Let's look at Psalm 79 again
tonight. Psalm 79. Now, in this psalm,
we saw, as we read through this psalm, and I'll read through
it again, the first four verses talk about the heathen who have
come into God's place, into the place where God's people are,
into the temple, into the city, and they've laid it waste. They've
not only destroyed the temple and the city of God, but they
have destroyed the people, the saints, the servants of God.
And let's read that together in verses one through four. O
God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance. So this is
God. So notice how the argument goes here. This is God's inheritance.
Thy holy temple have they defiled, which would have included the
outer and the inner part. They have laid Jerusalem on heaps. They've leveled it. The dead
bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat to the fowls
of the heaven, the flesh of thy saints to the beasts of the earth.
Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem,
and there was none to bury them. We are become a reproach to our
neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about
us." Seems pretty bad. Seems very bleak, doesn't it?
Seems like serving the Lord leads only to a a shameful death and
painful one too. Shameful because their bodies
are laying out to rot, to be eaten, and the God they trusted
seems to have done nothing to those who brought this atrocity
upon them. And so the lesson through all
this is that God's people in this life do not escape the persecutions
and the tribulation that come from false religion and from
all those connected to that false religion. And they also suffer
the same things that even the ungodly suffer in this life. But the appearance of victory,
the appearance of the enemy's victory, is not the final word. And that's what the rest of this
psalm is going to go on to show us. So, the heathen have brought
great atrocities upon the Lord's people. That's the setting here
of this psalm. And it's not just God's people,
it's God's place, His dwelling, His temple, His inheritance.
And so the plea of the psalmist here is effective because he
takes the Lord's cause, the Lord's inheritance, the Lord's city,
the Lord's temple, the Lord's people. He takes the Lord's perspective
in everything. And that's the way we're taught
to pray, isn't it? which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,
thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
Those are the opening words of the prayer that Jesus used to
teach his disciples to pray. And we also want to have the
same heart When we pray to the Lord, Thy kingdom come, Thy will
be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Your name is holy, You
are our Father, and so we're trusting in You. And so that's
what we see here. That's the way that the plea
goes, pleading God's cause and God's possessions, God's people,
and so that's why it's an effective prayer. And then in verse 5,
the cry goes up to God, the plea goes up to Him, that He would
turn His anger from Jacob. Let's read the verses 5 through
7. It says, How long, Lord, wilt
Thou be angry forever? Shall thy jealousy burn like
fire? Now, jealousy is something that
we understand, especially, I think, men. I can only speak for myself. If you think that somehow someone
else has captivated the love of the one that you love, that
there's something that happens. It's like there's a switch that
gets flipped and you go bananas. The Lord, in Exodus chapter 20,
in the Ten Commandments, in the law, the Lord says this, He says
that the people were to not serve or worship any other gods. He
says, Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image, any likeness of anything that
is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that
is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself
to them, nor serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous
God. So you see here that In making
an idol, in worshiping anything except God, is the parallel of
adultery in the spiritual way. It's spiritual adultery. Idolatry
is spiritual adultery. And so God says, I am a jealous
God. And so we know instinctively
what jealousy is, as when someone takes from us the one we love
and the devotion of the one we love, that would be a very, very
painful thing. It would arouse, and it does
arouse, the wrath, the anger of a man in that particular example. But in this spiritual application,
it's God who is jealous. And he says he's jealous because
he's teaching his people that he will not tolerate sharing
His honor or giving His honor to any other. So we can find
this application with respect to the Lord Jesus Christ, can
we? To provoke God to jealousy would be when we trust any but
Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is our
God and our Savior. If we were to find salvation
or satisfaction to our souls in any but Christ, that would
be the equivalent of idolatry or spiritual adultery. looking
to any but Christ for our salvation is spiritual adultery. And so
back in Psalm 79 when he says, How long, Lord, wilt thou be
angry forever? Shall thy jealousy burn like
fire? He's owning the fact that they have in the past, at least,
behaved in a way to provoke God to jealousy. And that's an admission
of guilt, isn't it? It's guilt of the worst kind.
