. While ultimately God is the one who has initiated his covenant of grace with his people, God’s people are here in this passage spoken of as making the covenant with God by means of sacrifice.

Why sacrifice? Well, friends, sacrifice was necessary in order for sinners to approach the Holy God. And of course, we recognize that this sacrificial system under the Old Covenant is ultimately fulfilled in Christ and his ultimate final sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, where he fully satisfied for all of our sins. And then verse six, the heavens declare his righteousness. Now, when it says the heavens declare his righteousness, the heavens here could be referring to the angelic hosts, the angelic hosts in the heavenly realm. declare and proclaim God’s righteousness as they praise him day and night in his throne room presence. But this could also be pointing to the fact that God’s creation itself, namely the heavens above even, declare that God the creator is a righteous God who can be trusted to be righteous in all of his judgments.

And when it says God himself is judged, certainly God is judged in the sense that he in the courtroom legal sense, in the sense that he judges and discerns between the righteous and the wicked and so forth. But sometimes in the Bible that term judge can also indicate God ruling. Judge can mean to rule as well. It doesn’t always necessarily mean to condemn. Indeed, in the context of this passage, God is judging his people in the sense of graciously confronting and correcting them for some of their misconceptions about his nature and some of their misconceptions about the purpose of the Old Testament sacrificial system. Again, the purpose of this covenant lawsuit is not to crush or condemn, but to confront and correct and bring his people to renewed repentance and salvation. So friends, yes, God does judge his believing people.

But the good news is that in Jesus Christ, in union with Christ, our judgment is not a judgment of condemnation, but it is one of vindication. For Christ took our condemnation upon himself on the cross of Calvary. And he did so that we might be justified, declared righteous in his sight because of Christ’s righteousness imputed to us, received by faith alone. And thus, that we might be vindicated in the end. Are you looking to God as your judge, your ruler, who in Christ has judged your sin and justified you by grace through faith alone? And so we see that our God is a God who speaks and judges. Now, as we get into the central section of this psalm, we notice next, as we focus on verses 7 through 15, that God summons his people to correct belief and to pure worship.

This is my second main point in your outline. God summons us, his people, to correct belief and to pure worship. Verse seven begins with a very significant word, the word hear. Now, when in our culture today, when someone says, hey, listen up, hear me. What does that mean? That means perk up your ears. It means listen with your ears. But in Hebrew thoughts, to hear God meant much, much more than just hearing with your ears. To hear God implies to take his word to heart, not only to hear it with your ear, but to take it to heart and to respond to it with faith and obedience. So God is calling his people to take to heart what he’s about to say and to act upon it. Hear, O my people, and I will speak, O Israel, you.

And he reminds them of who he is. He says, I am God, your God. I am God. In other words, I’m not dependent. I don’t get hungry. I don’t get lonely or anything like that. I am God, your God. And that reference to God being your God That reminds us of the essence of the covenant of grace, where God promises that he will be our God and we will be his people. And in Jesus Christ, that promise has come to its ultimate fulfillment. And then God, through the psalmist here, brings his covenant lawsuit against them, his charge against them. He says, I do not reprove you for your sacrifices and your burnt offerings are continually before me. In other words, they had been faithful to the ritual requirements of the sacrificial laws of the Old Testament.

But he says, I’m not going to reprove you for that. You obviously are meticulous in offering sacrifices. But then he goes on to say, I shall take no young bull out of your house, nor male goat out of your folds, for every beast of the forest is mine. The cattle on a thousand hill. I know every bird of the mountains and everything that moves in the field is mine. And then verse 12, he kind of gets to the to the the rub of his issue with Israel here, he says. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is mine and all it contains. When God says, if I were hungry, it’s not that God could ever be hungry. But he’s simply, he’s using this to make a point with them. He’s using this language to make a point of them.

And he asks in verse 13, shall I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of male goats? That’s why you’re sacrificing to me to feed me? In other words, and then he corrects them. He confronts them with what they’re doing wrong, their wrong conceptions and ideas. And then he says, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. Call upon Me in the day of trouble. I shall rescue you, and you will honor Me.” This is the purpose of these sacrifices, to express heart thanksgiving to God, not just superstitious ideas of feeding God with His God-sized hunger. No, that’s not what it’s getting at. Again, in these verses, it seems that God is judging in the sense of confronting and correcting some gross misconceptions that his godly ones, his faithful ones, had had about the nature of God and the purpose of the sacrificial system.

You might think, well, why did the people of Israel fall into these superstitious ideas that their God needed food? Well, probably because of the influence of their pagan neighbors. The so-called gods of Israel’s pagan Gentile neighbors were viewed as being dependent upon their worshipers for food and sustenance. The gods of the heathen, the gods of the pagan neighbors of Israel, were certainly believed to be powerful beings, but they also depended upon the sacrifices of their worshipers for food. And if their worshipers didn’t give them the appropriate sacrifices or feed them well enough, they might get pretty ticked off, and they might show their displeasure against their worshipers. But this was not the case with Yahweh, the God of Israel, the true and living God. For this God, the true and living God, the God of Israel, owns the cattle on a thousand hills, as verse 10 tells us.

Rather, the sacrifices that the Lord had ordained were for the purpose of ratifying God’s covenant relationship with his people, as we see in verse 5. and also for expressing the worshipper’s heartfelt thanksgiving to God for his gracious covenant mercies. And the theme of thanksgiving is a very prominent and central theme in this psalm. For example, if you look at verse 14, it says, offer to God a sacrifice of what? A sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the Most High. This is probably referring to free will offerings and perhaps offerings to where the worshippers would would partake of some of the of the sacrificial meat as well. And then also verse 23, again, he who offers a sacrifice of what? Of thanksgiving honors me. See, the Israelites were focused on the ritual and they had wrong ideas and they were thinking unworthy thoughts of the true and living God.

They weren’t sacrificing to God from a heart of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord for his covenant mercies toward them. And so God summons them back to the true purpose of worship. The sacrifices that Israel offered to God were not for the purpose of feeding a hungry, dependent deity, but for the purpose of expressing Israel’s utter dependence upon God and gratitude to God for his grace toward them. And this reminds us again of Christ. Christ’s atoning sacrifice on the cross ratified God’s covenant of grace with us, his people. It was the once and for all final sacrifice that fulfilled the symbolism of all the Old Testament sacrifices. The only sacrifice that we believers have to offer to God today are sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving for his gift of salvation given to us in Christ.

These sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving also including good works done in his name. So, for example, we read in Hebrews 12 verses 28 and 29, let’s Look at a few passages in Hebrews very quickly. Hebrews 12, 28 and 29. Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe for our God as a consuming fire. And then skip down also to chapter 13, verses 15 and 16, where the author of Hebrews writes through him, through Christ then, Let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.” So yes, we still have sacrifices to offer to God today, but not atoning sacrifices.

We can’t offer such sacrifices. Christ offered that final sacrifice as atonement for sin once and for all. but we do offer sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving out of gratitude for his gift of salvation. Again, dear listener, have you received and rested upon Christ alone as your Savior, as the one whose sacrifice satisfies God’s justice against your sin? So again, we see that God has confronted his covenant people. He calls them to repentance and to a restored restoration. But finally, We see here in the final section of this psalm in verses 16-23 that God the Judge rebukes the wicked and calls them to repentance and salvation. This is the final point in your sermon outline. God the Judge rebukes the wicked and calls them to repentance and salvation. Look at verse 16. But to the wicked God says, what right have you to tell of my statutes and to take my covenant in your mouth.

This language here would seem to indicate that God is addressing members of the visible covenant community who were, in fact, in heart and by their lifestyle, wicked. What right have you to tell of my statutes and to take my covenant in your mouth? And then he confronts them with their sin, their wickedness. He says, for you hate discipline. And you cast my words behind you Think about that. Casting the word of God behind you. What arrogance, what blasphemy to cast God’s word behind your back. When you see a thief, you are pleased with him. The psalmist gives some examples of their wickedness. When you see a thief, you are pleased with him and you associate with adulterers. You let your mouth loose in evil and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother.

You slander your own mother’s son. By the way, a lot of these sins that are mentioned are sins of speech, slander, deceit and so forth. Verse 21, these things you’ve done and I kept silence. See, the wicked misinterpret God’s silence as if God were approving of it or as if God did not care about sin. But we know in scripture that God is silent because he’s patient. and he is giving opportunity for repentance. The psalmist says, you thought that I was just like you. I will reprove you and state the case in order before your eyes. God is ready to state his case against the wicked. And the prospect of that ought to be a fearful prospect for anyone who is apart from saving relationship with the Lord God through Jesus Christ. Again, verses 16 through 21 represent a stinging rebuke against the wicked and hypocritical, in other words, against the unconverted among God’s visible professed covenant people.

These were Israelites who could recite God’s commandments and covenants and who participated in the ritual life of the temple, but who were in fact wicked, hypocritical and unrepentant in their hearts and ungodly in their lives. Today, such would be churchgoers who have a formal external connection to the church but who don’t truly know or love or trust the Lord in their hearts, and who live wantonly, arrogantly ungodly lives outside of the life of the church. And so what does God have to say to those in that category? This brings us to the last two verses of this powerful psalm. Now consider this, you who forget God. This is a solemn warning that God issues to those who are wicked, those who cast God’s words behind their back. Consider this, you who forget God. or I will tear you in pieces and there will be none to deliver.” What a violent image that is.

God says, I’m going to tear you to pieces if you don’t take heed. He says, He who offers the sacrifice of thanksgiving honors me. And to him who orders his way aright, I shall show the salvation of God. This psalm closes again with a solemn warning to those who forget God, summoning them to order their way aright. This is not a call to seek salvation by works righteousness. Rather, to order your way aright, this is a language that is pointing to repentance and faith. Those who turn to the Lord in repentance and faith and seek his mercy, bearing the fruits of that repentance and faith, they are the ones who experience the salvation of God. To them, To those who order their way are right. In other words, those who repent and believe shall see the salvation of God.

Dear listener, have you experienced the salvation of the Lord? Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ in faith and repentance. And though you be wicked, though you be one who has forgotten God and has cast God’s word behind your back, God is willing to receive repentant sinners. Jesus’ arms are open and welcomes all who turn to him and receive and rest upon him. May you receive and rest upon him alone for your salvation from sin this evening. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord God and Father in heaven, we thank you that you are a God of mercy and grace, covenant faithfulness. And we thank you, O God, that you depend on no one or nothing. But we recognize that we are the dependent ones, O God. We need you, O God. Oh, how we need you.

Give us grace, O Lord, to recognize daily our utter dependence upon you and upon your mercy alone. And may we live our lives walking in the light of that dependence and trusting in you for all that we need. In Jesus’ name we pray and all of God’s people said, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

About this sermon

Psalm 48 praises the Lord, great in Mount Zion, the city of the great King, whom God has made known as a stronghold. Believers live in a dangerous world, and God promises to be their fortress in union with Christ. From Eden onward Scripture traces God’s purpose to dwell among his people, and in Christ his church is the living temple, the heavenly Mount Zion. The kings who came against Zion fled in panic, and God will guide his people until death.

More sermons from Psalms · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

This evening, as we continue to work our way through various psalms in the Book of Psalms, this evening we’re on Psalm 48. Psalm 48. Let us hear God’s holy word. This is entitled A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. in the city of our God, His holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion in the far north, the city of the great king. God in her palaces has made himself known as a stronghold. For lo, the kings assembled themselves. They passed by together. They saw it. Then they were amazed. They were terrified. They fled in alarm. Panic seized them there. Anguish as of a woman in childbirth. With the east wind, you break the ships of Tarshish. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of Hosts, in the city of our God.

God will establish her forever. Selah. We have thought on your loving kindness, O God, in the midst of your temple. As is your name, O God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is full of righteousness. Let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments. walk about Zion and go around her, count her towers, consider her ramparts, go through her palaces, that you may tell it to the next generation. For such is God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us until death. Dear friends, the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Amen. Please join me in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, once again, we ask that you would Open our eyes and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word.

We pray for the illumination of your spirit, and we ask, Lord God, that your word would go forth in grace and power. We pray all of these things in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is Yahweh is great. in Mount Zion. And remember, Yahweh is one of the names for God in the Bible. It is, in particular, the covenantal name for God. Whenever you see in an English translation the word Lord in all capital letters, that is the translators cluing you in to the fact that they are translating the Hebrew word Yahweh and the covenant name for God. There’s many key words to be listening for in my sermon this evening. If you find that to be helpful, Zion, king, city, dwelling, stronghold, covenant, praise, temple, and worship.

Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, we live in a dangerous world, don’t we? That’s reflected in a number of the song selections that we sang this evening. We do live in a dangerous world. We live in a world that is filled with opposition to God and God’s people. As fallen creatures living in a fallen, sin-cursed world, Even as believers, we are vulnerable, frail, subject to potential harm. For we’re all subject to the effects of the common curse. Because of the dangers of living in this fallen world, we naturally long for a sense of safety, a sense of security, a sense of stability and protection. While our Heavenly Father does not give us any absolute guarantees in this present age that we will be shielded from all of the potential dangers and harms that threaten us as creatures subject to the common curse.

The Bible makes it very clear, friends, that in union, in spiritual saving union with the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior, and in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit that we experience in Christ’s Church, our faithful covenant God promises to be our stronghold, our fortress. He promises also in his words to ultimately deliver us from all of his and our enemies, and he promises to make us impregnable from any ultimate spiritual harm. Our psalm for this evening reflects that ultimate protection that God promises for his people. For Yahweh, the Lord, our faithful covenant God, he is indeed a great king, as is revealed in verse 3 and throughout this passage. He is a great king who dwells among us in his holiness and who constitutes us in Christ as the great city of God, the heavenly Mount Zion.

