Psalm 76, let me read through
it and then we will try to pick it up around verse 6. It says,
in Judah is God known. And we saw last week it has to
do with Christ. We see Christ and we see God
in Him. We know Him. We know God in Christ. He came from Judah. And God's
people are also called Judah, the elect of God. So God's elect
know God in the Lord Jesus Christ. His name is great in Israel because
His fame, His reputation, all that we know about Christ causes
Him to be great in our estimation. And He's done that. He's done
that. And he's done that by his great salvation, hasn't he? He's
great in his salvation of his people. And we find that to be
great, don't we? We needed salvation. We needed
a savior. And he is the great savior. In
verse two, in Salem also is his tabernacle. Salem means peace. And it was just a short word
for Jerusalem, which is the place where God's tabernacle was. The tabernacle is Christ dwelling
with us. He's the Word made flesh who
tabernacled amongst us. And His dwelling place is in
Zion, it says. That's the church. God dwells
with His people. He dwells in them and they dwell
in Him. So there's intimate dwelling
of God in them, and they in God, and this is grace beyond our
comprehension. All of grace really is, isn't
it? In verse 3 it says, there break he the arrows of the bow,
the shield, and the sword, and the battle, Selah. So God destroyed
all the weapons of all the enemies of his people, and we should
think about that all the time. Redemption is deliverance from
our enemies and it's deliverance to the liberty of sons of God. And here it enumerates those
weapons. It says in verse four, thou art
more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. as animals
of prey, like lions and so on, wolves. As they devour, they
seek those other lower beasts to devour them. So men, in their
self-righteousness, in their pride, in their idolatry of their
own selves, really self-worship, will-worship, and an attempt
to occupy the throne of Christ. They seek to devour widows' houses. They seek the possessions and
the souls of God's people. And this is portrayed throughout
scripture. In Revelation 18, verse 13, it says that the place
that was Babylon was destroyed, and this was the place where
they the merchants, all sorts of merchandise, and one of those
merchandises was the souls of men. And this is descriptive
of Antichrist religion, where false prophets, false apostles
preach a false gospel and a false Jesus. And they do that in order
to destroy God's people and destroy Christ himself. But the Lord
is more glorious and excellent than the mountains of prey. These
high kingdoms of men and their assumed power over others, the
preeminence, the desire to have the preeminence among God's people
and the church and men who seek that high place in the church,
the honor and praise of men rather than the glory of God, the glory
of Christ. And they preach another gospel
because that's the only way they can get glory to themselves.
Those are like kingdoms and mountains, high mountains. but the Lord
is greater than they are, especially in his humility, isn't he? His
humility shows his greatness, and we see his humility, and
sinners, the sheep, hear his voice in that, and they run to
him. Verse five, the stout-hearted are spoiled, they have slept
their sleep, and none of the men of might have found their
hands. All of the strong enemies of God's people have become weak,
because the Lord has fought for us. We have no power, we don't
know what to do, Our eyes are on Christ, the battle is his,
and we stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. He accomplishes
our victory. Verse six, at thy rebuke, O God
of Jacob, both the chariot and the horse are cast into a dead
sleep. Now here it says the Lord is
rebuking them. In fact, it says the God of Jacob,
at thy rebuke, O God of Jacob. Notice, the Lord who rebukes
the enemy, it's the Lord Jehovah. Jehovah, our Lord Jesus Christ. He's Jehovah, isn't he? Jehovah,
our salvation, the Savior. In Zechariah 3 and verse 2, it
says, the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. So this was the only thing that
had to be said. When the Lord rebuked Satan,
Satan could not do anything. He had to shut his mouth. He
had to stand still. Because the devil might be powerful,
but his power is limited by what God allows him to do, to bring
evil upon those, the Lord of the Lord's enemies. And so here,
Satan is rebuked, and he has to be silent. At the rebuke of
Christ, because he overcame our sin and Satan and death and hell
and the grave and all of our enemies, all of their strength
and all their weapons are cast into a dead sleep. They can't
move, like the chariots and the armies. and the king of Egypt. They were swallowed up in the
Red Sea and they were cast into a dead sleep. And notice here,
God is the God of Jacob. Now, you know in scripture, remember
in Romans 9, it says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated. So Jacob is the name of God's
loved ones. Isn't he? Jacob have I loved,
Esau have I hated. God divides all of humanity into
two groups. Those loved in Christ, those
hated because they remain in themselves and in themselves