It would be like the adulterous spouse coming to the other spouse
and saying, I've committed this sin against you. against God,
first of all, but I have committed adultery. And so that's what
this prayer is. It's helpful for us to see the
parallel between these two things. In a spiritual sense, this is
the worst kind of provocation to trust someone other than Christ.
To trust ourselves, to trust some other man, to trust some
false religion, some antichrist. So in verse six he says, pour
out thy wrath upon the heathen that have not known thee, and
upon the kingdoms that have not called upon thy name, for they
have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place. So
here the plea goes up to God that he would turn his anger
from Jacob. That's what it says in verse seven, they have devoured
Jacob. Now that name, Jacob, we know
that means supplanter or someone who cheats. And Jacob was known
for that. And you know the historical cases
where he did that. He was sneaky when it came to
dealing with his uncle Laban, who seemed sneakier than Jacob
did. He was sneaky when he came in
to Isaac to pretend he was Esau, even though it was something
that God sanctioned and actually blessed. So there was these different
examples in Jacob's life where he was a tricker and he would
trick people. But Jacob therefore is a name
that is representative of our natural selves, our sinful selves. Remember when the Lord wrestled
with Jacob and he asked him, what is your name? And that was
after he had wrestled with him all night when he was weakened
and Jacob said, it's Jacob. So he admitted then, he came
to that point when the Lord wrestles with us, he's going to win and
he's going to get us, he's going to cause us to see that we are
sinful. And that's what this means here.
They have devoured Jacob and laid waste his dwelling place.
It's helpful for us to see these things in scripture. It's a testimony
of God's grace, right? A testimony of his grace. For
when we were yet without strength in due time, Christ died for
who? the ungodly, the ungodly. And that's from Romans chapter
5. And God commendeth his love toward us. He made known his
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. And on and on it goes throughout
the gospel. The gospel is good news to sinners. And that's what this chapter,
Psalm 79, is teaching. the enemies have completely wasted
in the first four verses. It seems like the church of God
has suffered at the hand of the enemy and God hasn't done anything
to take vengeance on their enemies, and the one they trusted has
actually turned them over to their enemies, and so then they
confess their sins in verse five through seven, and they confess
themselves to be Jacob, and they confess the fact that God's jealousy
was against them, and that his wrath, and they plead with him,
how long, Lord, how long? Will you not pour out your wrath
upon the heathen? It seems upside down. What's
going on here is not what we expected. And that's the setting
here of this psalm. And then the next two verses
from verses eight through nine are really the heart, I think,
of this psalm. I see the heart of the psalm
because it gets down to the point where the people of God have
been brought very low. They're low and they are now
praying in that impoverished state. They are poor in spirit.
They mourn because of the trouble that has come upon them. They
see no evidence of God's grace towards them. except that they
have this prayer given to them. And we should never overlook
that. The heathen here act with impunity. in their cruelty and
in their merciless evil against God's people. They boast in their
wickedness, and they boast against the Lord's people, and therefore
they boast against their God. They're saying, in so many words,
they're saying, we've been able to actually plunder, destroy,
and murder you and shame you, and your God has done nothing
for you in response. And so they were confident, they
were proud, and so their heart, the enemy's heart, the heathen
here, their hearts grew harder and harder because it seemed
like God wasn't judging them. The God of Jacob didn't do anything,
at least to the enemy, it seemed like they were winning. And to
the Lord's people, obviously, their bodies are laying there
dead and no one is burying them. They're afraid for their lives.
They don't go out and bury their loved ones because they're afraid.
And they know God's anger is against them because of their
spiritual adultery against Him. And so it comes to a peak in
verses eight through nine. And what you see here is the
evidence of the Lord's people. the evidence of the Lord's people
because even though it seems like to all appearances they're
going to lose or they have lost, that their hope is gone, yet
God is assuring the Lord's people that appearances are not the
way that things are. God is going to bring His purposes
to pass. He is going to save His people.
He's not only going to save them from the enemy, but He's going
to bring vengeance upon their enemies and destroy them, and
then He's going to do it all for His name's sake. Now, this
is taught to the people of God, and that's why verses 8 and 9,
I say, are the heart of this chapter. He says, listen to verse
8, there's five things that are asked for here. He says, Oh,
remember not against us former iniquities. Don't remember our
sins. Now, God knows everything. There's
nothing that he doesn't know. Before, it happens. After, he
has perfect understanding. And yet, the prayer is doubly
incredible because they asked the Lord not to remember their
iniquities. Why would they pray this way?