As we read passages like this Zion psalm, this psalm of the son’s song of Zion in this passage, we are reminded of what the scriptures teach elsewhere throughout the scriptures about this theme of Mount Zion. I’m reminded, for example, of what the author of Hebrews writes under the inspiration of the Spirit in Hebrews 12 verses 22 to 24, where he reminds this suffering group of Christians that he’s writing to. He says, But you have come to Mount Sion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem and to myriads of angels, to the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn who are enrolled in heaven and to God, the judge of all and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect and to Jesus. the mediator of a new covenant and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Dear friends, Yahweh, our God, is indeed great in Mount Zion. As I mentioned in our psalm for this Lord’s Day evening, we consider one of these songs of Zion. And this psalm, of course, has close thematic ties. to the two preceding Psalms, to Psalms 46 and 47. One commentator describes Psalm 48, our psalm for tonight, as, quote, a Zion hymn praising the holy city as the invincible dwelling place of God. Unconquerable, it is an apt symbol of God who has defeated all enemies. After seven epithets describing the city, and we read of those in verses 2 and 3, the psalm describes the victory by the divine warrior over hostile kings, as described in verses 4 through 8. The second half proclaims the dominion of God, of Zion, over all the earth in verses 9 through 12, and invites pilgrims to announce that God is eternally invincible, like Zion itself.

And one of the things that’s interesting about this psalm is the phrase, or the term, our God. Our God. This, as another commentator points out, the phrase our God appears as a frame in verses 1 and 14, and also as the thematic center of this psalm. For example, look at verse 1. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of what? The city of our God, His holy mountain. And then you skip down to the end. of this psalm in verse 14. For such is God, our God, forever and ever. And then at the center, the heart of this psalm in verse 8. As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, God will establish her forever. This terminology reminds us of God’s promise in the covenant of grace.

What is the ultimate promise that God makes to us in his covenant of grace? He says, I will be God to you, I will be your God and you shall be my people. And of course, because of the saving work of Christ, that covenant is secured for us and we benefit from it. So with all of this in mind, as we as we work our way through this beautiful psalm this evening, we see, first of all, that God, that Yahweh, our God, is the great king who dwells among his covenant people. Yahweh, our God, is the great king who dwells among his covenant people. The psalm begins, Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. It is because God is great. He is awesome. He is glorious. He is majestic because Yahweh is great.

He is greatly to be praised. But notice he is to be praised. Of course, he’s to be praised out in the world. He’s to be praised everywhere. He reveals himself. But he is to be praised in the city of our God, his holy mountain. This language of the city of our God, the holy mountain of God, what is this referring to? Verse one, we read of the city of our God. Verse two, this city of God is described as the city of the great king, the city of the great king. It’s also described as his holy mountain and as Mount Zion. What is this referring to? Well, in the original context, the original setting of this psalm, the psalmist is no doubt referring to the temple and the mountain on which the temple was built, the Temple Mount.

And in this temple was a symbol of God’s palace or palaces. As it says in verse three, God in her palaces has made himself known as a stronghold. God’s palaces. This is referring to, this is a symbol of the royal dwelling place of God among his covenant people. That’s what the temple indicated. God’s royal dwelling in the midst of his covenant people. But remember, friends, that the tabernacle and later on the temple under the old covenant, what do they ultimately point to? What do they ultimately symbolize and signify? They point forward to Jesus Christ, for Christ is revealed in scripture to be the living divine temple. And not only that, in spiritual and saving union with Christ, it points to his people as the living temple in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, his church.

We’re all familiar, I imagine, with that beautiful prologue of John’s Gospel, John 1, verse 1 through 14. In the beginning was the Word, the Logos, And the word was with God and the word was God. That’s referring to Christ with respect to his divine nature, that he is one one in divine essence and being with the father and the Holy Spirit in the beginning was the word and the word was with God, meaning God, the father and the word was God. Jesus is God. But then if you go down to verse 14 in that passage and the word became flesh, and dwelt among us. He pitched his tent. He tabernacled among us. And in doing so, he fulfilled the tabernacle and temple imagery. Jesus Christ is the ultimate living temple on the holy mountain of the Lord.

But in Christ, the church, too, is a living temple. The number of passages of the New Testament that that we are reminded of when we consider this theme. For example, Ephesians 2 verses, and I’m just going to take you to a couple passages as we compare scripture with scripture. But if you look to Ephesians chapter 2, look at verses 19 through 21, where the apostle Paul is speaking of the church and he’s addressing in this particular passage, he’s addressing Gentile believers and he’s telling them that they’re no longer strangers from the covenant promises of God, from the covenant people of God. He says, So then you, you Gentile Christians, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God’s household. Having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building being fitted together is growing into what?

A holy temple in the Lord. When we read passages like our psalm for this evening, we need to read it redemptive. Historically, we need to read it with a view to where does this where is this ultimately and how is this ultimately fulfilled? Well, it’s ultimately fulfilled in Christ and in his church. And then if you one more passage in the New Testament, consider what the Apostle Peter writes in first Peter, chapter two, verses four and five, first Peter two, four and five. We read these words. And coming to him, coming to Christ as to a living stone, there Jesus is described as a living stone, coming to him as to a living stone, which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God. You also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house.

That’s a temple dwelling. A spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifice is acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So ultimately, beloved, we who are in Christ, we are the living temple of the Lord. We are Mount Zion. Because we are in union with Christ. Now, if you’re attentive in your studies of scripture, if you’re an attentive and diligent student of God’s word, the Bible, You will notice that a major theme that is revealed in scripture, a major theme that is interwoven throughout the scriptures, is the theme of God reestablishing his holy dwelling among humanity. God’s original royal palace, if you will, his royal dwelling amongst humanity was Eden. The Garden of Eden was God’s original holy garden temple dwelling among his image bearers, Adam and Eve. It was the place where God’s holy presence dwelt among them, and they were able to dwell directly in his presence because they were holy.

God created mankind, as our shorter catechism says. God created man, male and female, after his own image, in knowledge, righteousness, and holiness, with dominion over the creatures. Sadly, Adam and Eve did not remain in that original state. They fell into sin. They disobeyed. God’s command not to eat of the forbidden fruit. And so what does God do? He casts them out of Eden. He exiles them. When they fell into sin and were kicked out of Eden, humanity was exiled from the safety and security of the city of God, thrust out into the dangers and threats of the world outside of Eden. And so the history of redemption, beloved, is the history of God re-establishing his holy temple dwelling, his royal residence amongst mankind. This restoration of God’s dwelling among humanity was foreshadowed in the Old Covenant through the tabernacle and the temple.

And that’s why the Old Testament, you know, if you read through the Old Testament, it places a lot of emphasis on the temple and the structure of the temple and the furnishings of the temple and so forth. From our 21st century perspective, we read passages like that and we think, what’s going on here? Well, again, what is going on there is God is symbolizing and pointing us forward to Christ. God is saying, I am going to reestablish Eden. I’m going to reestablish my dwelling, my holy dwelling among humanity, my image bearers. And that’s what’s going on in the history of redemption. The tabernacle and temple under the old covenant pointed forward to the ultimate fulfillment of that reestablishment of God’s dwelling place. And that takes place in Christ, the word made flesh who came to dwell in our midst.

This restoration of God’s dwelling among humanity was again ultimately accomplished through the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is experienced by faith and in the fellowship of the spirit that is found in what our passage describes as the city of God. which ultimately that is referring to Christ’s body, his church. Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of God, the city of our God, his holy mountain. Beautiful in elevation, we are told, the joy of the whole earth. Now let’s pause there, going back to our passage and looking at verse two. Notice how Mount Zion is described here. It is described as beautiful in elevation, as the joy of the whole earth. But if you know anything about the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, it’s very modest in elevation as compared to other hills and mountains in the area, even in the region.

Dr. Van Gemeren says the beauty and joy are not inherent in Mount Zion because it is surrounded by higher mountains offering a better panoramic view. So what’s the psalmist talking about here when he describes this to the physical eyes of the flesh, a rather modest mountain elevation. Well, he goes on to say that the godly looked on the city, mountain and temple as symbols of God’s presence with his people. And therefore, the psalmist uses the geographical spatial references to express the joy of God’s people with the blessed presence of God. You see, in the tabernacle and the temple in Old Testament times, and here the focus is on the temple, the Temple Mount, all of these things were symbols to God’s people at that time of God’s dwelling in their midst. And God did indeed dwell in a special way on the Temple Mount.

And that was the place, by the way, of sacrifice. The temple was the place where atoning sacrifices were were offered, sacrifices which pointed forward to Christ’s ultimate sacrifice on the cross of Calvary. And the point here is that the psalmist’s focus in verse 2 is not on the literal elevation of Mount Zion, for again, other mountains were higher in elevation, more majestic in terms of physical elevation. Rather, the psalmist is giving a spiritual and redemptive historical perspective from a spiritual and religious standpoint, Mount Zion and what it represents is far, far greater than even the loftiest mountain in terms of physical elevation. And the psalmist uses some interesting language here. He says, beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion in the far north. Now, some of your translations may read beyond Zaphon.

In fact, that is its literal translation. As one commentator points out, he says regarding beyond Zaphon, that’s the literal translation. He says, this is not a reference to Jerusalem, but to a mountain often described in Canaanite texts as the dwelling place of their gods. He goes on to say, Yahweh is described in terms used by the neighboring religions to show that all praise really belongs to the true God. Praise to other gods is in vain because they do not. In other words, in this terminology that the psalmist is using here, there is a subtle anti-polytheistic polemic going on. The psalmist is subtly jabbing, taking jabs against the false gods and false religions of Israel’s pagan nation, neighbors, when he says that beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion in the far north.

He’s basically subtly saying there, It’s not these other gods, it is the true and living God who indeed is to be worshipped and who dwells in the midst of his people. And then he goes on to say, God in her palaces has made himself known as a stronghold. God has made himself known as a stronghold. Some of your translations say as a fortress. As the old covenant people of God walked about Mount Zion, they walked about the Temple Mount and they looked at the temple and they considered what these things signified. Their thoughts were to turn to God himself and God’s royal dwelling in their midst. What a privilege it was and what a privilege it is to have God dwell in their midst, in our midst. He dwells in our midst through Christ and by his Spirit.

And he dwelt among them. And the symbol of that was the Temple and the Temple Mount, Mount Zion. And this reminded them that God was their fortress. God was their protector. Now, the people of God in Old Testament times, the Jews sometimes adopted sort of a superstitious view, a view that, well, we’ve got the Temple in our midst and that’s our security. They trusted in the temple rather than in that which the temple pointed to. The strength of Mount Zion, the beautiful elevation of Mount Zion, the Temple Mount, was a symbol of God’s dwelling in their midst. These symbols were meant to point to the spiritual reality of God himself reestablishing his royal, holy dwelling in the midst of his sinful people. And the reason he could do that was because he himself provided atonement for their sins, as was signified in the sacrifices and ultimately fulfilled, of course, in Christ and his sacrifice for our sins.

Now, as we go on in this in this passage for this evening, we notice next that Yahweh, the great king, secures the city of God against its enemies. Yahweh, the Great King, secures the city of God against its enemies. And in verses 4 through 8, these verses reflect a situation where the city was attacked by foreign adversaries, perhaps a group of kings that came against the city, but were defeated because of God’s presence with His people. And so, the psalmist reminds his readers, he says, for Lo, The kings assembled themselves. What particular historical situation is he referring to? Some have suggested this has reference to what happened when Sennacherib tried to threaten the city of Jerusalem and so forth. We don’t know what exactly, what the historical circumstances were particularly, but the psalmist reminds the people of God that God has defended this city in the past.

We can rely upon him. He says, for lo, the kings assembled themselves. They passed by together. They saw it. Then they were amazed. They were terrified. They fled in alarm. Panic seized them there. Anguish as of a woman in childbirth. In other words, this terror suddenly came upon them. It’s one of the things that God did when he went with his people. He caused their enemies to fear before them. and the language of anguish as of a woman in childbirth reflects the suddenness of this anguish, the suddenness of this fear, this panic, this God-given panic that was poured out upon these enemies of God’s people. And then, with the east wind, you break the ships of Tarshish. The ships of Tarshish were well-built, sturdy, seafaring ships that were able to go long distances in the Mediterranean.

Some have suggested that these were perhaps ships built and used by the Phoenicians built in what is now Spain. But whatever the case may be, God sends an east wind and breaks even the ships of Tarshish, these mighty, sturdy ships. And then he goes on to say in verse eight, As we have heard, so we have seen in the city of the Lord of hosts, in the city of our God, God will establish her. forever. We have heard, we have heard, and now we have seen. He’s saying we’ve heard, we’ve heard the stories about how God was with our forefathers, how he delivered Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans, how he delivered Israel out of slavery in Egypt. We’ve heard all of the stories of God’s mighty works for his people in the past, but now we have seen it.

We’ve seen it with God defending his city against these kings that had assembled themselves for the destruction of the city. And what does this lead to? It leads to the conclusion God will establish her forever. Now what is the takeaway for us living today under the new covenant? Obviously God did in redemptive history allow the temple to be eventually overrun because of the people’s unfaithfulness and breaking of the covenant. God did ultimately exile them from the land. and sent them into exile, just as he had sent Adam and Eve into exile, so he sent his people Israel into exile to the east. But God will establish her forever in the spiritual sense, in the sense that we are secure in Christ. The city of God will not be ultimately defeated because the city of God is the people of God, the people among whom God dwells. with his royal, covenantal, holy presence.

And this is all made possible because of God’s loving kindness, his covenant love for his people. And this brings me to my final point. As we look at briefly at verses nine through 14, we see that God’s people rejoice in their corporate worship as they contemplate the covenant love of God. Verse nine, we have thought on your loving kindness, O God. Your loving kindness, some translations say your steadfast love. I believe this is referring to God’s covenant love, his love by which he binds himself in mercy and grace to his people. We have fought on your loving kindness, O God. And when and where have they fought on his loving kindness? In the midst of your temple, your temple, this symbol of God’s holy royal presence in the midst of his people. And then it goes on to say in verse 10, as is your name, O God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is full of righteousness. What is the context here? What is the setting here? It is clear. It would seem to be clear from verse nine that the setting here is corporate worship. God’s people had experienced God’s deliverance from a military adversary that threatened of a city of God that threatened the temple mount. God had delivered them and had established once again, shown himself to be the stronghold, the fortress of his people. And so they think on, they reflect upon God’s mighty works for them as they reflect upon his steadfast love, his loving kindness in the midst of your temple, in the midst of their worship as they are in God’s holy presence there in the temple. As is your name, O God, so is your praise to the ends of the earth.