they have nothing and they cling in their pride to their own righteousness. before God, and they appear in
judgment in their own works, and they ask for recognition
that they would be accepted for what they've done, for their
own merit. And they have no interest in Christ. They've never thought,
like Cain, when God pronounced punishment on Cain, he said,
my punishment is greater than I can bear. Never a thought of
asking God for mercy in Christ. He wouldn't stoop that low, would
he? He could only imagine that he himself could answer God. And so here he says, Jacob, Jacob,
those loved of God, those chosen before, those God chose in order
to establish the truth that it is not by works that we're saved,
but it is by grace alone. God made the choice. God put
Christ on the cross. God poured out his wrath on him
and laid our sins on him. That's why his wrath was poured
out. And he did that for his own name's sake, to save his
people from their sins and from every enemy. And so the Lord
rebuketh thee, the God of Jacob, the God of those he loves and
chose in Christ, those who in themselves are like Jacob, deceitful,
cheap, And yet they're chosen in Christ. All men, without exception,
are sinners. No man has done good. No man
is righteous. And yet God is determined to
save a people, and He calls them Jacob. And so they're called
this. And in calling them the God of
Jacob, He identifies with his people in a way that he shows
that his name and his reputation, his glory is tied to their salvation. If God is not successful, remember
what Jesus told the Sadducees, God is not the God of the dead.
He's the God of the living. If God doesn't raise up Jacob
to eternal life, then what does that say about his name, his
power? Well, someone would say, well,
he had to reject them because they were sinful. So you're saying
then that God isn't able to do away with their sin, that he
couldn't answer for their sin. He didn't know how to even answer
his own justice or fulfill his own righteousness. in the Lord
Jesus Christ. See, that's the wisdom of God.
That's the grace of God. And yes, he overcomes for Jacob.
He overcame for those people on whom he set his name. And
he identifies himself as the God of Jacob, the God of those
who are sinners, the God who he saves sinners. Isn't that
his name, Jesus? He saves sinners from their sins.
And that's why we trust him. That's why we delight in him,
the God of Jacob. And at thy rebuke, O God of Jacob,
both the chariot and horse are cast into a deep sleep. Those are all the enemies of
God's people, the enemies of Jacob. Here we have the division
again, Jacob on one side and the rest, all Esau on the other.
Cain on one side, or Abel, if I group him on the side with
Jacob, Abel on one side, Cain is on the other. All of Israel
on one side, Balaam is on the other. The publican is on one
side, the Pharisee was on the other. And so you can see all
of, Paul was on one side, And then the Judaizers were on the
other side. There's the synagogue of Satan,
and there's the church of the living God. There's the kingdom
of Satan, and there's the kingdom of Christ. And so we see that
there's the Jerusalem above and there's the Jerusalem below.
And we see these things in scripture. God makes a distinction, just
like in creation. He divided the land from the
sea. He divided the light from the darkness. He divided the
night from the day. And so all these things, we see
it in the fulfillment in God's division of his people. He made
a difference. He made a difference. If you're
saved, God made the difference. And that's why we need to honor
him. That's why we are thankful to him. That's why we're so grateful.
God made a difference. I made a difference to my damnation. He made a difference in my salvation.
And so I would have been an object of wrath unless he made me an
object of his glory in his mercy. And that's what the Lord's people
know. And so they rejoice to hear God say, the God of sinners,
chosen, loved in Christ, chosen in Christ, and saved from their
sins, the God of Jacob. He won't fail. He's tied his
name in his glory. His own character, his own Godhead,
He's tied his own Godhead to the salvation of his people.
Can he fail? Unless he fails to be God, he
can't. So this is great news, isn't it? In 1 Thessalonians
5, verse 9, it says, God has not appointed us to wrath, but
to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ. That's the God
of Jacob. The Lord Jesus Christ, the God of Jacob, God has appointed
us not to his wrath, but to obtain salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ,
who died for us, the Lord Jesus, died for us that whether we wake
or sleep, we should live together with him. He died that we might
live. He died for us that we might
live with him. Whether we're alive in this world
or we're in glory, we'll live with him. That's what he's saying
here. There's no possibility that his people will be dead
any longer because he rose from the dead. What a great blessing. You see what the God of Jacob
does for his people? He did not appoint us to wrath.
He appointed us to obtain salvation. This is selective, isn't it?
