Psalm 94 there, we really just
look at a couple of verses in this psalm tonight, I believe,
and speak on the subject that seems to be addressed throughout
it. In many of these psalms, I find
the first verse just about contains the whole
psalm, doesn't it? Well, Lord God, to whom vengeance
belongs. God to whom vengeance belongeth,
show thyself. He talks about the ones that deserve God's vengeance
in the psalm and describes them and cries out for justice for
God to do something about it and then expresses great confidence
at the end of the psalm that the Lord will do something about
it. It's all about this God to whom
vengeance belongs, the owner That's what it means. He owns
it. Revenge. Interesting. One of the strongest passions
of the human heart, of course, for certain, is revenge. The bad guy has to get what's
coming to him, doesn't he? He just has to. He just can't
stand it if he doesn't. If the bad guy doesn't get what's
coming to him. And the more emphatically he does,
the better. He's got to get it good. If he
doesn't get what's coming to him, we just don't have any rest
about it, any comfort. Somebody gets away with something,
it just kills you. Just kills you. And even this very psalm, as
I said, it ends with the confident assurance that they will get what's coming
to them. We need to know that, don't we? We need to know that.
I'm glad to know that. And we don't really care how
he gets it, do we? That's how we are. We don't care how he
gets it from another bad guy. Fine. That's fine with me, as
long as he gets it. Maybe vigilante justice from
somebody that doesn't have any authority whatsoever to be dishing
out justice, but that's okay because we know he deserves it. If the law catches up with him,
that's fine, too. We like that. And sometimes the
bad guy just gets it directly from God. We kinda like that,
too, though. Just a big rock fall right on
his head. We like that. They just finally get what's
coming to them. And in real life, we still don't
much care how they get it, do we? But here's the thing, God
does. God does. We talk about the bad guys here
because that simple understanding is useful. We see that in this
psalm, don't we? The psalmist here, whoever it
is, he's saying, Lord, we're the good guys. They're the bad
guys. They hate you. They've got no use for you. We're
waiting on you. And he's saying that, but at the
same time, he calls upon God to deal with the bad guys. We know who they are, but we're not going to do anything
about it. But Lord, we sure would like to see you do something
about it. That's the right way. That's God's way. That's the
scriptural way. And here's the thing. God is
not just better at vengeance than we are, and that's certainly
true. No question about that. If we take matters of justice
into our own hands, we will do injustice for any number of reasons. Our Lord said to us, don't even
worry. Don't worry about separating the wheat from the chaff. I will
take care of that. You don't know. If you pull up
some chaff, you're going to pull up some wheat with it. We don't
know the difference. We don't know. We don't really
know right from wrong most of the time. The Lord has revealed
it to us, but we still get it confused, don't we? And we're
very limited in our knowledge of something, and we always tend
to not understand that somehow. We always think we know everybody's
situation, don't we? We know what's going on. No,
you don't. No, you weren't there. You don't know. We see one side
of something and we make a judgment or we err in judgment because
we look on the outside and God looks on the heart. Only God
looks on the heart. We're just not fit for it, are
we? That's why God said it belongs to me. Vengeance is mine. I will repay, saith the Lord. And that's just right. But it's
not just that God's better at it. That's not what our text
says. It says it belongs to him. It's
his right alone to dispense justice, to get revenge, to balance the
scales of righteousness. Why? Well, because Christ has
been given all judgment by God, his father. John 5, 22, the father
judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the son. And
so if the Lord Jesus Christ determines that somebody needs to pay, then
they'll pay. That all men should honor the
son, even as they honor the father. God's done a whole lot of things
for that reason. Can you think of anything that
God has not done that you couldn't say this about it, that all men
should honor his son. And this is one of them. He makes
the calls. He makes judgments. He dispenses
justice. Revenge belongs to him. And also, secondly, he's the
one against whom all sin is committed. He's the plaintiff in this case.
