Psalm 76, verse 1. In Judah is
God known. His name is great in Israel. In Salem also is His tabernacle
and His dwelling place in Zion. There break He the arrows of
the bow, the shield, and the sword, and the battle, Selah. Thou art more glorious and excellent
than the mountains of prey, p-r-e-y, prey. The stout-hearted are spoiled,
they have slept their sleep, none of the men of might have
found their hands. At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob,
both the chariot and the horse are cast into a dead sleep. Thou, even thou, art to be feared,
and who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry? Thou
didst cause judgment to be heard from heaven. The earth feared
and was still. When God arose to judgment to
save all the meek of the earth, Selah, surely the wrath of man
shall praise thee. The remainder of wrath shalt
thou restrain. Vow and pay unto the Lord your
God that all that be round about him bring presence unto him that
ought to be feared. He shall cut off the spirit of
princes. He is terrible to the kings of the earth. All right,
so it's a short Psalm, but as we read it, it refers to things
that we wonder. What is the context here? What is the situation? And if
we look at this, first thing we see is that God's acts towards
the enemies of his people. In verse three, it says, he break
the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle. In
verse four, it says, God is more glorious and excellent than the
mountains of prey. And that seems to be best understood
as the mountains of prey being the kingdoms of men under the
control of Satan, who imagine themselves to have power over
others and hunt and devour God's people. Then in verse 5 it says,
the stout-hearted are spoiled, and they have slept their sleep,
and none of the men of might have found their hands. They couldn't raise their hands
to accomplish anything. They have no strength. Verse
six says, at the rebuke of God, the chariot and the horse are
cast into a dead sleep. Verse seven says, God is to be
feared, and who can stand in His sight when once He is angry?
And then in verse eight, God's judgments, He caused His judgment
to be heard from heaven. The earth feared and was still
and then in verse 12 it says, God shall cut off the spirit
of princes and he is terrible to the kings of the earth. So
you can see all these things are speaking against those who
oppose God and especially his people. But then, in contrast
to that, in the same psalm, we have the favor of God towards
His people outlined. In verse 1, it says, God is known
in Judah, and His name is great in Israel. Verse 2 says, His
tabernacle is in Salem, and His dwelling place is in Zion. Verse
four says, God is more glorious and excellent than even those
great strongholds, those mountains of the prey, those who, like
lions or animals that devour others, other animals, or live
in high places. Verse six, God is the God of
Jacob. It says in verse six, at thy
rebuke, O God of Jacob. And then in verse nine, it says
that all of God's acts are done for his people against their
enemies and this was when God arose to save the meek of the
earth, all the meek of the earth. Verse 10 says that the wrath
of man shall praise God and God shall restrain the remainder
of that wrath. So we see in that that the greatest
evil intent of the fiercest enemies is turned to the praise of God
who restrains the remainder of wrath, that wrath of man that
he does not turn to his praise directly, but does so in a way
of suppressing it. And then in verse 11, it speaks
about the Lord calling on us to vow and pay to him and bring
presents to him because he ought to be feared. So you see these
two contrasting themes in this psalm. So as with many psalms,
this psalm has to do with those two groups, God's people and
the enemies of his people. And so that's the first thing
that we see here. And it's pretty apparent when we look at it.
How are we going to understand this psalm? Well, here's some
questions. First question is, what is the
setting? What's the situation that's described in this psalm?
The second question is, when? When did these things occur?
Is it a song of something that happened in the past? or in the
present, or some future triumph over God's enemies? When did
God speak from heaven, like he says in verse 8? And when did
he rise to judgment to save all the meek of the earth, in verse
9? That's the second question, is when these things occurred.