This is definite. This is a certain salvation. This is a successful savior. This is not an unsuccessful or
an indefinite general kind of thing where God does something
that's potentially saving for an indefinite number of people.
No, this was a specific number, accounted. Israel, a redeemed
Israel. And so we see it here. And then
in 2 Thessalonians in verse 9, it says that there's one coming
after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying
wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness. And then
they perish because they received not the love of the truth. And
this is what our condition would be. We didn't either receive
the love of the truth until it was God's appointed time. they
didn't receive it, that they might be saved. For this cause
God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie,
that they all might be damned, who believed not the truth, but
had pleasure in unrighteousness." That was our state, wasn't it?
Until the Lord saved us. But, notice, but we are bound
to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of
the Lord, because God has chosen us from the beginning. To salvation,
you see, he chose us from the beginning, before time, to salvation. From eternity, he chose us to
salvation. That's what made the difference.
Through, he also chose the means, through sanctification of the
spirit. He chose the spirit of God to
sanctify us, to make us holy under the hearing of the gospel,
he says, and belief of the truth. concerning Christ, whereunto,"
this is how he fulfilled that, means, he called you by our gospel
to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. That's
in 2 Thessalonians, chapter two. What an amazing thing. We're
thankful for this, Paul says, because God has chosen us to
salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ. So at thy rebuke, O Jacob,
both the chariot and the horse are cast into the deep sleep.
All right, verse seven of Psalm 76. He says, thou, even thou
art to be feared, and who may stand in thy sight when once
thou art angry? The Lord is to be feared because
no one can stand once his anger is engaged, once he's angry. Once it starts, there's no stopping
it. He's going to, no one can stand
before him. That's what God is saying here.
Now, the enemies of Christ ought to fear him in a way of dread. They ought to fear him in a way
of cavilling fear. They ought to be quaking in their
boots. Remember in the Old Testament,
when any of the enemies of Israel saw God's salvation, what happened
to them? They were terrified. They were terrified. Remember
Nebuchadnezzar's son when he saw the writing of that hand
on the wall, and what happened? His knees knocked together. He
was terrified. That's dread. That's the fear
of dread. So thou, even thou art to be
feared, and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art
angry? The enemies of God ought to fear God in dread, in terror. And so it will be at the end
of time when they say, as it says in Revelation chapter six,
that the wrath of the Lamb has come and they will cry on the
rocks and the mountains to fall on them because his wrath has
been kindled. And let me read that to you in
Revelation chapter six. It's towards the end of the chapter.
And he says this, he says, The heaven departed as a scroll when
it is rolled together and every mountain and island were moved
out of their places and the kings of the earth and the great men
and the rich men and the chief captains and the mighty men and
every bondman and every free man hid themselves in the dens
and in the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and
rocks, fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sits
on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb. for the great day
of his wrath has come, and who shall be able to stand? You see,
that sounds just like what it says here. Thou, even thou art
to be feared, and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art
angry? The day of his wrath, when his wrath comes, no one
can stand. So men ought to fear him. And
Jesus said himself, he says, don't fear him who can kill your
body, but fear him who can cast body and soul into hell. And
so that's a fear that we ought to have, that's a fear of dread.
But, if we are in our sins, we ought to fear God with a fear
of dread. But, believers desire to be found in Christ, you see,
and God has to give us that fear. And the Apostle Paul says about
all of his life, all of his works in the Hebrew religion, he says,
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Jesus Christ my Lord. Because the knowledge of him
shows me a way of righteousness, a way of the removal of sin by
his precious blood, his greatness in all of this, his goodness
and grace. And so he says, for him, I've suffered the loss of
all things. Everything I counted that would
enable me to stand before God, now I count it nothing. Count
it dung. He says, I do count them a dung
that I may win Christ and be found in him. 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
here we see the contrast between those who are unable to stand
and ought to dread, fear God in dread, the Lord Jesus Christ
and his wrath, and one who has fled to the Lord Jesus Christ
to be found in him. And so in Psalm 143, verse 9,
it says, this is Psalm 143, verse 9, it says, deliver me, O Lord,
from my enemies. I flee to Thee to hide me. Now that's what is going on here. First there's the enemies, and
then God's wrath is against the enemies of his people, and those
enemies are told, you won't be able to stand in the day of his
wrath, but the Lord's people say, I flee to thee to hide me
from my enemies. So the ones that the wicked run
from is the one the sheep run to. They're the sheep and they hear
his voice and they go to him, you see. So in Psalm 46, it says
the same things. The Lord of hosts is with us.