Your right hand is full of righteousness. God has demonstrated his righteousness in delivering his people from their enemies and indeed securing Mount Zion. And so the conclusion is, let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments. Walk about Zion. Go around her. Count her towers. Consider her ramparts. Go through her palaces. that you may tell it to the next generation.” And here the psalmist is urging these believers, living as they do in the Old Covenant context, to tell the next generation what these things mean, what this temple means, what is the significance of Mount Zion, what is the significance of the towers and the ramparts and all of the setting there. on Mount Zion. It points to the reality of God. For such is God, our God forever and ever.

He will guide us until death. My friends, in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit, as one commentator puts it, the true Mount Zion is a heavenly reality that is known in the earthly assembly of the saints. Again, In Christ and through the Holy Spirit, the true Mount Zion is the heavenly reality that is known in the earthly assembly of the saints. In other words, beloved, we who belong to Christ, we are the city of God, not because we are more worthy or more righteous than our unbelieving neighbors. No, we are sinners saved by grace. Remember, in Old Testament times when when God went to dwell among his people, He had to warn them to let no unclean thing enter the camp where the Lord’s special royal presence, his saving presence would be, lest his wrath be poured upon them.

But Christ has taken the wrath of God upon himself on the cross. Christ has fulfilled all of that symbolism, for he is the Lamb of God who takes away our sin. And therefore, because of Christ’s obedience and sacrifice God’s presence, his holy royal presence, once again can dwell in the midst of his image bearers, and even in the midst of sinful image bearers like us, because Christ has taken our sin upon himself and clothed us in his perfect, everlasting righteousness. Beloved, we who belong to Christ, we are the city of God. God does dwell in our midst, and we experience that especially in holy worship. When we gather for worship, we don’t just gather to hear some guy flap his jaws about the Bible. We don’t just gather to sing some hymns. We gather into the presence of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Indeed, he comes to dwell in our midst. He is present in Christ and through the Holy Spirit. As we gather in the name of Christ, and that’s why we gather around his word to hear it read and proclaimed. That is why we gather to offer him our praises and our prayers and our adoration. That is why we confess and reaffirm our faith in him. We do these things because he is here by his spirit. We experience that through the word and in the context, especially of corporate worship. And dear listener, this side of glory, we experience this reality of God dwelling in our midst again, especially in the context of corporate worship and the fellowship of the church. Indeed, the spirit does dwell in us as individuals, and we do experience his presence individually in the Lord as we worship him and commune with him.

But he especially is present with us as we are gathered in holy worship, for we have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem. And we have come to these spiritual heavenly realities in and through Christ. Christ is our divine warrior. He has defeated all of his and our enemies. He did so by dying for us and rising victorious from the dead. He intercedes for us at the father’s right hand. And therefore, he is great. Yahweh, our Lord, is great on Mount Zion. We can say with the psalmist, greatest the Lord and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, his holy mountain. And that he has made himself known as a stronghold. God in Christ is our stronghold. He is our fortress. He is our refuge. And though, again, we still live in a dangerous, sin-cursed world, we still feel the effects of living in this fallen, sin-cursed world.

Let us be assured. that God is our fortress. He is our strength. He has come to dwell in our midst. He is the great king over all the earth. And we are the city in Christ. We are the city of the great king. So let us rest in him. Amen. Let us pray. Great God and Heavenly Father, we thank you, Lord, for the truth of your word. We thank you for the presence of your spirit with us. We thank you that you are our stronghold, our refuge. Lord, we need safety. We need security. We need strength. Lord, we thank you that you have promised to guard us and to guide us even until death. We pray that the truth that we’ve considered this evening might find a powerful lodging place in our souls and bear much spiritual fruit in our lives that brings glory to your name.

May we be comforted and challenged and encouraged and blessed by these truths. In Jesus name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

About this sermon

Psalm 47 calls all peoples to clap their hands and shout to God, the great King over all the earth. God subdued the nations before Israel and chose their inheritance, and ‘God has ascended with a shout’ points to Christ’s ascension and enthronement. Christ now reigns at the Father’s right hand, and he is putting all his enemies under his feet. Through him the blessing of Abraham reaches the Gentiles, so all who belong to Christ are Abraham’s heirs.

More sermons from Psalms · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s Word, my sermon text this evening, as we continue to work our way through various select Psalms. Tonight we consider Psalm 47, a jubilant psalm of praise. Let us hear God’s holy word, Psalm 47. It is entitled for the choir director, Psalm of the Sons of Korah. Oh, clap your hands, all peoples. Shout to God with the voice of joy. For the Lord Most High is to be feared, a great king over all the earth. He subdues peoples under us and nations under our feet. He chooses our inheritance for us. The glory of Jacob, whom he loves. Selah. God has ascended with a shout. The Lord with the sound of a trumpet Sing praises to God, sing praises. Sing praises to our King, sing praises. For God is the King of all the earth.

Sing praises with a skillful psalm. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne. The princes of the people have assembled themselves as the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God. He is highly exalted. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Please remain standing as we ask the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. Gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we ask that you would grant that we would truly hear your word this evening, that by your Holy Spirit, you would open our eyes to see and our ears to hear that which the Spirit is instructing us in. in this portion of your God-breathed, inerrant, infallible Word. We ask, Lord God, that you would cause your Word to find a lodging place in our souls and to bear much spiritual fruit in our lives.

We ask all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen. Congregation, you may be seated. The title of my sermon this evening is, of all the earth. Well, dear ones, what do you think the central theme of this jubilant psalm is? Well, it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The central theme of this joyful and celebratory psalm is clearly the theme of God’s universal kingship and sovereign reign over all the nations of humanity. As the inspired psalmist tells us in verse 7, God is the king of all the earth. I think the introductory note to this psalm in the NIV study Bible describes this psalm well when it describes it as a quote celebration of the universal reign of Israel’s God, a testimony to the nations. This psalm belongs to a group of hymns to the great king found elsewhere clustered in Psalms 92 through 100.

Here, it serves to link Psalm 46 and 48, identifying the God who reigns in Zion as the Great King over all the earth. The God of Israel, the God who reigns in Zion, is not limited to Zion. He is, indeed, sovereign over all the earth and over all of the nations. Another commentator states that, quote, this is a psalm similar to Psalm 93 and 95 through celebrating the enthronement of Jehovah as king of the whole earth. It is an eschatological hymn with a liturgical character. Now, what was the original setting, the historical setting behind the composition of this psalm, the historical setting that led the psalmist under God’s divine superintendence to pen this glorious poem, this glorious psalm to the Lord? Well, the original setting that led to the composition of this beautiful psalm is uncertain, and it’s unstated by the psalmist.

But while various historical and liturgical settings have been suggested by Bible scholars, it is quite possible that this psalm reflects a situation where God has granted his people a military victory over a hostile foreign power, thereby showing himself to be the great and universal king, the king who, as it says in verse three, subdues peoples under us. Now, if you are familiar with the history of Israel in Old Testament times, you know that sometimes in the Old Testament, when Israel went into battle against a foreign adversary, sometimes the priest would take the Ark of the Covenant from the tabernacle or temple and carry the Ark into battle along with the Israelite army. Now, what was the Ark of the Covenant? What did that symbolize? Well, remember that the Ark of the Covenant was a symbol of God’s throne, of God’s gracious covenant presence and royal reign in the midst of his people.

And so to have this symbol of God’s reign, God’s kingship, accompanying them into battle would have been very encouraging to God’s people. The presence of the Ark of the Covenant accompanying God’s people into battle in a sense depicted God leaving his palace temple and his throne to go with his people as their divine warrior to fight their battles as the captain of their salvation. Perhaps this psalm was sung at the return of the Ark into its place in the temple or tabernacle following a military victory, and if so, the return of the Ark to its place in the temple was like a symbolic enthronement of God, the return of God ascending back onto his throne after having left his throne to rescue and fight for his people. This may be reflected in the ascension language that the psalmist uses in verse 5.

If you look at verse 5, it says God has ascended with a shout. The Lord with the sound of a trumpet. We can picture the Israelites bringing the Ark of the Covenant back into its place in the Temple and the people, after having defeated a foreign adversary, and the people praising God and blowing trumpets or ram’s horns in praise to Yahweh, their God, who has granted them this victory and acknowledging God’s kingship and enthronement. Well, friends, it is because of this ascension language that we find in this psalm and also because of the prophetic language at the end of the psalm which depicts the shields or kings of the earth assembling together as the people of the God of Abraham. It’s because of this that the great reformer Martin Luther viewed this psalm, and I think rightly so, as a prophecy of Christ.

To quote from Martin Luther, he says, the 47th psalm is a prophecy of Christ that he shall rise up and become king over all the world without a battle simply through shouts, songs and trumpet calls, that is, through the joyful preaching of the gospel, just as the walls of Jericho fell by trumpet blasts and shouts without any weapons at all. So as we as we turn our attention to this short but powerful and celebratory psalm, we notice, first of all, as we focus on the first four verses, is that in this psalm we have a universal call to praise in recognition of Yahweh the Lord as the great king over all the earth. The psalmist here issues a universal call to praise in recognition of Yahweh as the great king over all the earth. It says in verse 1, Oh clap your hands, all peoples, not just clap your hands and celebrate and shout for joy, you people of Israel, but clap your hands, all peoples, shout to God with the voice of joy.

Here again, we see this psalm beginning with a universal call to praise, summoning all peoples. The NIV reads, all you nations to praise the Lord with great celebration. Verse two, it goes on to say, it gives us the reason why All the peoples should praise the Lord and shout to God with the voice of joy. For the Lord Most High, Yahweh Most High, is to be feared a great king over all the earth. God summons all of humanity to come before God in praise, recognizing that he is the most high over all the earth and coming to him in a spirit of reverent awe. all of humanity is called to reverence and fear God, for he is a great king over all the earth.” And it’s interesting, this description of God as a great king over all the earth.

Dr. Willem van Gemmeren points out that, and I quote him, he says, “…kings in the ancient Near East loved to designate themselves by this title, because with it were associated superiority, suzerainty, and the power to grant vassal treaties.” any king, assuming this title, could not tolerate competition. So it is with Yahweh. He alone is the great king over all the earth. And so these ancient Near Eastern pagan kings liked to call themselves, like, for example, the king of Assyria, the king of all the earth, the great king, the God alone, Yahweh alone is the great king over all the earth. And as the great king of over all the earth, as Van Gemeren says, he alone He alone is the great king, and he will tolerate no competition. And then it goes on to say in verse three, he subdues peoples under us.

Yahweh, the God of Israel, the true and living God, subdues peoples under us and nations under our feet. What do you think the psalmist is talking about here? Well, if you know again, if you are familiar with Old Testament history, you know that God having rescued his people from Israel, he indeed did subdue multitudes of nations, many nations, under the Israelites in their conquest of Canaan. In Old Testament times, God subdued nations, first of all, by bringing judgments upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and especially through the conquest in the Promised Land. But this points us forward to Jesus. For Jesus Christ, by his resurrection victory and ascension into heaven, And his enthronement at the father’s right hand through this Christ himself is even now in possession or rather now in the process of subduing all things, even unto himself.

As we think about what it says in in verse three about God subduing peoples under us, the nations under our feet, keep that thought and turn into the New Testament to first Corinthians 15. And let’s let me read to you, beginning at verse at verse 20. The Apostle Paul picks up on this theme of God subduing the creation to the Lord Jesus Christ. It says this, and the topic here in 1 Corinthians 15 is obviously the resurrection of the dead and Christ’s resurrection in particular. It says, But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, that would be Adam, By a man also came the resurrection of the dead. That would be the second Adam, Christ. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

But each in his own order. Christ, the firstfruits. After that, those who are Christ’s at his coming. Then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to God, to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and authority and power. For he must reign until he has what? Put all his enemies under his feet, the last enemy that will be abolished is death. For he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is accepted who put all things in subjection to him. When all things are subjected to him, then the son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him so that God may be all in all. Christ, our crucified, risen, ascended, enthroned, reigning Lord, reigns as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And he is even now in the process of subduing all things unto himself. And he will do that in a consummate sense when he returns in glory, raises the dead and judges humanity, separating the sheep from the goats and so forth. And so again, getting back to our psalm, he subdues peoples under us. and nations under our feet. And then verse four, he chooses our inheritance for us, the glory of Jacob, whom he loves. What inheritance did this psalmist have in mind when he says that God chooses our inheritance for us? Well, in terms of old covenant typology, this is obviously talking about the promised land. which God gave to his people Israel under the mosaic administration of the covenant. But ultimately, in terms of fulfillment, this is our inheritance of eternal salvation in Christ.

This inheritance language, for example, we find in the New Testament as well in places like first Peter one versus three through five, and I’ll again just read that passage briefly to you. First Peter chapter one. Peter’s opening doxology here. He says in first Peter one beginning at verse three, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to obtain a what to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Brothers and sisters in Christ, our inheritance is not just the promise of a piece of real estate in the Middle East.

Our inheritance in Christ is the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. The inheritance that the Israelites received under the Old Covenant was a type of that, a picture of the ultimate Canaan, the new Canaan. the heavenly Canaan and the heavenly Jerusalem. And that is the inheritance that God has chosen for us, his believing people, and that we look forward to. Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us heed the psalmist’s call of praise to recognize our great God and indeed to recognize his son, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the great king over all the earth. And let us also strive to honor our Savior’s Lordship over our own hearts and lives. For he is indeed King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So we see this universal call to praise Yahweh for his universal reign.

But next, in verses five through seven, we see the Lord’s ascension to his throne, Yahweh’s ascension to his throne. Verse five says, God has ascended with a shout, the Lord, with the sound of a trumpet. And that trumpet there is probably referring to a ram’s horn. And you know, if you know about the liturgy in Israel, they were to blow trumpets on particular special occasions. And certainly, if this is an occasion where God’s enthronement as king is celebrated, whether because of a military victory and the Ark being returned to the tabernacle or temple or some other occasion of worship. The people of God sound forth with trumpets and announced with the trumpet blast that the Lord Yahweh is indeed the king. He indeed reigns over all. Verse five, if this if this reflects the liturgy celebrating God’s enthronement over Israel, or perhaps, as I mentioned, the return of the Ark of the Covenant to its place in the temple. then this is but a picture and a type of Christ’s ascension and enthronement at the father’s right hand in heavenly glory, having as our divine warrior and the captain of our salvation, conquered sin and death and hell.