The third question is, who are the Lord's people that are mentioned
here? Those who are, it says in verse
one and two, Judah, Israel, Salem, and Zion. And then the other
question is, who are these enemies that wield so many weapons? It
talks about in verse three, the arrows of the bow, shields, swords,
and the battle against the Lord's people. Who are they? What are
these mountains of praise? And who are these stout-hearted
that are spoiled? And then, who are the meek of
the earth? And what is this fear the Lord
has spoken of in this psalm? And what does it mean to vow
and pay to the Lord and bring presents to Him? So, lots of
questions. And in order to really understand
this, I found it helpful to answer these questions by asking additional
questions and then trying to answer those questions from scripture. So the first question that I
think helps me to understand this psalm is, what is the greatest
battle? that was ever fought between
God and the enemies of his people, his own enemies? What was that
greatest battle of all battles? And when did man exhibit this
wrath against God more than at any other time in history? So
that's a question. I think these two questions help
begin to focus our thoughts from Scripture to help us understand
this psalm. Because this psalm is clearly
talking about battles and weapons and enemies being defeated. and
how they're put in terror, and God's people, how they're blessed.
Another question is, who was the great champion in this greatest
of all battles when man's wrath was exercised to this pinnacle
of history? And who are those for whom the
champion fought and won so gloriously and victoriously for them? Who
are the enemies and when was this great victory won? When
were the enemies defeated and those enemies paraded and humiliated? What spoil was taken from those
enemies by God? And how is God seen and known
in this great battle and this victory? All right, so that I think helps
us to understand this. If you think about it, in all
of history, the one time of history where the greatest evil was intended
by man against God and against his people, and the greatest
wrath of man was exercised, And the greatest, what I would call
injustice and cruelty was done is undoubtedly has to have happened
at the cross of Christ. It was at the cross when man's
wrath was raised to its highest expression. And it was at the
cross when all of the enemies of the Lord's people were gathered
together to do what they could in order to destroy not only
the Lord Jesus, but his people too, and to reproach him. He told his disciples, I'm going
to be condemned by the scribes and by the chief priests and
the Pharisees. I'm going to be turned over by
them to the Gentiles, and the Gentiles are going to mock me
and scourge me and put me to death. And so all these things
happened, and it wasn't just Christ that they were angry at. It was God. They hated the Lord
Jesus Christ, said, they hated me without a cause, and they
hated me because they hated my father. And so these were all
of the enemies gathered together. And so when we think about that,
it's easier for us to understand who the enemies were. We know
right away that it was Satan and his kingdom. Remember, in
Genesis, when God pronounced his judgments against Satan,
he said that the seed of the woman is going to bruise the
head of the serpent. And that's exactly what happened
at the cross. Satan was gathered together with
his kingdom in order to destroy God's Christ. But not just Satan
in his own person, but his his servants, who the scribes and
the Pharisees and the chief priests, the Sanhedrin, except for Nicodemus
and Joseph of Arimathea, they all were opposed to Christ, it
seemed. And so we see that those who
were in the place of God-delegated authority in the Kingdom of Israel
were actually opposed to God and sought to take whatever they
could from the people, whether it be their possessions, their
wealth, or their praise, to themselves, rather than coming to those people
as they should have to teach them the way of salvation, the
ways of God, in order for them to know him and to truly love
him. And so, this is the setting here
in this psalm. And so, because we can see that
as we look at scripture in a historical way, we see that all of the battles,
all of the battles from the dawn of time, had to do with the kingdom
of Satan coming against the kingdom of Christ. against Christ himself,
against his people. And it began with man's sin against
God. It was then that God brought
these enemies against the people of God, even. And then it was
that they were shown to have no power. They deserved what
God brought against them. and their sins were against God
himself, and so God had to do something. Otherwise, his wrath
would completely do away with them. Remember, this happened
several times in the history of the Lord's people, when the
people of Israel worshipped idols, when they wouldn't go into Canaan,
and Moses prayed for them, when even Aaron and Miriam rose up
and complained about Moses, that he seemed to be like he married
an Ethiopian woman, or Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, when they
complained that Moses seemed to have all the authority, and
it wasn't as if, it was as if God only spoke through him. So
all these things happened, and yet, though God should have,
you would think God should have destroyed the entire nation,
he didn't. because he determined to save a people who were sinful
and to save them through the sacrifice of his son and the
intercession of his son, which Moses portrayed in his intercessions
for the people of God to the Lord himself. So when Moses prayed,
he was making intercession to God for God's people. And the
Lord Jesus Christ is the one who who fulfilled that type. Moses was just a picture of Christ
in that. But my point is that sin entered
in the world, the enemies of God were unleashed because of