The God of Jacob is our refuge. The God of Jacob, there it is
again, is our refuge. He's the one in whom we hide.
We flee to him and hide in him. and the one whose wrath should
be against us. We hide in him who is the Lord
Jesus Christ and God, who has taken away his wrath by his own
precious blood. Being now justified by his blood,
we shall be saved from wrath through him." Romans 5, verse
9. So God is known in her palaces, in the palaces of Zion, in the
palaces of the church, for a refuge. We know the Lord Jesus Christ
as our refuge, don't we? Psalm 48.3, God is known in her
palaces for a refuge in the church. God is known as a refuge in the
Lord Jesus Christ. So God is fearful and even dreadful
and ought to be dreadful to his enemies, yet they go on in their
rebellion. Because it also says later in
Revelation that men being scorched with heat from the judgments
being poured out, what did they do? They did not repent, but
they blasphemed the name of God, which gave power and had power
over these plagues. So this shows that no matter
what the threatenings are, no matter what the punishment is,
men don't repent. And I don't know, I can't speculate
this, but I don't think that anyone in hell, under the wrath
of God for eternity, under the fires of God's wrath, will ever
repent. They won't because they'll constantly
be angry. They'll be accusing God and they
won't be, they can't see his goodness and his grace because
they don't have, there is no grace there. So this is the division
again that God makes. There's this fear of dread and
then there's the fear of the Lord's people. There's a clean
fear. In Psalm 19, it says, the fear
of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The judgments of the
Lord are true and righteous altogether. So the judgments of the Lord,
what are those judgments? Well, there's lots of them. One
of them, for example, in John chapter 12, verse 30, Jesus said
the prince of this world is judged. And then in Romans chapter 8,
he says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?
God has judged them. Well, he doesn't say it quite
like that. He says that God himself has justified them, which is
a judgment. God has passed judgment and justified
them. So his judgments are true and
righteous altogether. When God passes judgment and
justifies his people, it's a righteous judgment. It's a true judgment. Truth and peace, righteousness
and peace have met together in the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's
right for God to judge His people as righteous in Christ because
He did it. And we know it's right because
God did it. That's the way we know right
from wrong. So if we fear God right, if we rightly fear God,
then we will flee to Him. You see, we will hope in him,
in the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the difference between
this fear of dread, which we can only have until the Lord
saves us, and the fear of the Lord, which is trusting Christ. So he says this, in Psalm 33. I'm going to read from Psalm
33 to you. Psalm 33 in verse 6. It says,
By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the
host of them by the breath of his mouth. He gathers the waters
of the sea together as a heap. He lays up the deep in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the
world, notice, stand in awe of him. Now that's just for creation. And the one who created the world,
he tells all the earth to stand in awe of him, much like Jesus
said, look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth,
in Isaiah 45, 22. Here he says, let all the earth
fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of
him, because, verse nine of Psalm 33, he spake and it was done. He commanded and it stood fast.
The Lord brings the counsel of the heathen to nothing. He makes
the devices of the people of none effect. The counsel of the
Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord and the people whom
he has chosen for his own inheritance." That's a blessed people, isn't
it? For the Lord looked from heaven. He beholdeth all the
sons of men from the place of his habitation. He looketh upon
all the inhabitants of the earth. He fashioneth their hearts alike.
He considereth all their works. There's no king saved by the
multitude of a host. No matter how big your army,
you're not going to be saved, Mr. King, who rules over that
army. Not by your army. Not from the
Lord. A mighty man is not delivered by much strength. Doesn't matter
how strong you are. You're not going to be delivered
by your strength. A horse is a vain thing. For safety, it
doesn't matter what you depend on. For your safety, it won't
save you. Neither shall he deliver any
by his great strength, the horse. Behold, the eye of the Lord,
notice, the eye of the Lord is upon them that fear him, upon
them that hope. in his mercy. You see how God
equates those two things? This is in Psalm chapter 33,
verse 18. So standing in awe is equated
with the fear of the Lord, and hoping in his mercy is also equated
with the fear of the Lord for that nation whom the Lord has
chosen. So God gives the fear. He will
put his fear into their hearts. And so he says, those that thus
fear the Lord and hope in his mercy, he will deliver their
souls from death. And so this applies to the redeemed,
doesn't it? Because they're the ones Christ
delivered from death. And because he redeemed them,
he gives them his spirit to trust him, and they hope in God's mercy,
which is Christ. So no man can save himself by
his own strength or anything that he might rely on for that
salvation. Only the Lord can save. It's
the Lord's wrath that we must be saved from, and only the blood
of the Lord Jesus Christ can save us from that wrath. So the
fear of the Lord that is clean is the reverence that his children
have for him as their father. The reverence God's people have
for him as their father. This is the maturity of sons. The maturity of sons. I'm thinking
about preaching a message on this on Sunday. The maturity
of sons. And let me just state it simply
here. What is the difference between a slave and a son? Between an immature child and
a mature son? According to scripture, the difference
is faith in Christ. Faith in Christ. And that's what
he's saying here. The fear of the Lord is clean.