One commentator describes this verse, verse five, as the quote height and center of the psalm where the king who came down has, so to speak, completed his task and gone up to reign on his holy throne. Yet he is with his people. The same words are used in 2 Samuel 6, 15 to recall the ark of the Lord going up to the city of David, making it the place of God’s dwelling. Christ ascended to, quote, fill all things, as we’re told in Ephesians 4, verses 9 and 10, after once coming down to atone for sins when he ascended the throne on the cross. So we have God depicted as, in a sense, coming down from his throne to go and do battle with his people for his people as the captain of their salvation and having conquered all of his and their enemies, returning to his throne amidst shouts of joy.

Isn’t that a wonderful picture of what our Lord Jesus Christ did in his incarnation as he left his throne in glory, took upon himself our humanity, went to the cross and died for our sins? rose from the dead. And then what did he do after his resurrection? Ascended back to the Father’s right hand, where he was enthroned as King of Kings and Lord of Lords and where he intercedes for us. And it is from that throne of glory that one day he will return to judge the living and the dead. So this psalm, again, has an eschatological focus to it as well. So God has ascended with a shout. This God who is the King of all the peoples on earth. And as verse six points out, God’s ascension to his throne calls for jubilant praise, sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises to our king, sing praises repeatedly over and over.

What is our response? What is the response of God’s people to be in light of Christ’s ascension? Christ having conquered sin and death and hell and the devil and ascended into heaven and reigns at the right hand of the Father. What is our appropriate response? As the psalmist says, sing praises to God, sing praises. But as we consider the final verses in this beautiful and brief psalm, we see in verses eight and nine God’s universal reign and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. We see here God’s universal reign and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. Again, the psalmist asserts God’s universal reign in verse 8. God reigns over the nations, not just over his holy nation, Israel, but over all of the nations of humanity. God reigns over the nations. God sits on his holy throne.

The picture of God sitting on his throne means that his reign is a settled reign. It cannot be challenged. He indeed is sovereign. He indeed is in control, and he is working all things according to the counsel of his sovereign will. But then we have these mysterious and beautiful words in verse nine. The princes of the people have assembled themselves as the people of the God of Abraham. The princes of what people? Is this speaking specifically or only of God’s people? Well, in light of what the statement in verse 8, it would seem contextually to make sense that the psalmist here is speaking of the princes of the nations, the rulers of the nations, and that is underscored, that interpretation is supported. When we look at the language of the shields of the earth belonging to God, Some of your translations may say the rulers of the earth belong to God.

That’s because the term shields is probably referring to the rulers of the nations. The rulers are represented by their shields. And they are assembled together as the people of the God of Abraham. This is an eschatological and prophetic statement. This is a statement where the psalmist, through the spirit of prophecy, points us forward to a time when the covenant that God made with Abraham would reach its fulfillment, which of course it does in Christ. For what did God promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12, verse 3? God said to Abraham, and in you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. In you, all the families of the earth will be blessed. God didn’t just say to Abraham, Abraham, I’m going to make you into a great nation, but too bad for the rest of humanity.

No. In you, all the nations of the earth, all the families of the earth will be blessed. And that, of course, is fulfilled in Christ. This covenant, this covenant promise that God made to Abraham is ultimately fulfilled in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and in this new covenant era when the gospel is to be preached to all the nations of the earth. The Apostle Paul in many places, but especially, for example, in Galatians 3 speaks of this. If we turn, let me just review a few verses from Galatians chapter 3 that are pertinent here. Galatians 3 Verses 7 and 8, the Apostle Paul writes this, speaking of the covenant that God made with Abraham. It says in verse 7 of Galatians chapter 3, Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.

Remember that little Sunday school ditty? Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. You don’t have to be of Jewish descent. to be a child of Abraham. It is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham. And then it goes on to say in verse 8, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. And then skip down to verse 13 and 14. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone. who hangs on a tree in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

And then again, skip down to verses 26 through 29, a wonderful summary of this teaching of this covenantal unity that is revealed throughout redemptive history. It says, For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who are baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, notice verse 29, if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise. Praise be to God. He keeps his covenant promises, and he’s able to do so, for he is the God, the great King of all the earth. In conclusion, beloved, God is indeed the great King over all the earth, and Jesus Christ is Lord of all.

Let us recognize and submit to his universal reign, and let us praise God for his covenant mercies to us in Christ our Savior. Amen. Let us pray. Our gracious Lord and Father in heaven, sovereign and eternal God. We thank you, O Lord, for the unity of Holy Scripture, which leads us to and anticipates and reveals Jesus. And we thank you, Lord Jesus, that you are indeed King of Kings and Lord of Lords. We pray, Lord Jesus, that you would reign as King and Lord of our hearts and lives. May you be King and Head and Lord of this church. May you be king and head and lord of our families. And we ask, O Jesus, that we might honor your lordship and seek to honor it in every area of our lives. In your name we pray.

And all of God’s people said, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

About this sermon

Psalm 46 declares, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,’ so his people will not fear though the earth gives way. A river makes glad the city of God, a picture fulfilled in the river of life flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb. God makes wars cease, and he will be exalted among the nations. The Lord of hosts is with us in Christ, Emmanuel, who promises to be with his people always.

More sermons from Psalms · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

As we continue our study of the Psalter, select psalms from the book of Psalms, this evening we’re going to consider a wonderful psalm, a psalm that served as the basis for Martin Luther’s glorious hymn, Mighty Fortress is Our God. Psalm 46. Psalm 46. Let us hear God’s holy word. This is entitled for the choir director, A Psalm of the Sons of Korah. set to Alamoth, a song. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change, and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride, Selah. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. the holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved.

God will help her when morning dawns. The nations made an uproar, the kingdoms tottered. He raised his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold, Selah. Come behold the works of the Lord, who has wrought desolations in the earth. He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariots with fire. Cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Selah. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Friends, let’s join our hearts in prayer before God. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we do indeed praise you and thank you that you are our refuge, our strength, a very present help in trouble.

We ask that you would be present with us this evening by your Holy Spirit, opening our minds and our hearts to behold wondrous things from your word. And once again, we ask that you would set a guard over my lips that I might speak only that which is faithful for the edification of your people, the salvation of the lost, and the glorification of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for it is in his name that we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen. You may be seated. As you see in your bulletin, the title of my sermon this evening is Our Stronghold, and there’s quite a number of key words to be listening for. Again, if you find that to be helpful in following along with the sermon. Well, Psalm 46 is one of those psalms that is known as the Songs of Zion.

It’s one of the Songs of Zion. Dr. Willem van Gemmeren, as I pointed out just a moment ago, Dr. van Gemmeren says that this psalm has been popularized by Martin Luther’s rendition, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. And he goes on to say, as a Song of Zion, included with such psalms as Psalm 48, 76, 84, 87, 122, all of them songs of Zion. This psalm, Psalm 46, celebrates the presence of God. Think about it. God is present with us, his people. As you listened to me read this psalm this evening, what would you say was the main theme of this psalm? Well, if you listen carefully, it seems clear, brothers and sisters, that the major theme of this psalm is bold confidence in God, even in the midst of trouble. This psalm communicates to us as God’s people that in spite of the troubles that come our way in this lost, sin-cursed world, we can be confident that indeed God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in time of need.

When we think about what type of a psalm this is, how we might classify this psalm type, it is indeed a psalm of confidence and joy that celebrates God’s deliverance, but it is also an eschatological psalm that contains a prophetic and eschatological emphasis that points God’s people forward in time to the universal peace and security that God promises in the messianic age. Friends, ultimately, this psalm, this beautiful and powerful psalm, is fulfilled in our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. For Christ is the Lord of hosts who is with us. He is revealed in Scripture as Emmanuel, as God with us, as the prophet Isaiah prophesied that he would be in Isaiah 7, verse 14, and as Matthew’s Gospel in Matthew 1, 23 reveals him to be Emmanuel. God with us. In Jesus our Lord, God is indeed a very present help in trouble.

So let’s dive in to this beautiful portion of God’s Word as we first of all consider, beloved, that God is revealed in this psalm. God is the stronghold and the joy of his people. God is revealed here as the stronghold and the joy of his people. Let’s focus, first of all, on the first three verses. Let me read these verses again. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. And then in verses two and three, he gives us a picture. In picturesque language, he depicts this trouble. He says, therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change. And though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.” Here we see that God is a stronghold even in the midst of chaos, indeed, even in the midst of cosmic turmoil.

Oftentimes when trouble confronts God’s people, we as God’s people are tempted to think that God is absent from us, that he is far away, that he’s not present. But this psalm opens up with this glorious verse expressing the confidence of God’s children. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Now, you may notice, as an aside, that this psalm, the main name for God that is used is simply God, the Hebrew Elohim, although Yahweh, the covenant name for God, does show up a few times in this psalm. And one of the characteristics of Book II of the Psalter is that most of the psalms within Book II of the Book of Psalms, the overall Book of Psalms, the Psalter, most of these psalms refer to God with the Hebrew word Elohim rather than Yahweh.

But even so, in this psalm, we are reminded that God is the Lord, Yahweh, our covenant-keeping, covenant-making God. And He is a stronghold. God is our refuge and strength. Even though God often seems far from us when we go through trouble, this assures us that God is with us, His people, as our very present help in trouble. our health control, but he’s a very present help in our time of need. And then verses 2 and 3 contain the language, the prophetic language of cosmic upheaval. Because of our confidence in God as our refuge and strength, even violent upheavals in the natural order should not unsettle us or shake our confidence in God. And look at the imagery that we have here. The psalmist talks about the earth changing. Now, the ancients did not understand, as we do today with our modern scientific understanding of the world, about the earth and its place in the solar system and all of that.

They did not understand it to the extent that we understand it today. And it was very concerning that earth be stable. That’s why sometimes the Bible poetically refers to the pillars of the earth. It’s not to say that the earth is literally resting on pillars, but that language is used to communicate the stability of the earth. But here, the psalmist depicts a situation where the very order of creation is dissolving into chaos. God, in the beginning of the creation, brought order out of the chaos waters, as Genesis 1-2 tells us. But here is depicted sort of the imagery of decreation. that the earth should change, and the mountains slip into the heart of the sea. What great tumults would cause mountains to slip into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride?

Again, remember that in the ancient Near Eastern mind, the waters were often viewed as chaotic, so chaotic that not even the gods could control them, but God’s people knew that Yahweh, the Lord, Elohim, the true and living God, that He was not subject to the chaos waters. He brought those waters into order. He determined the boundaries of the sea. But here we have the chaos waters roaring and foaming. In spite of these cosmic upheavals, we as God’s people need not fear because we know that God is sovereign, that He is in control. And again, this language and imagery of violent cosmic upheavals in the natural order, this language is probably apocalyptic language intended to symbolize chaotic upheavals in the political and international order, especially threats to Israel from hostile foreign powers. If you read the prophets of the Old Testament, oftentimes we’ll find similar kind of language.

In fact, the Old Testament prophets, they sometimes talk about the stars falling from the sky. And of course, you know, the modern skeptic may say, oh, we know that the stars can’t fall from the sky. I mean, if that were to happen, then the stars are huge. They would dissolve the earth. But that language is not intended to be interpreted in a woodenly literal fashion. That kind of violent cosmic upheaval language is often employed to speak of the chaos that was going on among Israel’s neighbors and the threats from Israel’s neighbors, especially foreign gentile powers that threatened God’s covenant people with political and international chaos. And so the situation here that the psalmist faces is probably one such situation. That seems to be the case when we skip down to verse nine and we read about wars, God causing wars to cease and breaking the bow and cutting the spear in two.

So he’s probably using this language of cosmic upheaval to point to international and political chaos that was threatening God’s people at that time. And then in verses four through seven, the psalmist begins using another interesting image here. He talks about the river of God in the city of God. And we’re going to we’re going to pause here. We’re going to do a little bit of comparing scripture with scripture for just a little bit as we try to get to what’s going on here. Let me read these verses again, verses four through seven. There is a river whose stream makes glad the city of God. And let me pause there. What is the city of God? Well, that’s referring to Jerusalem. But of course, there’s no river in Jerusalem. What’s he talking about? Well, let’s read on and I’ll comment on that in a few moments.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy dwelling places of the most high. Notice the emphasis on God dwelling, dwelling with his people. Verse five, God is in the midst of her. She will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. The nation’s made an uproar. The kingdom’s tottered. He raised his voice, the earth melted. And then we have this refrain that gets repeated at the end of this psalm and serves as a bookend to it. Here in the middle of the psalm, verse seven, the Lord of hosts, Yahweh of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold or fortress as it is translated in some versions. Now let’s go back to verse four. What’s he talking about when he says that there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God?

Well, to quote from one commentator, Jerusalem had no river, unlike Thebes, Damascus, Nineveh or Babylon. Yet she had a, quote, river. Here, the river serves as a metaphor for the continual outpouring of the sustaining and refreshing blessings of God, which make the city of God like the Garden of Eden. As this commentator points out, the imagery here in Psalm 46, the imagery of the river in the city of God, of the river God in the city of God, this harkens back to the rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Eden. And therefore, it points us forward to paradise restored. Now, let’s go back to We’re going to compare some scripture with scripture here as we trace this theme of the river of God a little bit throughout the scriptures. Let’s go back to Genesis 2 and look at verses 10 through 14.

Genesis chapter 2, verses 10 through 14. And here we read that in the Garden of Eden, there were four rivers. Genesis 2, beginning at verse 10, it says, Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is Pishon. It flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. The gold of that land is good. The Delium and Onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is Gihon. It flows around the whole land of Cush. The name of the third river is Tigris. We’re familiar with that, right? It flows east of Assyria, and the fourth river is the Euphrates. So there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. Jerusalem of old and its temple was a depiction of paradise restored.