David said in Psalm 51, four against thee, the only have I
sinned and done this evil in my sight that thou mightest be
justified when thou speakest and be clear when thou judges. Now you and I are not clear to
judge. We are not clear to judge because
he didn't sin against us. We don't judge David. He didn't
sin against us. We don't judge our neighbor that
did us wrong. He didn't sin against us. I may wrong you, I may hurt you,
but you're just as guilty as I am. Maybe not in every circumstance,
every situation. There are like, like David is
talking about a real life situation. I say, I keep saying, David,
I don't know who the Psalmist is here, but he's talking about
a real life situation that was going on here. And he said, they're
the bad guys. And we can, we know that because
of what God has taught us. They're the ones that hate God.
We're the ones Lord calling on you. And that doesn't make us,
that's not what makes us the good guys. The reason we're calling
on you is because you've made us the good guys. But there's
a difference in there. There is right and wrong. There
is guilty and innocent in every situation. Now, before God, we're
all guilty. But I may not be guilty against
you, but whether I am or not, I didn't sin against you. I sinned
against God. And so vengeance belongs to Him. Notice how the psalmist words
this in verse 1. Lord, just show up. All God's
got to do is show up. All He's got to do is show up.
And now, this doesn't mean that God has to be physically present
in order to do what He does. Lazarus his friends learned that
didn't they said Lord if you'd have been here Lazarus wouldn't
have died well His physical presence has nothing to do with that.
He kills and he makes a lot Period But what this all is to say here
Lord show yourself to be the God of vengeance show yourself
as our Avenger and as the avenger of righteousness, by causing
mine enemies to be defeated and put to shame. So that's what
he's saying there. But he, you know, he realized
all God got to do is show up. It's not a battle between good
and evil. God just shows up, it's over. We talk about vengeance
also, I thought about that. We talk about it very dispassionately
tonight, but Israel suffered some very cruel treatment by
their enemies. And we have to try to enter into
this a little bit if we can. I'm not sure what the specific
circumstances were in the case of this song. There's some speculation
about that. But I wonder if it was our loved
ones that were being killed. And their enemies were godless
freaks. They were just, you'd be just
killing people just because they could and because of their pride
and because of, You know this because they wanted more stuff
and just like they do now, just like people do now. Same reasons. I wonder if it was our loved
ones being killed or if we were attacked and robbed. And it was
in our hands to get revenge. I wonder, could we leave it to
God? I sincerely have been very open
with you about that with regard to myself. I don't know. I honestly don't know. I pray
that I could. I pray that I could. I know it's right. I know it's
right to leave it to him. But you see what I'm saying?
That'd be tough, wouldn't it? That'd be tough. But here's a question that I've
got for you. What if you're the bad guy? That's a good question. Because
if we're going to see any spiritual truth tonight, we're going to
have to understand that we are the bad guy. We're the bad guy. Then the only hope you have is
if God is the one who dispenses justice. And he always is. God is always the one that does.
Ultimately, he uses different circumstances and human means,
sometimes instrumental thing that he uses to to balance things. And we know that that things
always don't get don't always get balanced in this life. He's
going to settle the books finally once and for all before he wraps
this thing up. That may that may not happen
for many, many years. But Think about this. God is
always the one who dispenses justice, but King David, he didn't
even want God to use human means to deal justice. You remember
that? When, when David numbered the people and God was angry
with him about it and gave him three choices in second Samuel
24, let me read it to you. You certainly welcome to turn
their second Samuel 24, 13, but let me read it. So Gad came to
David and told him. Now, we understand that God is
rough with David. David numbered the people instead
of trusting God, instead of just saying, you know, doesn't matter
how many we have, we have the Lord on our side. David was trusting
in the flesh, it seems like in that story. And God was angry
with him. And Gad came to David and told
him and said unto him, shall seven years of famine come unto
thee in thy land? Now you think about that. If their land dries up, what
are they gonna have to do? They're gonna have to go where
it ain't dry and beg. So they're at the mercy of men,
right? Or will you flee three months
before your enemies while they pursue you? Just have your enemies
come down on your head and you just run as fast as you can and
let's see how many How many of you they can kill? Before god
puts a stop to it Or that there be three days pestilence
in thy land disease And david said unto gad They're not a good
choice in the bunch Is that that's what he said pretty much. He
said i'm in a great strength That'd be tough, wouldn't it?