Well, because this was God's will. He had promised this in
the New Covenant. He said, their sins and iniquities
will I remember no more. In Psalm 103 and verse 12, it
says, the Lord has removed our transgressions from us as far
as the east is from the west. how can God not remember? How
can God not remember the iniquities of His people if His knowledge
is perfect and eternal? The way that He can not remember
this is that there is nothing to remember. The only way that
God will not remember the iniquities of His people is if there are
no iniquities to remember. that is the most glorious thing
of all. The only way there could be no
iniquities is if the Lord has removed the iniquities of His
people. Only God can remove their iniquities
from them so that there are no more and there are no more to
be remembered. So looking here again at verse Oh, remember not
against us former iniquities, my past sins, former iniquities. That's the first request. And
then he says, let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us.
Let your mercies go before us. Let them come before us before. in every way, and how could that
happen? How can God's mercies go before
us? Well, God gave his mercies to us in Christ before the foundation
of the world. 1 Peter 1 verse 18 says, knowing
that you were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver
and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. as of a lamb,
without spot, without blemish. And then he goes on to say in
verse 20 of 1 Peter chapter 1, he was foreordained before the
foundation of the world. So this, the blood of Christ,
Christ was ordained for us, the mercies of God therefore went
before us. They went before us. They prevented
us in that way. And so that's the second prayer.
And it obviously is a prayer according to the will of God.
The first prayer, don't remember our sins. The second one, let
your mercies go before us. And obviously, both of those
occur only in the Lord Jesus Christ. His mercies go before
us in Christ, and He remembers our sins no more because of the
remission of our sins in Christ. And then he says, for we are
brought very low. That's the result of the destruction
and the death that came upon them in the first four verses.
And then he says in verse nine, this is the third request, he
says, help us, help us, oh God of our salvation. And you know
what he's asking for when he says, help us, oh God of our
salvation. He's asking for the Lord who
is our salvation to help, therefore he's asking for salvation, right?
The God of our salvation helps us, it will be the help of salvation. So that's the third request.
And then he says, for the glory of thy name. So he's not only
saying that he's asking for these things, but he adds the highest
possible motive. and the most effective plea. Do it for your sake, Lord. Do
it in such a way that would bring glory and honor to yourself. And that also teaches us that
our salvation will only glorify God. It will only glorify God. And God is pleased in our salvation
to glorify His Son. So this is fantastic. that we
could pray, that God himself would tell us, this is the way
you are to pray, for my name's sake, for my glory's sake. Find
a way in your wisdom and in your grace to glorify yourself and
all of your perfections in saving me." How many times have you
prayed that prayer? I pray it frequently because
I know that has to be the reason why God acts. God is not going
to do anything unless it is for His glory, for His namesake.
To do otherwise would be to transgress because everything has got to
be for the glory of God. So he goes on, and this is the
fourth request, and deliver us. To deliver means to save. Help
us and deliver us, and then finally, and purge away our sins for thy
name's sake. All of it for your glory, all
of it for your name's sake. And you can take these words
directly from this scripture, can't you? And you can apply
them in your own personal prayers with the same Well, with the heartfelt need
of the psalmist here, can't you? Because if you think about this
psalm now, as we looked at last week, if we could, one of the
keys that unlocks this psalm to us is to identify who is this
enemy? And I started to do that last
week. It's the heathen, and it's these armies that came against
Jerusalem historically, But is that the enemy? Is it the Babylonians,
the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and the Romans? Are those the
enemies? Is there a greater enemy than
those? Oh, yes. It's much greater than that.