It was a depiction of the Garden of Eden, where God dwelt with Adam and Eve and walked with them. The temple and the city of Jerusalem depicted God coming back to dwell in the midst of his people. And let’s look at some scripture passages that point us forward to how this river will continue to serve as a source of refreshment for God’s people. Let’s turn to Isaiah 33 verses 20 to 21 where we have again this this image of the river, these literal rivers that that flowed from the Garden of Eden that serves as a theme that God uses that the Spirit uses to teach us spiritual lessons here. If you look at Isaiah 33, look at verses 20 and 21. The prophet Isaiah is speaking of the judgment of God, but he says, Look upon Zion, the city of our appointed feast.

Your eyes will see Jerusalem and undisturbed habitation, a tent which will not be folded. Its stakes will never be pulled up, nor any of its cords torn apart. But there the majestic one, the Lord, will be for us a place of what? A place of rivers and wide canals on which no boat with oars will go and on which no mighty ship will pass. And then verse 22, for the Lord is our judge. The Lord is our lawgiver. The Lord is our king. He will save us. The speech there of the holy city, it speaks of Zion and there being a river and wide canals. in that holy city. And then if you skip ahead to Isaiah 43 and let’s look at 19 through 21. Isaiah 43 verses 19 through 21. We read these words again as in this prophecy of the destruction of Babylon.

It says the following here, God says, behold, I will do something new. Now it will spring forth. Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. The beasts of the field will glorify me, the jackals and the ostriches, because I have given waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert to give drink to my chosen people. The people whom I have formed for myself will declare my praise. Again, we see this imagery of God providing a river to refresh his people, even in the midst of a desert. Or skip ahead to what is probably the most famous passage in the scriptures about the river of God flowing from the city of God. Ezekiel 47, Ezekiel chapter 47. I’m going to read a number of verses from that passage.

This is in the midst of Ezekiel’s vision of a new temple to be built. And by the way, as an aside, I believe that this passage from Ezekiel 47 points to the fact that this temple that Ezekiel was given instructions for, for the rebuilding of it, that this is not a literal temple. This is a visionary, this is a vision that Ezekiel is receiving from the Lord to instruct God’s people about God’s dwelling in the midst of his people. And it says this, let me just read the first 12 verses here. Then he brought me back to the door of the house and behold, water was flowing from under the threshold of the house. The house there is talking about the temple in Jerusalem flowing toward the east for the house face east and the water was flowing down from under from the right side of the house, from south of the altar.

He brought me out by way of the north gate and led me around on the outside to the outer gate by way of the gate that faces east and behold, Water was trickling from the south side. When the man went out toward the east with a line in his hand, he measured a thousand cubits and he led me through the water, water reaching the ankles. Again, he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching the knees. Again, he measured a thousand and led me through the water, water reaching the loins. Again, he measured a thousand and it was a river that could not forward for the water had risen. Enough water to swim in a river that could not be forded. He said to me, son of man, have you seen this?

Then he brought me back to the bank, bank of the river. Now, when I had returned, behold, on the bank of the river, there were very many trees on the one side and on the other. And he said to me, these waters go out toward the eastern region and go down into the Araba. Then they go toward the sea being made to flow into the sea and the waters of the sea become fresh. It will come about that every living creature which swarms in every place where the river goes will live. And there will be very many fish for these waters go there and the others become fresh. So everything will live where the river goes. Here’s a depiction of a river flowing from out of the temple that brings life, that brings life. Verse 10, And it will come about that fishermen will stand beside it from En Gedi to En Anglaim.

There will be a place for the spreading of nets. Their fish will be according to their kinds, like the fish of the great sea, very many. But its swamps and marshes will not become fresh. They will be left for salt. By the river on its bank, on one side and on the other, will grow all kinds of trees for food. Their leaves will not wither, and their fruit will not fail. They will bear every month, because their waters flow from the sanctuary, and their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing. Now, keep this imagery in mind, and let’s skip ahead to the book of Revelation. Revelation 22, verses 1 through 5. And as you’re turning there, a couple other passages you may want to look up on your time that refer to this river.

Joel 3, verse 18, and Zechariah 14, verse 8. But let’s go to the very last chapter of the very last book of God’s Word, Revelation 22. And let me read these verses, verses 1 through 5. John the Apostle writes, Then he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb. That’s Jesus. In the middle of its street, on either side of the river, was the tree of life bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. There will no longer be any curse and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it. and his bond servants will serve him. They will see his face and his name will be on their foreheads and there will no longer be any night and they will not have any need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun because the Lord God will illumine them and they will reign forever and ever.

Brothers and sisters, I hope as we’ve kind of traced this theme through the scriptures, that you will see that this imagery in our passage for this evening of the river of God flowing from the city of God. This is ultimately imagery that is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ultimately, this imagery of a river making glad the city of God and flowing out of the city of God to bless the nations, to give life to the nations and healing to the nations. Ultimately, this is fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. through the gift of the Holy Spirit to his church. One more passage and we’ll move on in our text, but consider what Jesus says of himself in John chapter 7 verses 37 to 39. John chapter 7 verses 37 to 39. We read these words.

Jesus is at the feast in Jerusalem. It says this, Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out saying, If anyone is thirsty, Let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, from his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior. He is this living water. He is the one who is the river whose streams make glad the city of God Christ by his spirit. And as we look at at our passage again for tonight in verses 4 and 5. It says in verse 5, God is in the midst of her. The reason that this river brings life and healing and salvation and deliverance is because God is in the midst of her. It’s much more than a physical river.

We know that as creatures, we require water for physical life. You can’t go too long without physical water. And likewise, there is no spiritual life No saving life apart from Jesus, the water of life, the living water, this river of God that comes to the city of God and flows from it. It is a river that brings healing because as verse five says, God is in the midst of her. She will not be moved. God will help her when morning dawns. God will help her when morning dawns. What does that mean? Well, early morning after dawn, was often the time when enemies would attack cities. If a foreign adversary was coming against Israel, they would often attack when morning dawns. And this verse is assuring, in this verse the psalmist is assuring the readers that God will help her.

God will help his people when morning dawns, when there are threats from the nations. And then in verses 6 and 7 we see These nations, these Gentile pagan nations who are hostile against God’s people. It says the nations made an uproar, just like the foaming waters of verse 3. The nations made an uproar. The kingdoms tottered. What happens? What is God’s response? He raised His voice. The earth melted. When God in holy judgment raises His voice, the earth melts in His holy presence. And then we have this beautiful refrain in verse seven. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. The uproar of the Gentile nations is no threat to God’s people. For the Lord of hosts, Yahweh of hosts is a stronghold to protect his people. And this language, by the way, Yahweh of hosts, the Lord of hosts, depicts God as the captain of our salvation.

It depicts God as leading his hosts, whether it’s referring to his angelic hosts or the hosts of the Israelite military. God is the one who is the captain of our salvation and he leads us and he protects us and we conquer through him. Oh, dear ones, God is indeed our stronghold. He is our defense. He is our deliverer. But in Christ and by the Holy Spirit, he is also our source of joy. He is our source of joy. The Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold, and therefore we will not fear. Therefore, we have access to this living river, this river of life who is Jesus, and that gives us joy and is a source of our rejoicing. Is God your refuge? Is Christ your refuge? Is he your living water?

Is he your source of joy? Now, another lesson that we learn in this psalm, as we consider verses 8 through 11, we learn here in this psalm that God will be exalted among the nations. This is my second main point. God will be exalted among the nations. Verse 8, it says, Come behold the works of the Lord who has wrought desolations in the earth. We can think of many times in redemptive history where God wrought desolations. God wrought desolations against Egypt when he poured out the plagues upon them. He wrought desolation upon Pharaoh and his armies when they pursued the Israelites into the Red Sea, and he closed the Red Sea over them. And if you read the book of Judges, God, through these Savior figures, these Judges, often rescued his people, and he wrought desolations against the enemies of God.

But is this meant to teach us that God is ultimately a God of war, who seeks to crush and seeks to destroy? No, friends, when we look at verses eight and nine together, though God has indeed wrought desolations in the earth in defending and delivering his people from their enemies. Ultimately, he is a God of peace. Notice what it says in verse nine. The reason that God does this is to deliver his people. Why? He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariot with fire. These were the typical implements of ancient warfare. And God is depicted as destroying these implements of warfare. Perhaps if this were written today, it would say something like he he he destroys the tanks and the missiles and, you know, the military drones or what have you.

God destroys the implements of warfare because ultimately God’s purpose is to make wars to cease. Satan and his hosts are at war with God. And in Adam, humankind is fighting against God. We are at war with God. But God makes wars to cease. How does God do this? Well, when we compare Scripture with Scripture, we learn that He does this in a multifaceted way. Spiritually speaking, at a spiritual level, God makes wars to cease in this present age through the Church’s Great Commission. and the discipling of the nations. As the good news of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, is spread and as God gathers in his elect through the gospel, he causes his people to be at peace with him and at growing peace one with another. When we are reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ, we’re also, at least in principle, reconciled one with another as brothers and sisters in the family of God.

And so in the case of those who by sovereign grace are brought to repentance and faith, God makes wars to cease in causing his people to be at peace with him and with one another in the body of Christ. Well, what about those who continue to refuse Messiah’s reign and continue unrepentant in their sin and unbelief? Well, in the case of them, they suffer the same fate as Pharaoh and his army suffered. They suffer the same fate ultimately. So in the case of those who refuse Messiah’s reign and continue unrepentant in their sin and unbelief, God will cause wars to cease through the final eschatological judgment, which will take place when Jesus returns in glory at the end of this age and judges mankind. And so what is the proper response in light of all of that?

Well, the proper response is given in verses 10 and 11, especially verse 10. Cease striving. This is God speaking. Cease striving and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in all the earth. He repeats himself for emphasis. I will be exalted. Now, this could be translated. When it says in verse 10, cease striving, the Hebrew could be translated as, Enough! Enough! But the question is, Is this enough, this call to cease striving? Is this a call for the nations, the unbelieving nations and peoples, to cease their hostility against God and God’s people by repenting and acknowledging His reign? Or is this more intended as a call for God’s people to stop their fear of the hostile nations and to trust in God’s promise that He will indeed be exalted among the nations?

Well, scholars, have different takes, different opinions on which of those is the most likely thing in view in these words. But, they’re both true, aren’t they? God, in his word, does indeed, through the gospel, he does indeed call the nations of humanity to repent of their sinful rebellion and to acknowledge in faith the Messiah’s reign, and to put their faith and trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior. But God also, in his word, summons us as his people to cease from fearing the powerful enemies of Christ and his church, since he promises to destroy their power. When I see the way that Christians today in our culture, and we do live in an increasingly anti-Christian culture, a culture that is increasingly and more and more overtly hostile to God, to his word, to the gospel, to the church, to the things of God.

I see many Christians being fearful. What’s going to happen? Certainly, it’s legitimate to be concerned. It’s legitimate to do what we can as citizens, for example, to try to defend our liberties and freedoms legitimately and lawfully and so forth. But we are not to fret. We are not to fear. Even if persecution comes, we know that God will be exalted among the nations. Is God being exalted among the nations today? You look around you at our culture today, is God’s name being honored and hallowed? It used to be in our culture that if you wanted to compliment someone, you might say something like, well, he’s a God-fearing man. You say that today to most people, and they give you like a funny look, like, what are you talking about? God-fearing? God’s name is not feared, not even on a superficial level.

God’s name is not held in reverence. God’s name is regularly taken in vain, even by those who profess the name of Christ. How often do you hear OMG and God’s name being used in cursing and so forth, the name of Christ being used in cursing and taken in vain? Very common, very common thing. But we can be assured, brothers and sisters, that God’s name will be exalted. And we can be confident of this because of what The refrain tells us in verse 11, the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob is our stronghold. Here again is the final instance of this refrain book ending this powerful song. So beloved, let us not fear that God’s name will continue to be blasphemed and dishonored. It hurts us as God’s children. When we hear the name of Christ dragged through the mud, it offends us.

It bothers us, but let us not fear. for God’s name will be exalted among the nations. He indeed, brothers and sisters, he will see to it that his name is indeed exalted among the nations. He does this today primarily through the gospel, which exalts the glorious name of the Lord Jesus Christ as the one and only name given among men by which we must be saved. And dear listener, let me ask you, have you believed in the name of Jesus Christ for salvation from your sins? The Bible says that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus says himself, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me. And as the Apostle Peter testified before the Sanhedrin in Acts chapter 4, there is no other name given among men by which we must be saved but the name of Jesus Christ.

Believe in the name, the person and saving work of the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation and you will be saved. Reject him and you will abide under the wrath of God. Be warned, dear listener. turn to Christ in faith and repent. And that brings me to my final point in closing. We can be assured here, as verses 9 and 10 assure us, that God’s reign will secure universal peace. God’s name will secure universal peace. Again, it says in verse 9, He makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two. He burns the chariots with fire. Cease driving. and know that I am God, I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” Again, the quote from a commentator, God’s mighty acts on behalf of his people will bring him universal recognition, which is a major theme in the Psalter, by the way.

He goes on to say, this has proven to be supremely true in God’s climactic saving act, in the birth, life, death, resurrection, and glorification of Jesus Christ. Yet to be brought to complete fruition at his return. So beloved in closing as the refrains in the refrain in verses 7 through 11 assure us the Lord of hosts is with us. The God of Jacob our faithful covenant making covenant keeping God is indeed with us Yahweh our covenant Lord has come to dwell among us. He has come to be our saving stronghold and he has come to us ultimately in the person of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. For Christ is the virgin-born Emmanuel. He is God with us. He is the Emmanuel predicted by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 7.14. Brothers and sisters of Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church, in view of this, let us live in confidence, knowing that our Lord will never leave us nor forsake us, knowing that He is with us and for us as our Emmanuel.