Those that fear him reverence him. They stand in awe of him.
They hope in his mercy. And so that's what the Lord is
teaching us here in this. The clean and true fear of the
Lord is only given by God. He's the only one who gives it,
and he gives it to his saints, his elect. It says in Psalm 86
verse 11, teach me thy way O Lord, I will walk in thy truth, unite
my heart to fear thy name. You see? So what is someone who
fears the Lord? What does someone who fears the
Lord do? What do they do? Well, they stand in awe. They
hope in his mercy. They also ask him to give them
this godly fear. Unite my heart to fear thy name. Don't you find that to be, God
is doing that in you? That you say, Lord, I need faith. I need you to give it to me.
I need mercy. I need you to give it to me.
I need understanding. I need the fear of the Lord.
I need repentance. I need life. I'm asking you for
it, for Christ's sake. That's the only way that we can
be heard. We come into the presence of God in the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so it's only by grace that
we can serve him this way. It says in Hebrews chapter 12,
That we only by grace can we serve him acceptably with reverence
and godly fear. Let us have grace whereby we
may serve him with reverence and godly fear. That's in Hebrews
chapter 12. Let me give you the exact verse
on Hebrews chapter 12 because I don't think it's the last verse
of Hebrews 12. Let me make sure, Hebrews chapter
12, this is a powerful verse, isn't it? He says in verse 28,
wherefore receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, meaning
the kingdom of Christ, given to us, let us have grace whereby
we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. That's not the fear of a slave
or a criminal facing the judgment and wrath of the Lamb. That's
the fear of God's children, the faith that is in the Lord Jesus
Christ. What a wonderful thing that is,
that God would give us this faith. All right. Now, verse 8. Let's go. Let me
just sum up verse 7 this way. Those who fear God trust Christ.
That's the way you know. No one who trusts in himself
fears God. That's the case of the person
who will face God in wrath. But trusting Christ is true fear.
We fear not to fear, not to trust Christ, don't we? The Lord has
taught us that, hasn't he? Okay, Psalm 76, verse 8. Let's
read that together. He says, Thou didst cause judgment
to be heard from heaven. The earth feared and was still.
When did this judgment, When does this occur? Thou didst cause
judgment to be heard from heaven, the earth feared and was still."
Well, now if you understand this psalm, as I was pointing out
in the first part of this study, this psalm occurs, the battle
is huge. The champion who fought the battle
is victorious. The battle is fought between
the Lord's people, called Jacob, and their enemies. And God is
victorious in this, and He gives them this victory. When was this
great battle fought? At the cross. Who fought it?
Christ. Who helped Him? No one. Well, God did. But no
man, no devil, no angel. The angels ministered to him
physically, but they didn't help him accomplish redemption. He
did it by himself. By himself, he purged our sins. That was the battle. the battle
over our sins and the death and the grave and the curse of God's
law, every enemy against us. So when did God cause this judgment
to be heard from heaven? Well, He caused it to be heard
when He told His people that Jesus Christ was His only begotten
Son. his well-beloved son in whom
he is well-pleased." Remember at his baptism, Matthew 3, verse
17, this is my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased. He spoke. The people heard him. Then at
the Mount of Transfiguration, the Father, Jesus, met there
on the Mount with Peter, James, and John. And I kind of wonder
Well, I'll get into that another time. So he met with Peter, James,
and John, and then Elijah was there, the prophets, and Moses,
the law. And they were talking about the
decease which Christ would accomplish at Jerusalem. That means that
was the message of the prophets, the message of the law. Moses
wrote of him. The prophets all spoke of him.