sin, and those enemies would have completely overwhelmed and
destroyed God's people, but God in his eternal purpose had already
chosen them in Christ and given them to Christ to save, And he
had to do that by saving them from their sins. And by saving
them from their sins, he also removed the claim every enemy
had on them, including death and the grave, Satan and his
kingdom, the world, even God's law, the curse of God's law and
the demands of his law. All these things were satisfied
when Christ satisfied God for the sins of his people. In saving
them from their sins, the Lord Jesus Christ saved them from
every enemy. So that's why when we consider
this psalm in light of the gospel, what we see is that the gospel
is like an explanation. It's like the light that shines
on all of scripture in order for us to understand, to interpret
scripture to us. It always has to do with the
Lord Jesus Christ. and God's eternal purpose to
glorify his son through the salvation of his people, to give those
people to Christ as his own people, his own inheritance, and to bring
them to himself and to make them holy and to bless them with every
spiritual blessing. So these are the overviews that
we understand from the gospel. And we see those here in a typical
fashion Because all of the wars and the battles and the enemies
and the weapons mentioned in this psalm occurred throughout
the history. of the world, but even scripture
records them in order to lead us to that great triumphant victory
of Christ in the battle against our enemies, chiefly our own
sin against God. So let's look at verse 1, Psalm
76 verse 1. It says, In Judah is God known,
His name is great in Israel. The gospel, you know this from
the New Testament, the gospel of Christ makes God known to
his elect people and he makes himself known in the person and
in the work of his Son. Remember John chapter 1, the
word was made flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory,
the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace
and truth. So we understand God through Christ. We know God through
Christ. Jesus told his disciples, if
you've seen me, you've seen the Father. And so, Jesus himself said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but
by me. So he is the personification of truth. He is the truth. And
it's the truth of God, it's the truth of the Father. And so,
we know God in Christ. We don't know Him any other way.
No man has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, which
is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him, made Him
known. And so we see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. All these are phrases from scripture,
John 1, 18, 2 Corinthians 4, 6, that pull from scripture this
truth that God makes himself known in his son. It says in Hebrews 1, God, who
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past to
the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken
in son, or in his son. He has spoken by his son and
spoken in his son. And then he goes on in Hebrews
1 just to pour praise upon praise on the Lord Jesus Christ in his
person and in his work. So, the Gospel makes God known
in the person and in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. So,
these words in Psalm 76, verse 1, in Judah is God known. We
have to understand it in two ways. First of all, the Lord
Jesus Christ is of the Lion and of the tribe of Judah. He came
from David, remember? Son of David. David was of Judah.
He was born to Abraham through Isaac, Jacob, Judah, and then
on down the line. The genealogy of Christ includes
Judah in it. He came from Judah. And in Revelation
5, the Lamb, it was of the lion and the tribe of Judah. So in
Judah means in Christ is God known. But Judah also was a people. In the land of Judah were a people,
and those people were treasured by God in history. And so there
were many in God's, in the true church who came from that nation. And so we see this, that since
the Lord makes himself known in Christ, and he makes himself
known to his people, who are represented by Judah, then we
know that the way to understand this phrase, in Judah is God
known, is that God makes himself known in Christ to his elect
people. And they know the Lord, they
know the Lord. Remember Jesus said in John 17, I have given eternal life to
as many as Thou hast given Me, and this is life eternal, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent." Okay, so we see then that eternal life, in
its essence, is knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. And so all these
things help us to understand this, don't they? The New Testament is that lens
that allows us to view the truth of the gospel in the Old Testament. And then it says here, His name
is great in Israel. Now, we know in Scripture that
the name of someone really is a way, it's a handle, if you
will, a title that describes the whole character of the person. And so the name of the Lord,
His name is great in Judah, is referring to the name of Jesus
Christ. Now, we can go through Scripture
and we can look at all the ways in the Old Testament where God
appended a description of himself to the name Jehovah. Jehovah
Jireh, for example, or Jehovah Tzidkenu, and many other names. The Lord who is the provider,
the Lord who sees and provides and is seen in the provision
that he provides, the Lamb of God. The Lord who heals us, he
heals us in Christ. The Lord who sanctifies us, the
Lord Jesus Christ is the sanctifier of his people. and he's the shepherd,
he's our righteousness, he's the one who's always with us,
he's Ezekiel 48 verse 35 says he's Jehovah Psalm, which means
the Lord is there. So all these things are God previewing
Christ to us in the Old Testament and they're all comprehended
in the summary name given to the Lord Jesus, which is Jesus,
the one who saves his people from their sins, the Savior.