That'd be a tough choice. But then he said, let us fall now
into the hand of the Lord. Now, in all these cases, the
Lord's in control, and David knew that. He'd done enough business
with God, he knew that. But he would rather fall directly
into the hand of God than have any human means involved at all.
He'd done some business with men, too, and he'd had enough
of it. He said, let's fall now into
the hand of the Lord, for his mercies are great. His mercies are great. And if
you're the bad guy, that's where you want to be, in the hand of
the Lord. His mercies are great. So the
Lord sent a pestilence. The only one that there was really no human
instrumentality involved in their suffering because David knew
how callous and merciless and cruel and wicked people are.
He sent a pestilence upon Israel from the morning even to the
time appointed in their diet of the people from Dan even to
Beersheba, 70,000 men. King David had very personal
experience regarding what it's like to be identified
by God as the bad guy. You know what I'm talking about,
don't you? Let's turn and look at it. 2 Samuel 12. Have you ever, has God ever put
his finger on your heart and said, it's you. You're the problem. You're the cause of all of the
shame. and all of the guilt, all of the evil. 2 Samuel, I better get over there. 2 Samuel
12, verse 1. Let's just start at
the beginning of this story and see how aptly this describes
our condition before God now. The Lord sent Nathan unto David,
and he came unto him and said unto him, There were two men
and one city, the one rich and the other poor. The rich man
had exceeding many flocks and herds, but the poor man had nothing
save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up,
and it grew up together with him. and with his children and did
eat of his own meat and drank of his own cup and lay in his
bosom and was unto him as a daughter. And there came a traveler unto
the rich man and he spared to take of his own flock and of
his own herd to dress for the wayfaring man that was coming
to him but took the poor man's lamb and dressed it for the man
that was come to him. And David's anger was greatly
kindled against the man And he said to Nathan, as the Lord liveth,
the man that hath done this thing shall surely die. I'll get revenge for this poor
man. I'll get revenge for him. Aren't you glad the Lord's not
like us? You talk about glad. I'll get revenge. And then, boy,
you talk about this is a no-brainer here. Surely we can take matters
into our own hands in this one. This guy's got to die. He got
to die for that. That just... And this is like
our sin in the garden, isn't it? Pride. We had everything. We're living in paradise and
couldn't bow to God now. It wasn't like he needed that
man's little lamb that he loved. He didn't need it. Did we need
that fruit? Did we not have everything that
God had good for us, provided for us before we were ever born,
before he ever made us? There's paradise waiting on us.
But our pride and the audacity of our wretched hearts And he shall restore. He's going
to restore the lamb fourfold because he did this thing because
he had no pity. He's going to restore fourfold
and then I'm going to kill him. And Nathan said to David, it's
you. And I know we've heard this story a lot. Can you imagine
that? Can you imagine? Has it ever
happened to you? Have you ever considered what
wicked, evil men did to God's land? And has it ever occurred to you
how richly they deserve hell for that? And then you realize it was you. No definition can come close
to that. You've got to experience that.
God got to experience. He got to cause you to experience
that. The guilt and the shame of your
own pride and evil. Can you imagine how shamed David
was before God's prophet? How ashamed. You had everything,
David. And you took the only thing that
man had that was worth having. You took it. Thou art the man, thus saith
the Lord God of Israel. I anointed thee king over Israel,
and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul, and I gave thee
thy master's house and thy master's wives into thy bosom, and gave
thee the house of Israel and of Judah. And if that had been
too little, I would moreover have given unto
thee such and such things. What has God withheld from us?
He that spared not his own son, but delivered him up for us all,
how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? And
yet, we still sin. We still sin. We're still proud. We still despise
his word. We still think we're God. We still wish we were. and that we can do whatever we
want, we'll take whatever we want, you know. God's given us
everything. Wherefore hast thou despised
the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight? Thou hast
killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his
wife to be thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the
children of Ammon. God knows how to lay blame, doesn't
he? He knows who's guilty. It wasn't the children of Ammon. What a picture. He said, David,
you took the sword right out of their hands and killed him
with it. It's you, it's you, it's you. You believe in the
doctrine of original sin? That's good, I do too. But are
you the man? That's the question before God.