The Psalms were written concerning him. And he came to do the will
of God. And so they're talking about
this at the Mount of Transfiguration. And his garments and his face
were white. And the disciples saw him. And
then when Peter said, Lord, let's make a tabernacle here for you
and for Moses and Elijah. And the Lord spoke from heaven.
God the Father said this. He said, this is my beloved son
in whom I am well pleased. That's a judgment here. God caused
judgment to be heard from heaven. The earth feared and was still.
So don't listen to any but Christ. He's my beloved son. In him I'm
well pleased. And Peter mentioned that in 2
Peter 1 verse 18, how they heard this voice from heaven. And then
in John chapter 12, Jesus said, Father, glorify thy name. And
the people heard it like thunder. And they said, God spoke. A voice was heard from heaven.
And Jesus said, this voice didn't come for my sake, but for yours.
Now is the judgment of this world. Now is the prince of this world
cast out. See, judgment was occurring. God the Father spoke. And it
was to show forth his glory in the Lord Jesus Christ. he would
gain the victory over all of the kingdoms, a kingdom of darkness
in his death. And so God caused judgment to
be heard at his baptism, at his transfiguration, especially on
the cross. Remember what happened when the
Lord Jesus Christ said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.
And then he hung his, he bowed his head and gave up the ghost.
And what happened? Immediately, God the Father had
the veil of the temple torn from top to bottom, and the earth
quaked, and the tombs were opened, and the bodies of the saints
came out, and they appeared to many after his resurrection.
And so, again, the centurion and those who stood at the cross
said, this truly was the Son of God. Judgment from heaven
was heard, and the people heard, and the earth feared and was
still. There was nothing they could do. Remember at the tomb.
When the soldiers who were there to guard it, the angel came down
and opened the tomb, rolled away the stone, and they were like
dead men. They were afraid, because God's judgment was heard from
heaven. You see, it all has to do with the judgment of the cross. At the cross, God's people were
justified, and Satan's kingdom, and the demons of hell, and those
who are in the castle of Satan, who are his captives, willing
captives, they were judged too. So that's what this psalm is
about, this judgment that came upon them. Then in verse 9, verse
9 of Psalm 76, it says, when God arose to judgment to save
all the meek of the earth, Selah. So you can see how God is explaining
verse 8 here in verse 9. When God arose to judgment, when
did God arise? Let God arise and His enemies
be scattered. I can't remember where that is,
but it's in the Psalms somewhere. Let God arise. Let his enemies
be scattered. Here, he says, when God arose
to judgment. This speaks of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ. When God arose. When Christ rose
from the dead. He rose to judgment to save all
the meek of the earth. The Lord Jesus Christ is God.
He rose from the dead. He was delivered up and died
for our sins. But he says in Revelation 1,
I am he that liveth and was dead and behold, I'm alive forevermore
and I have the keys of death and hell. So it's the Lord who
arose and he rose for our justification. He was delivered for our offenses.
He was raised again for our justification. Then in verse 10 of Psalm 76,
it says, Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee, the remainder
of wrath shalt thou restrain. Now if you take what we've been
saying about verse 8 and 9, when God arose to judgment in verse
9, or in verse 8, when he caused judgment to be heard from heaven,
to understand that about the cross, then when was this wrath
of man most When was the highest expression
and the highest gathering together of the largest crowd against
God in wrath? It seemed like unchecked wrath
of man. It was at the cross, wasn't it?
Wasn't that when all of the Jews and the Gentiles were gathered
together against the Lord and against His anointed, like it
says in Psalm chapter 2? Let me read that to you. It says
in Psalm chapter 2, and this is explained in Acts, he says,
Why do the heathen rage? That's anger, isn't it? That's
wrath. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain
thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers,
this is the kings, those in high places among the Gentiles, and
the rulers among the Jews, they take counsel together against
the Lord, that's Christ, and against his anointed, saying,
let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from
us. You see? They don't, they're rebelling
against his right to rule. And his right to rule became
positively evident when he rose from the grave. They weren't
going to submit to him, and so they put him to death, but he
rose victoriously. And so that's what this is speaking
about, Psalm chapter 2. And then in Acts chapter 2, In
Acts chapter 2 this is also brought out here about the wrath of man
coming to this peak to its highest expression and their greatest
anger and the largest number of them gathered together and
had been building up and planning for this all of the time the
Lord Jesus Christ was in his ministry. They were plotting
and planning and scheming. and purchasing betrayers, and
hiring false accusers, and all these things. But in Acts chapter
2, it says, him, Christ, being delivered by the... I'm sorry,
Acts 2.23, Christ being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have
crucified and slain. That's the wrath of man. whom
God has raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it
was not possible that he should be holden of it, of death in
the grave." So here, the wrath of man is what's going to bring
praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise to him. All of this wrath
of man was brought against Christ, and what happened? He gained
the victory over it. And not only did he gain the
victory in the face of this wrath, like God did with Pharaoh in
Egypt. Pharaoh, all of his armies, an
unconquerable nation it seemed. There was no way that Israel
could get out of that bondage. And God came, he says to Pharaoh,
let my people go that they may serve me. Let them go that they
may serve me. Pharaoh said, who's the Lord?