He is with us as Jesus promised in the Great Commission. Behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the ages. So let us not fear in the face of trouble or distress, or the hostilities of God’s enemies. Let us not fear, for as verse 1 assures us, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord and Father in heaven, we praise you, Sovereign God. that we can look to you as our stronghold, that we have security in you, that you give us of the rivers of the water of life to feed our souls and nourish us and refresh us and give us joy. We ask, Lord, that in spite of the troubles that we faced as your people, that we might indeed live in confident trust, knowing that you are our refuge, our strength, our stronghold. a very present help in trouble.

In Jesus name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

About this sermon

In Psalm 40 David waited patiently for the Lord, and the Lord brought him up out of the pit and set his feet on a rock. God does not delight in sacrifice alone, and Hebrews 10 hears Christ speaking in this psalm: ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God.’ Christ is the perfect King whose obedience secures his people forever. When crises come, believers remember God’s past mercies and wait for him to deliver them again.

More sermons from Psalms · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

Please remain standing for the reading of God’s word as we continue our study of the book of Psalms. We are nearing the end of book one of the Psalter. Tonight we consider Psalm 40. The title of my sermon tonight is Up from the Pit. Psalm 40. Dear friends, Here, with reverence and awe, the word of our God. This is entitled, for the choir director, A Psalm of David. I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord. How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and is not turned to the proud nor to those who lapse into falsehood.

Many, O Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done and your thoughts toward us. There is none to compare with you. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count. Sacrifice and meal offering. You have not desired my years. You have opened burnt offering and offering. You have not required. Then I said, behold, I come in the scroll of the book. It is written of me. I delight to do your will. Oh, my God, your law is within my heart. I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the greatest great congregation. Behold, I will not restrain my lips. Oh, Lord, you know. I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great congregation.

You, O Lord, will not withhold your compassion from me. Your loving kindness and your truth will continually preserve me for evils beyond number have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me so that I am not able to see. They are more numerous than the hairs of my head and my heart has failed me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. Make haste, O Lord, to help me. Let those be ashamed and humiliated together who seek my life to destroy it. Let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my hurt. Let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, aha, aha. Let all who seek you rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified since I am afflicted and needy. Let the Lord be mindful of me.

You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay. Oh, my God. The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord to bless the preaching of his word. Our faithful Lord and covenant God, we do ask that once again you would grant the powerful presence of your spirit to attend the preaching of your word. We ask, Lord, that you would take the message that is proclaimed this evening, that it might be faithful and grounded upon your word and that it would be used of you to bring spiritual life to us and to sustain us in our life in Christ. Build us up, Lord, as we hear the word this evening and we pray that our souls would be fed and that Jesus would be exalted in the proclamation of your word.

In Jesus name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. There’s quite a lot of options for words to be listening for in my sermon tonight, if you’re following along with your with your sermon outline. Again, the title of my sermon this evening is Up from the Pit. Well, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, when you and I face troubles in our lives and the flame of our faith burns low, what should we do to fan the flame fan the flame of faith and bolster our confidence in the Lord’s power to deliver us through our troubles and to bring us to a better, more stable, more secure footing. After all, we live in a fallen, sin-cursed world, and as those who live in a fallen, sin-cursed world, even we as God’s people face many obstacles, many crises, many troubles, and even hostilities and threats. from the ungodly who would love to see us sink into the pit of despair and destruction and ruin.

In the face of the pits, it is tempting to sink into despair, it’s tempting to lose our joy and to find our faith in the Lord crumbling into ruins. This precious portion of God’s holy word that is known to us today is Psalm 40. gives us, as God’s covenant people, some wonderful encouragement and hope. Beloved, in this psalm of David, we are shown that remembering God’s mercies to us in the past and God’s answers to our past prayers for deliverance can stir up within us faith in Yahweh’s faithfulness to intervene and to deliver in the face of the present crises that confront us. We sing that hymn Our God, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come. God, our faithful covenant Lord, has indeed been faithful to us in ages past as his covenant people.

And so on the basis of what God has done for us in the past, on the basis of his delivering mercies to us in the past, we can be confident that he will act to be our hope in the future. So as our God has been our help and deliverer in ages past, So he will be our hope. Indeed, he will be ultimately our eschatological consummate hope for years to come and even into eternity, all because of what he has done for us in and through Christ, our Savior and Messianic King. In this powerful portion of Holy Scripture, a portion of Scripture that seems to combine the literary characteristics of both a Thanksgiving psalm and a lamentation, We, as God’s people, are encouraged to trust in Yahweh, our faithful covenant God and Redeemer, to look to him as our help, as our deliverer, as our salvation, and thus to wait patiently for him to act, to act for us in his good timing.

For just as Yahweh had heard David’s cries and had brought him up from the pit of death and destruction, So through his son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, our faithful God and Heavenly Father, here’s our Christ for mercy. And he brings us up out of the pit of judgment and wrath and destruction, making our footsteps firm and secure in Christ, our Lord. Through Jesus Christ, our Savior God, our Heavenly Father, has brought us up from the pit out of the miry clay, and he has set our feet upon a rock, not just upon a rock, but upon the eternal rock of Christ our Lord, and he has made our footsteps stable and secure. Now, as we consider the contents of this beautiful and powerful psalm, you may have noticed as we worked our way through the reading of Psalm 40 that there’s a sort of a change of mood in this psalm.

There’s two major sections of this psalm. one reflecting thanksgiving, and the final section reflecting lamentation. And because of the strong change in mood that can be detected within this psalm, again, the first part of this psalm reflecting a focus on thanksgiving for past mercies, and the latter part of this psalm having the characteristics of lamentation in the face of a new crisis where David again cries out to the Lord to deliver and not to delay. In light of all of this, some Bible scholars have suggested that Psalm 40 was originally two psalms, two separate individual psalms that a later editor decided to kind of stitch together into one. Now, if that is the literary, in fact, the literary history of Psalm 40, then that in no way undermines the inspiration of this psalm, because if that’s what happened, then obviously the Holy Spirit was at work in the work of the editor to bring these two different Psalms together into one liturgical whole, if that’s what happened.

And some might point to Psalm 70 as evidence that that, in fact, is what happened. After all, if you compare verses 13 through 17 with Psalm 70, you will notice that the wording of Psalm 70 is almost exactly the same as verses 13 through 17 of And so, as one commentator has put it, Psalm 70 is, quote, a somewhat revised duplicate of verses 13 through 17 of this psalm. Brothers and sisters, I would suggest to you that the different themes and moods that we see in this psalm do not need to be viewed as somehow undermining the literary unity of this beautiful poem. David, because the two themes actually fit together and they flow one into another. If we view this psalm as a cohesive unity, cohesive whole. In this psalm, again, David begins by remembering Yahweh’s past mercies to him, and he renews his commitment as the Lord’s anointed king to doing the will of God.

And then this This remembrance of past mercies and this renewal of David’s commitment to the Lord as the Lord’s anointed king is the basis for David finding hope in the Lord in the face of new crises that confront him and confront the nation of Israel. So I would suggest to you that we regard Psalm 40 as, indeed, as it’s presented to us in the canon of Scripture as a literary unity. Well, that being the case, let’s dive into the contents of the psalm. And first of all, we focus on verses one through five. Notice here, beloved, in this opening section of Psalm 40, what we have here is a testimony of joyous praise for God’s past deliverance, a testimony of joyous praise for God’s past deliverance. David says, I waited patiently for the Lord. And he inclined to me and heard my crying.

Yes, though David had to wait for the Lord, the Lord in that waiting was not ignoring David. It’s not that the Lord was had to be stirred up from sleep. The Lord has his reasons for his timing when it comes to inclining his ear and hearing our cries. God answers our cries and our prayers in his timing as it is best for us And then verse two, he brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the mirey clay, and he set my feet upon a rock, making my footsteps firm. You see the contrast there. The pit of destruction, which is a pit of mirey clay. If you are in a pit of mirey clay, you have no firm footing. There’s no stability there. But the Lord has brought David out of that pit of destruction and often in the Old Testament this language of the pits or the pit of destruction is a picture or a way of speaking about death.

So some have suggested that perhaps David is reflecting upon a time when he encountered a serious illness that threatened his life and he cried out to the Lord and the Lord brought him out of that time of illness and and set his feet upon a rock. In other words, brought him back to stable, healthy life. Whatever the case may be, whatever the circumstances may have been that that David is reflecting upon, the result is clear in verse three. God, the Lord Yahweh, he says he put a new song in my mouth. A new song because it is a celebration of a new act of deliverance from the Lord. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God. Many will see and fear many who knew about this situation and saw the Lord’s intervention, saw that God acted, and as a result, they feared the Lord.

They came to reverence the Lord and to trust in the Lord. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord. And then he goes on to reflect on the blessedness of the one who trusts in the Lord. How blessed is the man who has made the Lord his trust and has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood. The word for falsehood, there may be an indication of false worship or idolatry. How blessed is the man instead of falling into idolatry and looking to other gods for for intervention and help, looks to Yahweh the Lord alone. And then he goes on to say in verse five, many, oh Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done and your thoughts toward us. There is none to compare with you.

So why look to the idols of the pagans when there’s none to compare with Yahweh, the true and living God? If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count. Oh, God’s wonders are too numerous indeed to count. Now, how are we to, again, Stepping back a few moments and asking ourselves, what particular circumstances is David reflecting here as he recounts God’s past mercies? Well, it is possible that David, as I said, could be expressing his own personal experience of Yahweh’s deliverance, perhaps God’s deliverance from a personal sickness. But given the overall context of this psalm, and also given the fact that in the New Testament, in particular, in Hebrews 10 verses 5 through 7, verses 6 to 7 of this psalm are interpreted as being fulfilled in Christ, David’s greater son.

It is perhaps better to understand David as speaking here in his capacity as Israel’s anointed theocratic king. And therefore, David here, when he says, I waited patiently for the Lord, he brought me up. David may be speaking as a representative of the nation, the covenant nation of Israel. David, the anointed King, speaking representatively, personifying in his person the people of Israel, the covenant people of God. And if that is the case, then David speaks, maybe referring to a situation where Yahweh had delivered the nation of Israel in battle from the destruction and death that was threatened by a hostile foreign adversary. I think this may very well be the way we ought to view this, especially since verse five clues us into the fact that there is a corporate focus to this psalm. Many, oh Lord, my God, are the wonders which you have done and your thoughts, as David say, and your thoughts toward me.

No, and your thoughts toward us. Your thoughts toward us. And perhaps there’s a little bit of both going on here. Perhaps David reflects both a personal experience, but also personifies the experience of Israel as a nation. But whatever the case may be, beloved dear ones, as we consider how this psalm would apply to us today in our new covenant situation, let us reflect upon the fact that many dear ones, many are the wonders that Christ has done for us. Many are his thoughts toward us. And his thoughts toward us who are in union with Christ are thoughts of mercy, thoughts of grace, thoughts of salvation. In him, we who trust in and wait patiently for him are brought up out of the pit and have our feet planted firmly on the rock. Indeed, Jesus Christ himself is our rock, our redemption, our solid ground, our stability, our security, our eternal home.

And so this psalm gloriously begins again with a testimony of joyous praise for God’s past deliverance. In particular, I believe God’s past deliverance is for his people as personified in their anointed King, King David. But next, as we move on to the second section of this psalm, verses six through ten, notice next the king’s commitment to do God’s will and to proclaim his righteousness. We see next the king’s commitment to do God’s will and to proclaim his righteousness. Verse six, David says, Sacrifice and meal offering. You have not desired my ears. You have opened literally could be translated. You have dug into my ears, my ears. You have dug burnt offering and sin offering. You have not required. Now, let’s put the brakes on for a moment. Is David here denying that God had commanded his people under the Old Covenant to offer these animal sacrifices, these meal offerings and burnt offerings and thin offerings?

Is that what’s going on here? Some liberal commentators see attention here in David’s wording, or this psalm’s wording, as opposed to the priestly aspects of the Old Testament, and they think there was theological conflict going on in Old Testament times, that there were some who were for the animal sacrifices, and others that said, no, we don’t need animal sacrifices. God doesn’t want that. He wants the sacrifice of a broken heart, a thankful heart, and so forth. Friends, if we hold to a high view of Scripture, if we believe that the Scriptures are, in fact, what they are, the very Word of God, then there is no conflict here. David, in this wording, he’s not denying that God had indeed ordained and commanded animal sacrifices as part of the old covenant legislation. Rather, he speaks by way of comparison.

He speaks of sacrifices which are offered apart from a heart of true faith and repentance. God, indeed, he wants these sacrifices and burnt offerings and sin offerings. He wanted them. They were provided for him for a time. They were types of the and pictures of the sacrifice that Christ would offer when the Messiah would come and make atonement, perfect atonement for sin. But what God is not interested in is the offering of such sacrifices with a ritualistic out of ritualism with a hypocritical or unbelieving heart. And indeed, I think that is the best way to understand of the wording here. Again, oftentimes in Old Testament history, the people of God fell into a kind of formalism and ritualism where they honored God as we considered this morning in the sermon, how they honored God with their lips, but their hearts were far from the Lord and and that took place.

That happens sometimes in when it came to the sacrificial system. And he goes on to say, My ears, you have opened again. To quote from another commentator, this difficult phrase in Hebrew may be idiomatic. The Hebrew more literally translated would be dug rather than opened. This would mean that God gave the psalmist ears to hear and obey. The phrase is important because it is cited in Hebrews 10, 5 through 7. Hebrews uses the Septuagint, that is the Greek translation of the Old Testament, which is translated a body you have prepared for me. The meaning is the same. The ears are to the body as the parts to the whole. The obedience of Jesus in the body is to offer himself once and for all, replacing the animal sacrifices of the Old Testament. So it is also in that redemptive historical sense that a fulfillment of those sacrifices is coming.

It is in that sense as well as David speaks prophetically as a type of Christ in verse six that Ultimately, sacrifice and meal offering and burnt offerings and sin offerings are not desired of God in the sense that they’re going to be passing away because the perfect sacrifice is coming. The sacrifice that the Messiah would offer when he came to this earth. And then verse seven. Then I said, David is speaking again as the royal theocratic anointed king of Israel. I said, behold, I come In the scroll of the book, it is written of me. What scroll is David speaking of there? In the scroll of the book, it is written of me. Well, it is very likely that this is David is referring here to Deuteronomy 17, verses 14 through 20, where Moses spoke of the requirements that were to be observed by by the king that God would raise up for Israel.