You see, all of our enemies come against us because of our sin
against God. In fact, we have a sinful nature
because of our sin against God. Sin has dominion over us in that
sinful nature. Because of our sin against God
so we can we can get down to the root of the problem and say
sin is our problem and Our sin is all our fault. That's why
he asked for mercy Mercy mercy is only needed if you have if
you're if it's all your fault and you have no hope unless God
shows mercy to you in Christ and If sin is all your fault,
and you have no excuse for it, and you have to go to God as
a sinner, then you need mercy. And you know that there's hope
for you only if God is merciful to you in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why this psalm is so dear to a sinner, so that what you
can actually do is you can understand this psalm in the sense that
the enemy plundering and dealing death and all this stuff is like
a tyrant who rules unto death, right? And that's precisely what
Romans 5.21 says. It says, as sin hath reigned
unto death, So sin like a king or a tyrant reigning unto death,
as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Let me read that to make sure
I got that right. In Romans chapter 5, And verse
21 is the conclusion of the chapter. He says, that as sin hath reigned
unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto
eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. Notice, in this text
of scripture, our sin against the Lord Jesus Christ, against
God the Father and the Holy Spirit, What should be the cause of our
eternal death is set up here in scripture as a tyrant ruling
over us and bringing us to a certain death. But, he says in this verse,
Romans 5.21, that as that sin reigned with unbreakable dominion
to bring us to a certain death, even so now grace reigns, and
obviously that grace is not in us. It's not because of us. It's for God's name. It's because
of His character and His work. That grace reigns through righteousness,
and that righteousness, of course, is the Lord Jesus' righteousness
unto eternal life, which is also in Christ. It's all through Jesus
Christ, our Lord. What a blessed statement that
is. You see how the gospel comes here in the middle of this psalm
when it seems like there's absolute shame brought on the entire church
of God by the enemy and God seems to do nothing about it in the
first seven verses. They've devoured Jacob. and they
laid waste his dwelling place. They've entered into your inheritance,
Lord. They've destroyed your temple.
They've laid your city waste. They've killed your saints. They've
left their bodies in the streets, you see. and then the Lord comes
in His grace in this prayer. And God makes a distinction because
the evidence of the saints and the servants of God is that under
this tyrannical reign of sin and death, comes the prayer for
grace, and that was taught to them by God. God the Father has
drawn them to Christ because they see this grace reigning
because of Jesus Christ's righteousness and because of his eternal life
given to them through grace. Alright, but I love those two
verses and I love the way the psalm causes us in our present
history, our personal lives, to apply it to ourselves through
this realization that the enemy here is the result of our sin. And the plea in the psalm is
not our innocence, but our guilt, but also God's glory and his
name in our salvation, the God of our salvation. All right,
let's go on and get to verse 10. Wherefore should the heathen
say, where is their God? So that's what the heathen say
here. They're saying bad things against
God's name. Where's your God? It's like what
they said to Jesus when he was on the cross. He trusted in God.
He trusted in the Lord. Let him deliver him, since he
trusted in him. And so, of course, God didn't
deliver him from the cross, because that was God's will. And so they
could look at, by their appearances, it seemed as if they had the
strength over Christ on the cross, over God's people, and therefore
they had power over God. And God wasn't doing anything
about it. They were reproaching the Lord himself. And so the
prayer goes up that way. Wherefore should the heathen
say, where is their God? Let him be known, the prayer
goes on, among the heathen in our sight. Let's see it. By the revenging of the blood
of thy servants which is shed. Okay, so let's stop there in
verse 10. So this is a prayer that God
would bring upon those who persecuted the Lord's people a vengeance
upon them. And look at 2 Thessalonians.
in your Bible, 2 Thessalonians in chapter 1, and you'll see
this picked up, the same principle, by the Apostle Paul. In 2 Thessalonians
chapter 1 verse 4 it says, so that we ourselves glory in you
and the churches of God for your patience and faith and all your
persecutions and tribulations that you endure. Paul is telling
the believers that they have heard of their patience and of
their faith in all of their persecutions, in all the tribulations which
they suffer and endure under. And verse 5, which is a manifest
token, it's evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may
be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer.
The Lord's people suffer because they believe Christ, and in that
suffering they endure through faith, and they overcome through
faith, and that's the evidence that they are worthy of the kingdom
of God for which they suffer. not worthy in themselves, but
worthy in Christ. He goes on in verse 6, seeing,
notice, it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation
to them that trouble you. If that makes sense, they killed
us, then that's the trouble that God's gonna bring on them. And
to you who are troubled, rest with us when the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming
fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. So, see the New Testament. interpretation of the enemy here? And what's coming upon them?