And so this name then is referring to Christ himself, who he is,
and his name is great in Israel. Now Israel doesn't mean the physical,
political nation of people that descended physically from Abraham
through generations of birth. It refers to a people who were
the children of God spiritually, who were born by the spirit of
God, given to Christ, redeemed by Christ, and given his spirit
birth into God's kingdom. And they believe Christ, and
according to Galatians 3, it's that faith in Christ, which Abraham
had, that identifies them as Abraham's true children. The
Apostle Paul said, we are the circumcision, meaning the true
circumcision, which worship God in the spirit and rejoice in
Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Philippians chapter
three, verse three. And he goes on to say how he
used to have confidence in his own flesh, thinking that he could
keep what God required of him in order to obtain the reward
of life and blessings from God. But he had, long since he learned
of Christ, since God had revealed himself in the Lord Jesus Christ
to be all of his cleansing for sin, covering for his righteousness. He said, I count everything that
I once trusted as dung, that I may win Christ and be found
in him, not having my own righteousness. So that's all in Philippians
3. But the name of the Lord is who the Lord Jesus is. And so
Israel is the true people of God, and to the true people of
God, Christ is great. That's what he's saying here.
His name is great in Israel. Christ is great. God is great
because he's seen in his son. Before we knew God in Christ,
God was terrible to us, wasn't he? Because all we can think
about is the judgment, which we would not be able to stand
in. The judgment of God was like the law. It hung over us like
this terror of wrath, ready to burst forth as a cloud and to
destroy us. But in Christ, the clouds are
past the rainbow of God's covenant promises emerge and God's covenant
in Christ is seen that God has found in his son a way to be
gracious to sinners and not only to spare them from wrath but
to make them his sons and to give them eternal glory. All
right, in Psalm 9, verse 10, it says, they that know thy name
shall put their trust in thee. So not only is Christ's name
great in his elect, but they put their trust in him because
it is so great. All right, so that's what I would
like to mention there about verse 1. And there's another verse
I want to mention though in Acts chapter 9 and verse 15, Acts
9, 15. The Lord said about the apostle
Paul, the Lord said to, this was to Ananias who was, Paul
was sent to him, he says, to Ananias, for he, Paul, is
a chosen vessel to me, and this is what I wanted to focus your
attention on for a moment here. The Lord said, Paul is a chosen
vessel to me to bear my name before the Gentiles and kings
and the children of Israel, to bear my name. What was Paul sent
to do? Well, according to Paul himself,
he said, I determine not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. So the way that Paul would bear
the name of Christ and of God to the Gentiles, to the kings,
and to the children of Israel, the Jews, is that he would preach
Christ and Him crucified, the gospel. So the gospel itself
is the message of Christ's name. That's something that I love
to think about that. The gospel declares Christ to
us. It declares God to us in Christ. And that's declaring His name.