Are you the man? Now therefore the sword shall
never depart from thine house because thou hast despised me
and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife. And
that's not punishment. The sword being a debtor, that's
not punishment. You know what that is? Just a
reminder of what we deserve. Does God give you reminders like
that every once in a while? What we deserve, what we've earned,
what we're worthy of. Thus saith the Lord, Behold,
I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house.
You talk about heartbreak. We know that story, don't we,
Absalom? And I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give
them unto thy neighbor. And he shall lie with thy wives
in the sight of this Son. For thou didst it secretly, but
I will do this thing before all Israel and before the Son. And
David said unto Nathan, What are you going to say? What are you going to say to
that? I've sinned against the Lord. Not against your right. Not against
Bathsheba. Although, you know, it killed
him. If he could do anything to make it up for it, he probably
would have. By God's grace. But we can't
make up for our sin. We can't make up for it. And
Nathan said unto David, here's the only thing that can be done
with our sin now. If we're not going to suffer
forever for it, and rightly so, and the Lord also hath put away
thy sin, you shall not die. You're not going to be punished
for it. You're going to suffer for it in this life as a reminder. But you're not going to be punished. God's put it away. He put it
away. He didn't kind of put it away. He didn't sweep it under
a rug. He's not going to give you a
break. He put it away. The sin is gone. As far as God's
concerned, David didn't commit any sin. He put it away. He's
clean everywhere, as he said to his disciples when he watched
that you clean everywhere. How be it because by this deed
that has given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to
blaspheme. The child also that is born into
thee shall surely die. And Nathan
departed unto his house. And the Lord struck the child
of Uriah's wife, barren, to David. And it was very sick. And you
know that story, too. How broken David was over that
and fasted. Fasted, couldn't eat, didn't
want to talk to anybody. And his men would come to him
and say, David, you had to eat something. And he'd say, no. Got no use for food, got no use
for anything. Begged God to spare that boy.
Begged him. And then one day his men came
to him and said, the child is dead. And David got dressed,
took a shower, got dressed, ate a little something. And his men
said, what are you doing? The child is dead. We thought
you would fast now, you know. Be sorrowful. He said, you know, before I didn't
know whether the Lord would have mercy or not. But now the Lord's
done what he's gonna do. I'm gonna go worship him. I go
worship him. That's grace. God hath put away that sin. How
does that work? Well, the Lord Jesus Christ has
power to put away sin. Authority. It's his right to
do it because it's against him now. It's against him. Matthew 9, 1 through 8. Let's
turn there because I don't have a whole lot tonight. I don't
want to... Let's look at Matthew 9. I want
to look at a couple of scriptures in the New Testament, so we might
as well get over there. Matthew 9, 1. What a powerful
story this is. Our Lord entered into a ship
and passed over and came into his own city. And behold, they
brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed, and
Jesus, seeing their faith, said unto the sick of the palsy, Son,
be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee. And behold, certain
of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus,
knowing their thoughts, said, Wherein think ye evil in your
thoughts? For where there is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven
thee, or to say, Arise and walk. But that you may know that the
Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins. The Lord could
have said either one. He could have said this world
be done. And we'd all go to hell right
then. That's what he wanted to do. But he said, I said what I did
so you'd know that the Son of Man has power,
authority, the right on this earth to forgive sins. Then saith
he to the sick of the palsy, arise, take up thy bed, and go
in and out of the house. He ended up saying both, didn't
he? He arose and departed to his
house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified
God, which had given such power unto men." Not exactly true. He gave that power to one man,
not me. One man. And there's only one
way it can happen. The Lord Jesus can't just And you know, it's hard to say
that he can't do anything, but there's some things that God
can't do. And those things don't limit him, they magnify him.