Who are they? They are those who hate Christ,
and who hate his people, and trouble the Lord's people. They are those who know not God,
in 2 Thessalonians 1 verse 8, and that obey not the gospel
of our Lord Jesus Christ. They don't believe Christ. They're
idolaters, and they trust themselves. They trust anti-Christ religion. They obey not the gospel. They
don't trust Christ. They don't look to Him. They're
not sinners. Remember the thief on the cross,
one of them? While he was dying, he said to
the Lord, if you are the Son of God, or if you are the Christ,
then get us down from the cross. And that was the dying thief
who didn't believe Christ, the unbelieving dying thief. He's
like the heathen in Psalm 79, persecuting Christ. And then
the other thief, the other dying thief said, Lord, remember me
when you come into your kingdom. He knew he was the Lord. He knew
he would come in his kingdom. He knew he was king. He knew
he would rise from the dead. He knew he was God. He trusted
him and he asked him to remember, remember me Lord. So that's the
response of the Lord's people. And you see this throughout,
remember the publican, the Pharisee and the publican in Luke 18.
Or Cain and Abel, remember? Cain, he brings his offering,
he's looking at his offering, he's asking God to recognize
and to consider his offering, and Abel says, No, no. No, I'm going to bring this lamb
looking to Christ as my all. And the Lord received Abel's
offering because he was looking to Christ in the offering. And
Cain, and if you read Genesis 4, Cain and all of his children,
they were just like Cain. They did exactly like Cain. But
then in the end of Genesis 4, Seth, the son of Adam and Eve,
who was a substitute for Abel. Seth means substitute. Seth had
a son named Enos. And in the days of Enos, men
began to call on the name of the Lord. So the son, the children
of the substitute, call on the name of the Lord. And that was
the difference. And you can see this difference
throughout scripture between the kingdom of Satan and the
kingdom of Christ. The heathen is the kingdom of
Satan and the Lord's people are the kingdom of Christ. And so
this is also seen in Revelation chapter 11. You want to turn
to Revelation 11? And you can see a similar kind
of thing. In Revelation 11, there's this depiction of the church. It's a depiction that is done
with two witnesses. And it says here, the angel speaks
to John, the apostle. He says, there was given to me
a reed, like a rod, meaning a measuring stick. And the angel stood saying,
rise and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them
that worship therein. Well, you know the temple represents
Christ, and the altar is Christ crucified, and those that worship
therein are those who live upon Christ and Him crucified and
preach Him. It goes on in verse 2, but the
court that is without the temple leave out and measure it not. So the temple, therefore, is
the church. The temple is the dwelling place
of Christ. the body of Christ. That's where
Christ dwells. And that's where the altar is
set forth to them in the preaching of the gospel. That's who they
trust. That's who they believe. And the court that's without,
it says, leave that out. Don't measure it, for it's given
to the Gentiles. And the holy city shall they
tread under foot 42 months. So the Gentiles that are not
in the temple represent the heathen. And those in Psalm 79 are those
that destroy the church. And so you see the same conflict
here in Revelation 11. And then in verse 3 of Revelation
11, it says, I will give power to my two witnesses. Now when
you read this, you imagine two men, but he's not talking about
two physical men, it's an indirection. The indirection is given as two
men representing something. He says, I will give power to
my two witnesses and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred
and three scored days, which is twelve hundred and sixty,
which is forty two months, which is the same as was said in verse
two. So the Gentiles are going to
tread under the holy city 42 months. That sounds like Psalm
79, doesn't it? And here, though they're treading
it under, the two witnesses are going to prophesy for the same
period of time. And that period of time is the
period from the cross to the second coming of Christ. it's
represented in the book of Revelation as three and a half months, or
42 months, or three and a half years, 42 months, or 1260 days. And so, here these two witnesses
are prophesying, and they're clothed in sackcloth, and then
it says in verse four, notice, these are the two olive trees,
so the two witnesses are two olive trees, and two candlesticks
standing before the God of the earth. So through the ministry
of the gospel, the two witnesses, the olive trees, representing
the spirit of God, and the candlesticks, the light of Christ, the ministry
God has chosen through the ministry of the church to give grace to
his church, through the gospel being preached to them, through
the church, the gifts God has given to the church, which is
represented by these two witnesses. The two witnesses, the two olive
trees, the two candlesticks, are all pointing to the same
thing, which is the church and the gifts Christ gave to it to
minister to the church edifying the church, preaching the gospel
in this world during the time from Christ until Christ's ascension
to his second coming. But notice then, it goes on in
verse five of Revelation 11, and if any man will hurt them,
the two witnesses, fire proceeds out of their mouth and devours
their enemies, and if any man will hurt them, he must in this
manner be killed. So the fire that comes out of
the mouth of these two witnesses kills those who hurt the two
witnesses. And what he's saying here is
that when the gospel is preached, it brings two things. To those
who are saved, it brings life. To those who perish, it brings
condemnation, right? Remember 2 Corinthians chapter
2, we are a saver of life to life and of death to death. To
those who are perishing, we are a saver of death to death. To
those who are given life, we are a saver of life to life.