I'm not gonna do it. Okay, that's fine, because you
will. And so the Lord, you know the
whole story. Ten plagues later, the last one being the Passover,
the killing of the firstborn, Pharaoh is begging, get out,
get out. So he then let him go. And so here, even though his
wrath had reached a fever pitch, the highest strain in his fight,
his determination to resist and to rebel against God's command
to let his people go, that they may serve him, he willingly lets
them go. And so God's power is shown over
Pharaoh in a mighty way, but not in the mightiest way because
then, Pharaoh thought he had a final chance to destroy the
whole nation. He gathers all of his armies
together. He finds them camped around,
I mean camped at the Red Sea. They're stuck there and he chases
them into the sea after they pass through on dry land and
he and his chariots and his horses and all of his army are drowned
in the Red Sea and their bodies are floating and show up on the
shore the next day. Amazing, huh? And so Again, it's
just a picture of redemption of Christ and His great victory
in spite of the wrath of man. But even then, there's a different
way that you can see this too, a glorious way, because the wrath
of man is going to praise Him. You see, everything that the
Lord's enemies did at the cross, they meant it in wrath to reproach
Him, but God used it God used it, showing that by His omnipotent
power, even in the wrath of man, their words and their deeds praised
Him. First, in their deeds, because
in delivering Christ up to death, He accomplished the will of God
to save His people and to crush the head of Satan. And that was
the victory of the cross. But even in their words, they
were telling the truth that was about him. It says in scripture,
in Matthew 27, verse 43, this is what they accused Jesus of.
Listen to these words. He trusted in God. Let him deliver
him now, if he will have him, for he said, I am the son of
God. You see what they're doing? They're simply repeating what's
true. Did he trust in God? Yes. Did God deliver him? Yes. Did God have him? Yes. Was he the son of God? Yes. And yet in their wrath, they
were using that as his reproach. So their wrath turned to his
praise. He did trust in God, and we're justified by the faith
of him, the one who trusted God, aren't we? It says in Matthew
27, verse 37, they set up over his head this accusation. This
is Jesus, the King of the Jews. Well, Pilate meant to reproach
the Jews by that, but it was true. It was true. He is the king of the true Israel,
and of course he's king of kings, but he's a king of his people
for their salvation. Another one in Mark 15, in verse
31, it says, he saved others. Now they're thinking, Yeah, he
saved Lazarus from the dead. He saved the woman's daughter
from the devil. He saved all these people from
sickness. He saved others. He cannot save himself. Ah, see,
he's hanging on the cross. He's not able to get himself
off the cross. Ha, ha, ha. No, this is exactly
why he's on the cross. Because he would save others,
he could not save himself. And so it was to his praise,
wasn't it? He came to give his life a ransom for many. And so
they were really in their wrath and their attempt to reproach
him. God used their words to praise him. It says in Matthew
27, verse 25, the people were so confident that they were right in crucifying
Christ. They said, His blood be on us
and on our children. If His blood is on them, it will
prove that we were right in putting Him to death. They were so confident.
But you know what? The Lord's blood is on His people. What more, what greater blessing
could we ask for than we would say, Lord, His blood be on me
like the Passover blood was on the doorpost of that house, sprinkled
where the children of Israel were inside, eating that roasted
lamb. Let your blood be on me so that
all you see is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and on my children. You see, all these things are
to praise the Lord Jesus Christ. The wrath of man praises Him.