The fact that he can't sin, he can't go back on his word, he
can't lie, he can't be unfaithful. Those things don't limit him.
The Lord Jesus Christ can't just say, I forgive you of your sins
without some basis. Somebody got to pay. He ceases
to be God unless justice is done. So they're just one way. So turn
to Hebrews chapter nine, Hebrews chapter nine, verse 24.
You see, he's the God of vengeance.
Now it belongs to him. He owns it. He's the only one
that can rightly wisely, properly, righteously, dispense justice
in any matter. And he was the God of vengeance
when David did what he did. David said, I'll take vengeance
on that fellow. I'll kill him. But bless God in his rich mercy,
he said, I'm not going to kill him. And it's you. Hebrews 9 24. Here's how God
is able To not exact vengeance on us because you see we see
in that same song that we read tonight God vengeance belongs
to him, but he'll never forsake his people. He'll never give
us what we deserve never And here's why for Christ Is not
entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the
figures of the truth but into heaven itself now to appear as
in the presence of God for us, for us. All the high priests
of the Old Testament, Aaron and all of his family and his predecessors,
they were just pictures, shadows. Paul said in Hebrews also that
these shadows, the one who cast the shadow, the substance is
Christ. He is the high priest and he
didn't go into a a tabernacle made with hands, but into the
very presence of God Almighty. And he went there for us. That's
substitution. That's representation. He went
there in our stand. He went there as our representative.
We have an high priest of all the things we've spoken. Paul
said in Hebrews 11, this is the song we have such a high priest,
such a high priest, nor yet verse 25, that he should offer himself
often as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year
with the blood of others. For then must he often have suffered
since the foundation of the world. But now once in the end of the
world hath Christ appeared to put away sin." Nathan said, a thousand years,
however many long, 1,500 years, 2,000, 3,000 years, whatever it is, before
the Lord died on the cross, God has put away that sin. It's already
done. How does he do that? By the sacrifice
of himself. That's the only way sin can be
put away. You find any other way in the
scripture. Without the shedding of blood, there's no remission
of sin, and there's no other blood. The blood of bulls and
goats ain't gonna cut it. With his own precious blood,
he atoned for the sins of all of his people for all time. David's,
mine, yours if you know him, and our children, I pray. I pray. His blood is eternal blood. It
don't matter when you were born into this world. 3,000 years
before the Lord Jesus died or 3,000 years after. His precious blood puts away
sin and nothing else will. So Christ not only has the authority
to put away sin, but he has the efficacy to do so. He alone is
able. That just means he's able to
do it. He is sufficient to put away sin by the sacrifice of
himself. His sacrifice was worth enough
to pay for all of my sins. He alone is able to save to the
uttermost those that come unto God by him So my message to you
tonight is this come unto God by him Because you need to be
saved to the uttermost just like I did Come to God Pleading the
sin atoning virtue of Christ like that publican did He smote
on his breast and would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven
And said, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. And that word
merciful means propitious. And a propitiation is a sin atonement,
a sin offering. Lord, receive the sin offering. On my behalf. God be merciful. And come as
the apostle Paul, as he said, not having my own righteousness,
but the righteousness of Christ. Listen to it. He said in Philippians
three, nine, I must be found in him, in Christ, not having
my own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is
through the faith of Christ, the righteousness, which is of
God by faith. So come for sin atonement for,
with a sin offering the sin offering and come with the righteousness
of Christ alone. We are the man, we are the bad
guy, and we deserve great and swift revenge from God. But by God's grace and mercy
in Christ, God has been pleased in order to save his people to
pour out his vengeful wrath on his own son in our stead. You
think about it that way now. God didn't reluctantly put his son on the cross and
pour out his wrath on him. It says it pleased him to do
it. It was revenge. Can you even think about that
right? Me neither. Revenge. He took revenge on his
own son in my place. What does God owe us revenge
for? Killing his son. That's the culmination
of all sin. That's the outward expression
of every and all sin. How does God justly forgive us
this for this sin? By killing his son. May God give us all grace and
our children and grandchildren and everybody we love. to come
unto God by Him. Let's pray.