That's what the gospel does. It's the nature of the preaching
of the gospel. Those who hear and believe have
everlasting life in John 3.36, but those who don't believe the
wrath of God abides on them. And that's what this killing
of these, the two witnesses killing those represents. It represents
how the gospel brings condemnation and leaves those who don't trust
Christ under the judgment their sins deserve. And that's exactly
what Psalm 79 is doing. But then it goes on in Revelation
11. It says, These have power to shut heaven that it rain not
in the days of their prophecy, and they have power over the
waters to turn them to blood, to smite the earth with all plagues
as often as they will. And when they have finished their
testimony, okay, there's a time coming, the end of this period
to 1260 days, at the end of their testimony,
the beast that ascends out of the bottomless pit shall make
war against them and shall overcome them and kill them." So what
that means is that the church's ministry will come to an end
at the end of time. And when that ministry comes
to an end, just before the end, the false religion of this world,
Antichrist's false religion, will appear to have silenced
the gospel, and that's depicted here by the death of these two
witnesses. They're not heard anymore. They're dead, it says
in verse 8, and their dead bodies, just like Psalm 79, their dead
bodies shall lie in the street of the great city which is spiritually
called Sodom in Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified."
Well, Egypt, remember that's the idolatrous place out of which
God delivered Israel through the blood of the Passover lamb.
Sodom was the city with Gomorrah that was destroyed when God poured
out fire and brimstone from heaven. It was an idolatrous, immoral,
perverse city. And so that's what false religion
is. In the eyes of God, they're worthy of condemnation and judgment,
and it will come upon them. But that's where these two witnesses'
dead bodies lay, in the streets of Egypt and Sodom, meaning that
false, anti-Christ religion appears to have won over the Church,
but in verse nine, and they of the people and kindreds and tongues
and nations shall see the dead bodies three days and a half,
a very short time, and shall not suffer their dead bodies
to be put in graves, just like Psalm 79, verses one through
four, and they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over
them and make merry and shall send gifts one to another because
these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth.
The world hates the gospel. It's a torment to them because
it talks about Christ's work, God's glory, and their sin, it
finds nothing good in man. There's none righteous, no not
one. Christ must receive all the glory, only Christ is righteous.
And only those in Christ can live and have righteousness unto
eternal life. So that's what the gospel says,
it's an offense to men. It's an offense. Unless it concludes
the works of men, that message is an offense. That's why Galatians
was written, because Paul said, I'm not going to take away the
offense of the gospel. It's an offense to the unbeliever. And so it was torment to them.
In verse 11 of Revelation 11, after three days and a half,
the spirit of life from God entered into these two witnesses. They
stood upon their feet. Great fear fell upon them, which
saw them. And they heard a great voice
from heaven saying to them, come up here, come up hither. And
they ascended up to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies beheld
them. So I'm going to stop in Revelation
11. Do you see the parallel between these two chapters? Do you see
that God's work in the world now is to preach the gospel?
And do you see how the gospel accomplishes God's will, both
in the salvation and the condemnation? And so you see in verse 10 of
Psalm 79, Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God?