And that causes us to put our trust in Him. They that know
thy name will put their trust in thee. And remember, that was
one of the promises in the New Covenant. In Jeremiah 31 and
verse 34 it says, They shall not teach every man his neighbor,
and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall
all know me. from the least to the greatest,
and they know him in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Spirit of God,
according to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, is given to us to know the
things of God, to know the things freely given to us of God, to
know him in the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in 2 Corinthians chapter
4 verse 6, you know what that says? that God who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness has shined in our hearts to give
the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. And so we see that all these
things are building on this precious truth here in verse 1 of Psalm
76, that the Lord's elect people know God in Christ, they put
their trust in him, and his name to them is great. It's great. They declare it, they love it,
they trust him, everything about Christ is glorious to them. Okay. Then in verse two, it says in
Psalm 76 verse two, in Salem also is his tabernacle and his
dwelling place in Zion. Salem here, according to John
Gill, is just another name for Jerusalem, or Jerusalem as it's
got the J-E-R-U in front of Salem. The word Jerusalem, according
to the Blue Letter Bible, means teaching of peace, and Salem
itself just means peace. So what we see here is that in
the place of peace, God's tabernacle is. It says in Salem also is
his tabernacle and his dwelling place in Zion. So how are we
to understand this? Well, the tabernacle, remember,
the tabernacle was the place where God made himself known
to Old Testament Israel. It was only in the tabernacle
where Moses and Joshua and the priest would go in and God would
make himself known there in the tabernacle. Remember that in
the Old Testament? And what was that tabernacle?
What did it consist of? Well, there were many things
about it. There was the brazen altar where
they would first, the first thing they would come to, they would
offer up animals on that brazen altar, sacrifices, the fat of
the sacrifice was burned there. And then there was, after that,
there was the laver where the priest had to wash. And then
there was the holy place they would enter, and in there there
was a table called the table of showbread. They would put
fresh bread on it every day. There was a candlestick there.
And then going towards the holiest of all, the holy place, the holiest
of holies, that is, there was the altar of incense. Then there
was a veil. And then the high priest alone
went through that veil once a year, but inside the holiest of holies
was the Ark of the Covenant. And on that Ark was the mercy
seat, and inside that Ark there was the Ten Commandments on two
tables of stone, the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod
that budded. But all those things speak of
Christ, don't they? The brazen altar, what does that
say? It says that we can't come to
God apart from Christ sacrificed for us. The laver means that
God the Holy Spirit constantly ministers the blood of Christ
as our only cleansing, that we cannot be cleaned from our sins
except by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's there too.
The priests were to wash in it just like in Hebrews chapter
10 and verse 22. He says, having our hearts sprinkled
from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.
And then, going into the holy place, there was the table of
showbread. And the bread, of course, represents
Christ, given by the Father as our daily bread. And we live
because His body was broken for us. And the candlestick is the
light from God, the light that shines of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ to teach us how God can justify the ungodly
and receive sinners like we are through the blood of the Lord
Jesus Christ. The altar of incense, that represents Christ's intercession
for us as our advocate. The one who died for us is at
the right hand of God, interceding. And then he's also the high priest
who went through the veil. And the veil, according to Hebrews
9, actually Hebrews 10, verse 20, was his flesh, which had
to be torn in order for us to be able to go into the presence
of God by his blood. Hebrews 10.19 says, having therefore,
brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest of all by the blood
of Jesus. And then, of course, the Ark
of the Covenant, that's Christ himself. In his heart was the
will of God to do it. Thy law is within my heart. I
love it, and he said in Psalm 40, and then the manna, of course,
is Christ again, our bread from heaven, but we rejected him,
and yet God found a way to save us through him. But then the
rod that budded, Aaron's rod, remember God chose Aaron only
to be his high priest, anointed him. And he it was that was going
into that holiest of all to offer up the blood on the mercy seat.
So Aaron's rod that budded represents Christ chosen, anointed, and
made our high priest. And then, of course, the mercy
seat where the blood was sprinkled. That's where God not only meets
with sinners, but justifies sinners like the publican in Luke 18,
13. All right, but that tabernacle,
therefore, it's all about Christ, isn't it? And so in Salem also
is his tabernacle and his dwelling place in Zion. Now, also, I want
you to remember, I'm not going to go through this too much,
but remember in... In Hebrews chapter 7, where God
was talking about Melchizedek, He explains that Melchizedek's
very name means King of Righteousness. Melchizedek was also the King
of Salem, which meant peace. He was also therefore called
King of Peace. But the Lord Jesus Christ was
made after the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek is Christ. So that
what he's saying there in Hebrews 7 is that Melchizedek was the
king of righteousness and the king of peace because Christ
is the king of righteousness and the king of peace. So we
see that in Salem, he says, also is his tabernacle. Christ is
revealed. in his saving work, in his incarnation
and his saving work. And he's the king of righteousness. He fulfilled all of God's righteousness
for his people. And therefore he made peace because
he's the king of peace. He made peace in his own blood.