And so we see this in verse 11 of Psalm 76. He says, vow and
pay to the Lord your God. Let all that be around him bring
presents to him that ought to be feared. The Lord ought to
be feared. We talked about that. So as a
man, now think about this, when you get married, as a man pledges
to his wife to love none other but her, to have none other but
her, So a believer, what does a believer do? That's a covenant,
isn't it? That's a commitment a man makes. And a wife says the same thing,
forsaking all others. Myself, I can't even remember
the words now, because I'm not thinking about it too much, but
forsaking all others, leaving all others just to have this
one person, the husband, his wife, the wife, her husband,
And so, in a believer now, in the believer, what do you want?
Well, we desire none but Christ, don't we? Truly. Don't you want
the Lord? Don't you ask the Lord? And don't
you find this a repeating prayer? Lord, make Christ all my desire. Let me find satisfaction in none
but Him. Isn't that a vow? It's like a
marriage vow, isn't it? And that's a pledge. It's the
pledge of faith, isn't it? The disciples were asked, where
else are you going to go? Are you going to leave me? Jesus
asked them in John 6. And Peter said, Lord, where else
would we go? You have the words of eternal
life. We believe and are sure that thou art the Christ. And
so this is the vow here. The Lord's people have made a
commitment. They have hung their life on
Christ. They desire that the Lord Jesus
be glorified and magnified to the glory of God and for their
own salvation. Because if God saves them from
their sins by him, then God is glorified and they're saved.
And that's the right thing to do. That's the only right thing
to do for a sinner, is to trust Christ, to look to Him only,
to give Him the glory. It says in Hosea 14 verse 8,
Ephraim shall say this, what have I to do any more with idols? I have heard him. I have observed
him. I'm like a green fir tree. From
me, the Lord says, is thy fruit found. So it's a vow, isn't it? Ephraim is saying, I don't want
anything more to do with idols. And that's just exactly what
Paul was saying. I forsake everything I once trusted and treat it like
dung, like a dead idol, like the dung gods of the heathen. I just forsake it all and trust
him. I want to be found in Christ
alone. That's the vow, isn't it? Vow and pay to the Lord your
God, let all that be around him bring presents, presents of thanksgiving
and praise, speaking one to another in hymns and songs and spiritual
songs. It's a glorious thing to see
Christ by the gift of God's gift of faith to us, isn't it? We
don't want to do anything more with idols. We want to bring
all of our thanksgiving to Him and give Him all the glory forever
and ever, of Him, through Him, to Him, are all things. That's
what the believer says in his heart. He says, like Psalm 115,
not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory,
for Thy mercy and for Thy truth's sake. And so we say it too. Grace is established. Grace has
established our righteousness. Grace has satisfied God's justice
in the blood of Christ for sinful people. And God's law is magnified,
and he's washed us and cleansed us and clothed us with his own
righteousness and in his own blood. And we ask him to make
himself known in that work of grace. in the fruit of our lives
so that we would truly desire him and we would bring all of
our needs to him and look to no other to meet those needs.
It says in the last verse, he shall cut off the spirit of princes.
He is terrible to the kings of the earth, the greatest and most
fearful enemies of Christ and of his people. Among men are
brought to nothing. because they fight against the
Savior and those he saves. They won't stand in the day of
his wrath, and that should cause us to run to him and flee to
him for refuge. It says in Matthew 18 verse 6,
Whoso shall offend one of these little ones, which believe in
me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about
his neck, and that he was drowned in the depth of the sea. That
would be a better end to that one. You see how the Lord speaks
so strongly against the enemies of his people and
what they attempt to do to them and their deceptions. The apostle
Paul was so concerned that the church would be distracted or
deceived, deluded in some way to follow any but Christ. And
so he warned them and he was so hot and angry. He could, He pronounced a curse on any
who would preach anything but Christ and Him crucified. That's
how powerful the message of the gospel is. It is both our salvation
and it's the biggest warning that God gives to men. You better
bow to the Son. And yet he tells sinners, you
can bow to Christ. You can come to Him too. What
a blessing. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for your great mercy in the Lord Jesus Christ, our only Savior,
our only hope. the one who you've taught us
to fear. We didn't know what the fear of the Lord was, but
you've taught us. You've taught us to trust Him,
to hope in His mercy, to stand in awe of Him, and to come to
Him only and seek from Him only the grace we need to live, the
life we need to live, the worship we need to worship with, and
the faith and the repentance and everything that we need.
Even this prayer, the grace to receive us for Christ's sake,
we pray for all of it, Lord. We have nothing and stand in
need of everything and find all sufficiency in Christ by your
word. So we pray, Lord, exalt your son and save us for his
name's sake. In his name we pray, amen.