Let him be known among the heathen in our sight by the revenging
of the blood of thy servants which is shed. Whenever false
antichrist religion, or antichrist religion, man's free will works
religion, when it seems to silence the gospel, then the prayer of
the saints is, Lord, and they trouble, they bring tribulation
and persecution on those who preach the gospel, then the saints
are waiting for God to do the righteous thing, to trouble them. Because that's God's will. And
that God's will is revealed throughout scripture. Here, 2 Thessalonians
1, Revelation 11, we could go on and on. Egypt, Babylon, Assyria,
all of it. Christ on the cross. So, Psalm
79 then can also be seen, as I think Tim pointed out last
week at the end of the study, as a prophecy of Christ suffering
for His people and our salvation in Him. Alright, look at verse
11 of Psalm 79. Let the sighing of the prisoner
come before thee according to the greatness of thy power. Preserve
thou those that are appointed to die. So, let the sighing,
the sighing of the prisoner. Who is the prisoner? Well, the
prisoner in this context would be the Lord's people held captive
And he says, let the sign of the prisoner come before thee
according to the greatness of thy power. You see, preserve
thou those that are appointed to die. Unless the Lord saved
us, we would be appointed to die. And false religion would
love to kill the entire flock of the Lord's, all of his sheep,
but he can't. And so, in 1 Peter chapter 1,
it says, you are kept by the power of God unto salvation,
ready to be revealed in the last days. Kept by the power of God
through faith. So, our being kept is by God's
power. The means by which God keeps
us is He upholds our faith, just like with Peter. When he denied
the Lord, Jesus prayed for his faith that it would not fail.
And so here, according to the greatness of your power, Lord,
preserve me, a sinner who is appointed to die, and I'm a prisoner,
my own sin would be like this tyrant, this king who would bring
me to a certain death, but by your grace, through your righteousness,
bring me to eternal life and keep me by your power believing
Christ, okay? Verse 12 of Psalm 79, "...and
render to our neighbors sevenfold into their bosom their reproach
wherewith they have reproached Thee, O Lord." Notice, the prayer
isn't returned sevenfold into our neighbor's bosom because
they reproached us, but because they reproached Thee, O Lord."
Again, the argument here is powerful because it has God's name and
glory and His inheritance and His city and His people and His
dwelling place. Everything that's God's is in
view here, is pleading what is the Lord's. the Lord's possession
and His glory. They have reproached thee, O
Lord, because they said, where is your God? Where is your God? We're able to do what we want,
and your God hasn't done anything to stop us. We can do this, and
you can't do anything about it. Verse 13, so we thy people, the
Lord has a people, we thy people, and the sheep of thy pasture.
Again, he keeps emphasizing this, your people, your sheep, Lord,
Because you do this, we will give thanks to your name forever. We'll give thanks to you forever.
And we will show forth thy praise to all generations, to the generations
to come, to every believer who is to come. We live. by faith,
and we confess by faith, Christ is all. In all of our salvation,
we are sinners and nothing at all, but the Lord is all. And
we do this praying that the Lord would take that message and make
it effective in the hearts of all of his people who are to
come, the generations to come. And we think especially of our
own children, don't we? our own children, our grandchildren,
our families, whoever hears the gospel. We're always thinking
this when someone we love, someone we know, even not someone we're
acquainted with, but when they come under the hearing of the
gospel, we think, could it be that this person is here at this
time to hear and God would make them a trophy of His grace in
their salvation? Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your great word, your great name, your glory, all seen by
us in the Lord Jesus Christ alone, his salvation. We see in this
psalm a depiction of his sufferings. We see in this psalm a depiction
of our own sufferings because of our sin against which we have
no power, and yet we see in this psalm your tremendous grace.
for the glory of your name, that your salvation would be greater
than all of our enemies. You would overcome our sin and
death in hell, Satan and his kingdom, and even the curse of
your own law, which was rightly against us. You would bring all
these to glorify yourself in our salvation and make this our
prayer, our life's desire. And we pray, Lord, that you would
bless your word to our hearts to give thanks to you forever
and that you would bless the generations to come through this
generation preaching the gospel of Christ. In his name we pray,
amen.