So in these first two verses, therefore, we see that God is
emphasizing Christ and Him crucified, made known to His elect in the
gospel, and this is the glory of God, and they love it. God's
people love it. They love to hear of Him. They'd
love to think on Him. They'd love to look to Him. They
trust Him because His name is great. And this is what it means
when it says His dwelling place is in Zion. Zion is just another
name for the church. Christ dwells with His people.
They are in Him and He is in them. So, you see these first
two verses here in this psalm? They're talking about the favor
God has towards his people. Now, let's go on to the next
verse, in verse 3, Psalm 76, verse 3. It says, There break
he the arrows of the bow, the shield, the sword, and the battle,
Selah. All right, so this sounds to
me like that every weapon that was formed, that was brought
against the Lord's people, God defeated. He defeated those weapons. The arrows of the bow, the shield,
the sword, the battle, all of it, it's all broken. Okay? And as I said at the beginning
of this psalm, when did this occur? When was this greatest
of all battles? When did it take place? Well,
when you read scripture, you see that this battle took place
at the cross. Revelation chapter 12, it describes
a scene where a woman gives birth to the man-child, and then the
great serpent tries to devour the man-child, and yet he's caught
up to heaven, and it's describing the whole birth of Christ, His
incarnation, His accomplishing God's saving work, and Satan
trying to destroy Him at the cross, and yet He ascends and
takes His place on high, and then God gives the victory to
His people, described as the woman in Revelation chapter 12,
and they overcome Satan by the blood of the land, the word of
their testimony, and because they don't love their lives even
to death. This is describing the gospel and its effect on
the people of God. Christ saving work, Christ ascended,
Christ reigning, God giving them faith by his grace, and so that
they look to Christ for all things, and the Lord saving them from
their greatest of all enemies, Satan. That's just one example. But look at John chapter 12,
because John chapter 12, I think, helps to really bring this to
a point, this greatest of all battles. In John chapter 12,
it says in verse 23 that when Philip told Andrew and Andrew
told and Philip told Jesus that the Greeks had come to the feast
and they were asking about him. Let's see, Jesus answered in
verse 23 of John 12. He answered them saying, the
hour has come, the hour has come when the Son of Man should be
glorified. Okay, so what's the setting here?
The glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of Man.
And this is how it's gonna happen. Verse 24, verily, verily, I say
to you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die,
it abides alone, but if it die, it brings forth much fruit. So
he's looking to the cross, his death, and the result of that,
God's people being brought forth as fruit to God. Okay? Verse
25. He that loves his life shall
lose it. He that hates his life in this world shall keep it to
life eternal. If any man serve me, let him follow me. Where
I am, there shall also my servant be. If any man serve me, him
will my father honor. Then he goes on in verse 27.
Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say? Father, save
me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto
this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then
came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified
it and will glorify it again. The people therefore that stood
by and heard it said that it thundered. Others said an angel
spoke to him. But Jesus answered and said,
this voice came not because of me, but for your sakes. Now,
you see that? Now is the judgment of this world. Now shall the prince of this
world be cast out. You see the battle here and the
victory? It's all in what Christ is going to do. He says, and
I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all. All unto
me. This he says signifying what
death he should die. Alright, so here it was a surprise
to the people that the Son of Man would die, be lifted up on
the cross. It says in the law that Christ
abides forever, and he explains that. He explains it, that this
is the way he would overcome the enemies of God's people,
and their enemies would be defeated. They would be delivered from
their enemies. They would be given all of this. We just read
about how his name would be great in Israel. That's where the breaking
of the arrows, the bow, the shield, and the sword, all of the weapons
against God's people were overcome. Now, we can ask some of those
questions again. When did this battle take place?