Let me just read this section, Deuteronomy chapter 17 verses 14 through 20. God, through Moses, says to the Israelites, When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you and you possess it and live in it and you say, I will set a king over me like all the nations who are around me, you shall surely set a king over you whom the Lord your God chooses. One from among your countrymen, you shall set as king over yourselves. You may not put a foreigner over yourselves who is not of your countrymen. Moreover, he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor shall he cause the people to return to Egypt to multiply horses. Since the Lord has said to you, you shall never again return that way. He shall not multiply wives for himself or else his heart will turn away, nor shall he greatly increase silver or gold for himself.

Kind of makes you think of Solomon, right? King Solomon didn’t exactly follow these prescriptions here, but then notice verse 18. Now it shall come about when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall do what? Verse 18. He shall write for himself a copy of this law on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It shall be with him and he shall read it all the days of his life. that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by carefully observing all the words of this law and these statutes, that his heart may not be lifted up above his countrymen and that he may not turn aside from the commandment to the right or the left so that he and his sons may continue long in his kingdom in the midst of Israel.

David is saying here in verse seven, I’ve come in the scroll of the book. It is written of me. I delight to do your will. Oh, my God, your law is within my heart. One of the things we need to understand is that in the covenantal arrangement that God made with Israel, as the king’s heart went, so went the people. If the king was obedient to the Lord and faithful to the covenant, the people would be blessed because the king personifies and represents the people. But if the king fell away from the Lord or was rebellious or idolatrous, then God’s judgment would come upon the people whom he represented. And David is expressing his intention as the theocratic anointed king to render obedience to the Lord. He’s recommitting himself in light of the Lord’s gracious intervention and deliverance.

David is recommitting himself to obey the Lord. And in this sense, too, he points to Christ because Christ perfectly obeyed the Lord. Unlike the theocratic Davidic kings under the Old Covenant, the best of whom were flawed and sinful men like David. David was the great sweet psalmist of Israel, a man after God’s own heart. But we know David was also a very sinful man. But Jesus is the perfect King, whose perfect righteousness secures the people of God forever. And in verse eight, David, though, expresses inner delight in doing the will of God, and then he goes on to say in verse nine, I have proclaimed glad tidings of righteousness in the great congregation. In other words, I’ve not kept Lord, I’ve not kept your mercies to myself. I’ve proclaimed I’ve made it known to the people All that you have done and your glory and your righteousness, he says, Behold, I will not restrain my lips.

Oh, Lord, you know, I have not hidden your righteousness within my heart. I’ve spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation. I have not concealed your loving kindness and your truth from the great congregation. Again, David has openly declared and proclaimed Yahweh’s righteousness, faithfulness and salvation in the great congregation. So what are some of the takeaways from this second section of Psalm 40? Well, again, as I pointed out, David’s commitment to the Lord as the theocratic anointed king of Israel was a type of Christ’s obedience to his father and obedience that was an obedience unto death upon the cross. David fell short in his obedience, of course. David, though a type and picture of Christ in his kingly role in Israel as the anointed one. Nevertheless, David also fell short of being that perfect messianic king that was needed to render perfect security for the people of God.

But again, David’s commitment to the Lord as the theocratic anointed king of Israel typifies Christ’s commitment to do his father’s will, even unto death on the cross of Calvary. And beloved, Christ’s finished work on the cross has done away with the old covenant sacrificial system, as we learn from our consideration of that passage in Hebrews 10 that I read and which quotes from verses six through eight of our passage here. The author of Hebrews makes it clear that Christ came in the body to set aside to fulfill the meaning of these old covenant sacrifices by his once and for all perfect, complete sacrifice on the cross. Praise be to God that by his obedience, by Christ’s obedience unto death, he accomplished our redemption. Dear listener, have you trusted in him as your savior from sin?

But finally, in this closing section of Psalm 40, we find a plea for deliverance in the face of a new crisis. Again, do you get the flow of this Psalm? David begins reflecting upon remembering God’s past mercies, how the Lord has graciously intervened and answered his cries in the past. And thus he recommits himself to the Lord as Israel’s theocratic king. But now a new crisis has arisen, probably a national crisis, perhaps perhaps the crisis involving renewed hostilities from a foreign adversary. We don’t know for sure. Many different circumstances could fit the description here in this latter section of the wording here. But nevertheless, we find here a plea for deliverance in the face of a new crisis. Verse 11, David says to the Lord, You, O Lord, O Yahweh, will not withhold your compassion from me.

Your loving kindness and your truth will continually preserve me. Here we see David expressing again, I believe, as the personification of Israel, David is expressing Yahweh’s continual preservation of his people. We should have confidence that God will preserve those who are his own. And then verse 12, for evils beyond number have surrounded me. My iniquities have overtaken me so that I’m not able to see. David certainly had many iniquities in his own personal life and Israel, the covenant nation under David’s rule, also had many iniquities that had overtaken them. So that they were not able to see they are more than numerous than the hairs on my head. And my heart has failed me. David here in verse 12 confesses his iniquities, and that that’s significant. It appears that he admits that this current crisis has been brought on, at least in part by his sins.

And remember, when David, as the theocratic king, sins against the Lord, that has an impact on the people of God who he represents and rules over. As one commentator has pointed out, while the elements of royal dedication to the will of God, as we find in verses six through eight, are indeed a prophecy and a type of Jesus Christ, the royal and priestly Messiah who was to come. Nevertheless, David’s confession of sin here serves to show, quote, how short his meaning Jesus’s human prototypes fell of his matchless perfection. In other words, the point that that is being made is that biblical figures, figures, you know, redemptive figures, redemptive historical figures like like David, or you think of Joseph, for example, who was also a picture of type of Christ as a deliverer. We think of Noah, Noah as a deliverer, a man after God’s own heart, righteous in his own generation.

And of course, we think of David and also of Moses, for example, these Old Testament men who were types of Christ, pictures of Christ. They typified and pictured Christ, both by way of comparison and by way of contrast. King David, at one level, King David was like Jesus Christ, his greater son, Great David’s greater son, in that David was God’s chosen, anointed, theocratic king who was called to reign over God’s covenant people, Israel. But David was very much unlike Jesus in that David was also a deeply flawed and sinful man. David, in his kingly vocation, pictured Jesus the coming Messiah, the ultimate anointed king. But David, in his sinfulness, showed that he himself was not that Messiah. Indeed, his sins revealed the need for a perfect, sinless king to come. and establish his Messianic eternal kingdom, a kingdom where perfect righteousness, holiness and justice would reign forever and ever.

And so we need to keep that in mind as we read of David crying out to the Lord here, and then we see the plea for deliverance in the light of this new crisis being brought to our attention in verses 13 through 17. David says, Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. Make haste, O Lord, to help me. In other words, don’t delay. Don’t make me wait. As I waited patiently in the past, don’t make me wait now. Don’t delay. Let those be ashamed and humiliated together who seek my life to destroy it. Let those be turned back and dishonored who delight in my heart. Oh, there were many in David’s day who delighted in his harm, who desired his destruction. Just as in Christ’s time, there were many who desired our Lord’s destruction, and they sought to destroy his life.

David here is not speaking out of personal sinful vindictiveness. David, rather, is speaking out of a concern for justice to be done. And I think we also should see in this imprecation, this calling down of judgment upon his enemies. We should see this in the context of spiritual warfare going on, that indeed The Lord Jesus also brings this judgment against all of his and our enemies who refuse to repent. There’s a sense, by the way, as an aside, there’s a sense in which when we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. One of the things we imply in that prayer is, Lord, may Satan’s kingdom be crushed and defeated and may his his servants be judged. So even in the Lord’s Prayer, We include an imprecation, if you will, in that.

Verse 15, let those be appalled because of their shame who say to me, aha, aha, these are not just wayward sinners who don’t get it. These are those who are sinners who are hostile to the kingdom of God, hostile to God’s anointed King David, hostile to the God of Israel. David says, let those be appalled because of their shame. Let all who seek you, on the other hand, rejoice and be glad in you. Let those who love your salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified. And then as David wraps up this earnest petition before the Lord, he says in verse 17, since I am afflicted and needy, let the Lord be mindful of me. You are my help and my deliverer. Do not delay. Oh, my God, do not delay. In closing, beloved, we as God’s people sometimes experience life in this present age as one crisis after another.

But as our Lord has been faithful to deliver us, his people in the past, let us continue to trust in him and to wait patiently for him. Let us trust that he will continue to bring us up from the pit and make our footsteps firm, firmly planted upon Jesus Christ, our rock. Our redemption, our security. Amen. Let us pray. Gracious Lord and Father in heaven. We do thank you and praise you, our God. For the covenant faithfulness of Jesus, that he has indeed secured for us an eternal redemption. We thank you for his perfect sacrifice. We thank you that his blood cleanses us from all sin. and that he has indeed brought us out of the ultimate pit, the pit of hell. He has secured our redemption from the pit, and he has placed our feet firmly upon the rock.

We ask, Lord, that when we face crises in our lives, that we would be reminded of your past mercies to us, indeed, your ongoing mercies to us in Christ. And may we have confidence that you will indeed be pleased to deliver us and help us in your good timing. We pray these things, Heavenly Father, in Jesus name and all of God’s people said, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.

About this sermon

The closing section of Psalm 37 promises that the righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever, for the law of God is in their hearts and their steps do not slip. The wicked will be cut off, and the salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord, who is their stronghold in time of trouble. In Christ believers are more than conquerors, so they do not fret over the wicked but wait for the Lord, who will bring them into their inheritance.

More sermons from Psalms · Browse all sermons

Sermon transcript

My sermon text this evening, as we return to our study of the book of Psalms and select Psalms, is from Psalm 37, verses 27 through 40, titled my sermon tonight, Do Not Fret, Part Three. This is our third sermon in this particular psalm, this lengthy psalm. So let us hear God’s holy word. Psalm 37, beginning at verse 27.

Depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever. For the Lord loves justice and does not forsake his godly ones. They are preserved forever, but the descendants of the wicked will be cut off. The righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.

The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, and his tongue speaks justice. The law of his God is in his heart. His steps do not slip. The wicked spies upon the righteous and seeks to kill him. The Lord will not leave him in his hand, or let him be condemned when he is judged. Wait for the Lord and keep his way, and he will exalt you to inherit the land.

When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. I have seen a wicked, violent man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more. I sought for him, but he could not be found. Mark the blameless man, and behold the upright, for the man of peace will have a posterity. but transgressors will be altogether destroyed. The posterity of the wicked will be cut off, but the salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. He is their strength in time of trouble. The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him.

The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let’s pray for the Lord’s blessing upon the preaching of his word. Our gracious God and Father in heaven, once again we thank you for your holy word. It is a lamp unto our feet, a light unto our path. Indeed, it is a guide upon our way. We ask that, once again, by your spirit, you would open our hearts and our minds to understand these truths from your word.

We pray, O Heavenly Father, that this portion of scripture that we consider this evening would be a source of spiritual sustenance and nourishment for each and every one of us. May it be milk to those who need the milk of the word. May it be meat to those who need the meat of the word. and may it be manna from heaven for all of us. We pray these things in Jesus’ name, amen. You may be seated. The words you can be listening for in my sermon tonight include the words inheritance, righteous, wicked, destruction, salvation, and refuge.

Well, dear ones, on this Lord’s Day evening, we continue our consideration of this lengthy Psalm of David that is known as Psalm 37. And as we’ve seen on past Lord’s Days when we’ve been exploring various sections of this psalm, this psalm could be classified as a wisdom psalm because it displays some of the emphases and characteristics that we find in the wisdom literature of the Bible, such as, for example, what you would find in the book of Proverbs. As I’ve mentioned before, in the Hebrew language, this psalm has been arranged as an alphabetical acrostic, meaning that every two verses or so begins with a successive letter of the Hebrew alphabet, although it’s not a perfect acrostic. And this kind of arrangement, this kind of acrostic arrangement, was a device that aided memorization for the Hebrew reader. Now in this psalm, King David, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, brings to the forefront of the reader’s attention the problem of evil.

The problem of how is it that God could be good and yet there’s evil and suffering and sin in the world. And in particular, the problem of evil that is being dealt with by David in this particular psalm is the presence and indeed the prevalence of evildoers among the professed people of God and within the boundaries of God’s promised land. If you read through this psalm carefully, you will notice that one of the major themes of this psalm is the theme of inheriting the land, and the land that is in view in particular in this Old Covenant context is the promised land. So that is something that is, this is an issue that is disturbing David as he reflects upon it, as he mulls over this in his mind. Why is it that there seem to be so many evildoers, so many wicked, even among the professed people of God and even within God’s promised land. In this psalm, David characterizes the wicked in the land as those who are aggressively hostile toward the faithful, so hostile that they plot the downfall and destruction of the faithful within the land. The temptation among the faithful in the land would be to fret because of these evildoers.

The temptation would be to worry that these wicked and godless ones will in fact be the ones who end up inheriting the promised land, and thus to fear that the godly ones among the covenant people will in fact be driven out of their God-given inheritance and destroyed from off the land. against the temptation among the faithful in the land to fret because of these evildoers in the land. The Holy Spirit, through David, counsels God’s faithful people to persevere in living wise and godly lives, even in the midst of the wicked in the land. trusting in Yahweh, their faithful covenant God, to deliver them from the wicked in due time, waiting upon the Lord to bring his divine retribution upon the unrepentant wicked, and hoping in the Lord’s sure and certain promise to secure their inheritance in the land as God’s faith-filled people.

Again, I pointed this out in the past, but we need to always keep in mind as we children, we need to read the Old Testament with our Jesus glasses on. We need to understand this in light of the fuller revelation that we have under the New Covenant and in the New Testament scriptures. And as I’ve pointed out in past sermons on this passage, we need to remember that the promised land, the land that God had covenanted to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, the land of Israel, was a picture, a type, pointing forward to the ultimate eschatological promised land, the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. In other words, the inheritance of eternal salvation that we as believers in Christ will enjoy in the new heavens and the new earth. So as we read about inheriting the land here, we need to read that as meaning for us inheriting eternal salvation, which is, of course, a gift of God through grace alone.

Now let’s focus on the first section of our passage for this evening, verses 27 through 34. And my first main point this evening is to have us consider the inheritance of the righteous, the inheritance of the righteous. And verse 27, this portion of Psalm 37, begins with an exhortation. The exhortation, the imperative, is to depart from evil and do good so you will abide, implying you will abide in the land forever. You will not be cast out of the land if you live out your faith. Now, I need to make an important reminder here.

We’ve been reading in this psalm of the contrast between the righteous and the wicked, between the godly and the ungodly, between the blameless man and the wicked man. We see these contrasts, and it’s tempting for us to read later theological debates into this earlier section of God’s word, as if David is speaking, for example, of conditions of salvation.

When David speaks of the righteous, when he speaks of the godly ones, when he speaks of the blameless and so on and so forth, it’s important to understand that this is a typically scriptural, especially an old covenant way of describing true believers by the fruits and outward evidences of their faith.

In using these terms to describe true believers, David is not trying to promote a pharisaical type of works righteousness approach to God, nor is he teaching that salvation is by works of obedience rather than through faith in the Lord alone. Indeed, as David himself makes clear in this very psalm, Yahweh’s gift of salvation and deliverance is only for those who, as verse 40 tells us, take refuge in Him. What does it mean to take refuge in Yahweh the Lord, the covenant-making God, the God not only of creation but of redemption? to take refuge in Him is to trust in Yahweh for salvation and deliverance, speaking there of saving faith. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament, my friends, the faith by which we are saved is a living faith, a living faith in the living Lord, a faith that connects us to the living Lord, and a faith that manifests itself, therefore, in a striving after a new obedience, to Yahweh’s covenant instructions as revealed in his Torah, his holy law. So please understand that as we read these terms and make our way through this passage, it’s very important to understand that David is not promoting salvation by works righteousness. David himself, as Psalm 32 makes clear, understood that he was made right with God and forgiven through God’s mercy alone, through faith alone. So David says, depart from evil and do good, so you will abide forever.

And in verse 28, he reminds us of the Lord’s perspective, the Lord’s attribute of justice. Indeed, he says, for the Lord, for Yahweh loves justice. which implies that the Lord hates what? The opposite of justice, which is injustice. The Lord hates that which the wicked are doing, the injustices that the wicked commit against the righteous and so forth. The Lord loves justice and does not forsake his godly ones. Oh, it may seem to the eyes of flesh that the Lord has abandoned you, that he has cast you aside, that the wicked indeed will prevail and inherit the land. But David says, no, the Lord will not forsake His godly ones.

They are preserved forever. The Lord preserves them. They don’t preserve themselves. Yes, you know, I think we can get a hint of the perseverance of the saints in here. Yes, we who are in Christ, we do persevere, but we persevere because God preserves us by sovereign grace alone.

And then he goes on to say, but the descendants of the wicked, here he contrasts the wicked with the righteous, the descendants of the wicked will be cut off, meaning that these wicked ones amongst the covenant people of God, the professed visible church of the time, within the promised land, the descendants of these wicked ones will be cut off. They will not inherit the land. The righteous will, as he goes on to say in verse 29, the righteous will inherit the land and dwell in it forever. Those who by grace are right with God will inherit the land and dwell in it forever.

What security, what comfort this communicates to us, brothers and sisters. The Lord has not forgotten us. The Lord does not forget His persecuted people even today. Throughout the world, we have brothers and sisters in Christ who suffer persecution under oppressive governments, for example. and at the hands of radical religionists who oppose the gospel, there is much persecution, there is much suffering among the people of God today. There is still a great deal of martyrdom among Christians throughout the world. Has the Lord forgotten his suffering people? This passage of God’s word assures us that, no, the Lord will not forsake his suffering people. He has not forgotten them.

They will, in the end, inherit the land, the ultimate promised land, the new heavens and the new earth wherein righteousness dwells. And then he goes on to say in verse 30, The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom. Again, he’s contrasting the characteristics here of the righteous, of the true believers among the people of God, with the wicked. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom.

And you’ve probably, I’m sure you’re familiar with the distinction between knowledge and wisdom. It is possible to have great knowledge, even great theological knowledge, but to be a fool. Wisdom is knowledge properly applied. Godly wisdom is what David is urging us to, what he is urging the suffering faithful people of God to do.

He’s reminding them, the mouth of the righteous utters wisdom. So listen to the utterances of the righteous. They utter wisdom. They are those who are saturated with the word, the law, the Torah, the covenant instruction of God. The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom and his tongue speaks justice in contrast to the wicked who speak injustice, who plot and scheme against the righteous seeking to slander them and so forth. And why is it that the mouth of the righteous utter wisdom and his tongue speaks justice? Verse 31, the law of his God is what?

In his heart. And again, remember that when the Bible talks about the heart, you know, we talk about the heart today. We usually mean our emotions. And our emotions are part of who we are, part of our heart, but the heart in the Bible is the control center of the entire personality. It encompasses not only emotions, but intellect and will. It is the very center of our being. If the spirit has given you the new birth, you love, he is implanted, instilled within your heart, a love for the word of God and a desire to hide God’s word in your heart. And so this is why the mouth of the righteous utters wisdom.

It’s possible, as an aside, forgive me for being a little bit autobiographical, but I remember as a college student, I got involved with a local church in the college town where I attended. And many of the members of this church were farmers, working class people. And here I was, this know-it-all college student, But one of the things that I realized as I got to know these folks is that I might have had more knowledge than some of them did in terms of technical subjects that I was studying, but they had a lot more wisdom than I did, because they loved the Lord, they loved His word, they hid God’s word in their hearts, and I realized I need to learn from these people. I need to get off my high horse and learn from these people, for they are wise, they speak wisdom, because the law of God was in their hearts.

And this is what David is getting at here. The law of his God is in his heart. His steps do not slip. Because we hide God’s word in our hearts, our steps will not slip, at least not finally slip. But then he contrasts this with the wicked, verse 32. The wicked does what? Spies upon the righteous and seeks to kill him. Here he’s speaking of the hostile wicked who are seeking to trip up and even destroy the righteous. What’s the Lord going to do about that? Is the Lord going to ultimately leave the righteous in the hands of the wicked who plot their downfall? Verse 33, the Lord will not leave him in his hand or let him be condemned when he is judged and then Not only did David begin this section with an exhortation and imperative to depart from evil and do good, but he then gives another exhortation.

Wait for the Lord and keep his way. In other words, Don’t give up. Keep persevering in wise, godly living. Keep trusting in the Lord and wait upon the Lord. And when the scriptures call us to wait upon the Lord, that is not a call to passivity. That is not a call to sit back and just, you know, okay, God, I’m waiting. When are you going to act? To wait for the Lord, to wait for Yahweh is to submit to His divine providence in your circumstances and trust that in His time He will work His will.

But in the meantime, you keep on keeping His way. You keep on living a life of godly wisdom by His grace. And what will be the result of that? Look at the end of verse 34. And He will exalt you to inherit the land. When the wicked are cut off, you will see it.

Whether in this life or in the life to come, you will be vindicated and you will see God’s holy retribution against the unrepentant wicked who have oppressed you. And so again, we see here the comfort that we can derive from what David teaches about the inheritance of the righteous. And if you are in a right relationship with God through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can be assured that God will indeed cause you to inherit the land and will deliver you from all of the wicked who seek to drag you down. But as he has spoken of the inheritance of the righteous, he also speaks to the matter of the destruction of the wicked.

And that is my second main point. As we go to the next section here, verses 35 through 38, consider the destruction of the wicked in verses 35 through 38. Verse 35, David gives a personal testimony of a man that he himself knew, who was a wicked, violent man, who was a prosperous man. Look at verses 35 and 36, I have seen, I have seen, he’s sharing personal testimony, I have seen a wicked, violent man, he doesn’t name this man, we don’t know who he’s talking about, but I’m sure David, as the king, knew many wicked, violent men, especially in his rise to the kingship in Israel. There was a lot of violence that David encountered, a lot of opposition.

He says, I have seen a wicked, violent man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. What a wonderful image, right? What a beautiful agricultural image there. A wicked man spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. The picture of a tree that is deeply rooted and nourished and seems to be, you know, trees can live a long, long time. This particular wicked man seemed to be secure, settled.

Nothing could, it would appear, could overcome him. But then notice verse 36. David goes on to say, then he passed away. David doesn’t explain how this man passed away or how his life was cut off. But all of a sudden, this wicked, violent, prosperous man who seemed so stable, so secure in his wickedness, all of a sudden, His life is snuffed out, and he’s cut off from the land of the living. He passed away, and lo, he was no more. I sought for him, but he could not be found. David here gives personal testimony of Yahweh’s retribution against the wicked by recalling this particular wicked, violent, and prosperous man that he knew, who was suddenly cut off and passed away. And David is saying, this is a sign and assurance that as the Lord dealt with that particular violent man, so he will deal with all of the unrepentant wicked in the end.

And he goes on to say in verse 37, mark the blameless man. Again, a blameless man is not a sinless man. One of the qualifications for serving as an elder or deacon in the church is that a man be blameless. And I sure hope that doesn’t mean that such a man needs to be sinless. Because if that’s the case, I don’t have any business being behind this pulpit. We are not sinless, but a blameless man is one who is beyond scandalous reproach, one who is mature in his faith and experienced in the Lord and so forth. Not a perfect man, but a man whose life is characterized by a blamelessness.

And David says, mark such a man. Mark the blameless man and behold the upright for the man of peace will have posterity.” You know, David’s worried about, well, what if these wicked ones overturn the land, you know, take control of the promised land? And what happens if their children become established in the land, and the land of Israel is wicked, just like the Gentile nations surrounding it? Well, David says, for the man of peace will have posterity. The posterity of the wicked will be cut off.

Again, there’s always the hope and the possibility of the intervention of divine grace and repentance. The scriptures tell us that God is a merciful God. He’s slow to anger. He’s abounding in steadfast love and covenant faithfulness. And he would rather that the wicked repent and live But nevertheless, for the unrepentant wicked who continue on in their ways and whose children learn the ways of their wicked fathers and grow up in those ways and continue in them, they will be cut off, whether in this life or in the life to come. But in contrast, as it goes on to say in verse 39, The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord.

So here in this section of Psalm 37 verses 35 to 38, we see a warning to us, an implied warning against godless, faithless living and an implicit call to repentance. Brothers, sisters, listeners, let us turn from our wicked ways Let us trust in the Lord, taking refuge in our faithful covenant-making, covenant-keeping God. Let us look unto Jesus in faith and repentance, and let us follow him out of gratitude for his gift of salvation. And speaking of salvation, this brings me to my last point as we consider verses 39 and 40. We learn here that salvation from the Lord is for those who take refuge in him. We see salvation from the Lord for those who take refuge in him, verse 39. But the salvation of the righteous is from what? From their worthiness, from their good works, from their obedience. No, that’s not what he says. The salvation of the righteous is from the Lord. Salvation is of the Lord.

I know we at Grace OPC regard ourselves as five-point Calvinists and praise God for the doctrines of grace. But the one point of Calvinism, I’m sure you’ve heard this, the one point of Calvinism that undergirds the five points is salvation is of the Lord. That is not just Calvinism, that’s biblical truth. Salvation comes not from us, not from our works, not from our free will, not from our worthiness, not from our strivings. Salvation comes from the Lord and the Lord alone, by his sovereign grace alone, through God-given faith alone in Jesus Christ, the Messiah alone. And this is implied and taught here in passages like this. The salvation of the righteous is not from their righteousness, not from their worthiness, but is from the Lord.

He is their strength in time of trouble. When we face evildoers, when the people of God faced evildoers in the land, even among the professed covenant people of God, those were times of trouble. But the Lord gives his faithful ones strength even in the time of trouble.

We all go through times of trouble. We as a church today go through times of trouble. We face a time of increasing hostility against the gospel. I personally believe that we are witnessing today in our culture, not just our secular culture, but our church culture, we are witnessing a heightened level of spiritual warfare. We are facing times of trouble. Should we fret because of evildoers who seem to prevail? Should we be despondent? Should we despair?

No. Because Yahweh the Lord is the strength of His people in time of trouble. Verse 40, He The Lord helps them and delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them. Again, why? Because they deserve it? Because they merit it? No. Because they take refuge in Him. In other words, because they trust in Him.

Again, notice that salvation and deliverance come from the Lord and thus salvation is grounded in God’s grace, not in our merits or works or worthiness. So beloved, in closing, as we end our study in this lengthy and glorious portion of God’s word known as Psalm 37. in the face of so much evil in this world, and in the face of the presence, the prevalence, and the seemingly unconquerable power of the wicked, who always seem to have the reins of power. It is tempting for us believers, even today, to fret because of evildoers, to be anxious, to be worried, to bite our fingernails and wonder, what’s going to happen? But our faithful covenant Lord and Savior has promised that in his timing, he will indeed bring his retribution upon the unrepentant wicked. He will deliver and vindicate his people, and he will secure our eternal inheritance in the ultimate promised land. In fact, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, he’s already done so in principle.

In Christ, our inheritance is secure. So dear listener, take your refuge in him, look to him alone for your salvation, and then rest assured that your inheritance in the land is forever secure, all by his grace and his grace alone. Amen. Let us pray. Gracious Lord and Father in heaven, we do thank you and praise you that you are a faithful God that your promises are sure and certain. Lord, in this valley of tears, in our pilgrimage, in this fallen, sin-cursed world, we are tempted to fret, because oftentimes it seems to us, at least to the eyes of the flesh, that we are on the losing side. Help us to remember, O God, that in Christ, we are more than conquerors. that to be in Christ is to be on the winning side, because Christ is the victorious one. So Lord, may we not be discouraged, may we not be downcast, may we know that you walk with us through our struggles, even through the valley of the shadow of death, and that you are bringing us and will pull us through to inherit the land forever. In Jesus’ name we pray, and all of God’s people said, Amen.

The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.