Who was the champion in this battle? Who fought? The Lord
Jesus Christ at the cross. Who were the enemies? Well, our
sin. And he took away our sins, didn't he? Satan, because of
our sin, was our great enemy who tried to bring us into death
under the hand of God's judgment because of our sin. And then
of course, the world, remember Jesus said, be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world. And in Galatians 1.4, he says,
who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from
this present evil world and so many other things. So all of
our enemies, death and the grave, I will ransom them from death
and the grave. in Hosea 13. All these things are the enemies
of God's people, and the Lord Jesus Christ, in His death, has
overcome all of our enemies. Then in verse 4, back to Psalm
76, let me get back there. In verse 4 of Psalm 76, he says,
Thou art more glorious than the mountains, I'm sorry, more glorious
and excellent than the mountains of prey. P-R-E-Y. Christ is more glorious and excellent
than all of those who in their minds and in their hearts thought
they were able to overcome him, able to refuse him, able to rebel
against his rule, because they were sufficient in themselves,
sufficient in their own righteousness, and stubbornly in their own pride,
held to that righteousness and their own worth, and refused
Christ, who is the only one who is righteous. You see, this is
God's statement here about the Lord Jesus Christ. He was greater
than all who came against him, greater than all of his enemies.
And he's more excellent than these mountains of prey. So the
mountains here are representative of wild beasts who live in high
places and devour. They devour their prey. And men,
wicked men, under the dominion of Satan and their own hearts,
oppose Christ and his people, and they seek to devour them
through false doctrines, through false gospels. And that's what
this is speaking about. But Christ is more glorious.
None of them could overcome him or his people by this. In Isaiah
14, Satan is spoken against. It says in verse 9 of Isaiah
14, Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy
coming. It stirreth up the dead for thee,
even all the chief ones of the earth. It hath raised up from
their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say
unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we are? Art thou become
like us? Thy pomp is brought down to the
grave, and the noise of thy vials, the worm is spread unto thee,
and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer, son of the morning? How art thou cut down to the
ground, which did weaken the nations? For thou hast said in
thine heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne
above the stars of God. I will sit also upon the mount
of the congregation in the sides of the north. You see this? Satan,
in his pride, and this is true of all those who are in his kingdom,
he presumes to have the ambition of sitting on the very throne
of God, which is the throne Christ sits on. He wants to be on Christ's
throne. Now, in contrast to that, in
contrast to Satan, and this is true of the natural man, isn't
it? What is the one thing that's common to natural man among the
many things? It's pride. Pride is in the heart,
the very heart of the natural man. And so we see that by nature,
we're full of pride. And we find it to be so in our
old man all the time. But what's the one way that we
can be brought and low in our pride so that we trust in the
Lord Jesus Christ and we desire His glory instead of our own.
It's through the gospel. It's through the grace of God,
isn't it? And so, I want to give you an example of that in scripture. Remember what it says about Moses,
it says that he was the meekest of men on the earth. It says,
the man Moses, in Numbers 12, verse three, the man Moses was
very meek above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.
How was he meek? Have you ever wondered about
that? Well, I think this is surprising to me. When Aaron and Miriam
complained that Moses had married this Ethiopian woman and spoke
against Moses, what did Moses do? Well, God was about, he made
Miriam white with leprosy, remember? And Aaron was terrified. Lord, she's going to die. And
what happened was Moses interceded to God for them. Remember that? That's meekness. That is meekness. But Moses was not that way naturally. So the pride, the natural pride
of Moses' heart had been displaced by the fruit of the Spirit of
God to produce this meekness in him, to cause him to think
of God's mercy and grace towards his people and to plead that
cause, the Lord's cause, to save his people on behalf of Aaron
and Miriam. But that act of Moses and that
attitude of his heart, as I said, was produced by the Spirit of
God because only God can produce the fruit of meekness in us,
that humility that caused Moses to think of God's glory in the
salvation of his people. And yet, in that, Moses is a
type of the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't he? It was the Lord Jesus
Christ who said this. He said, come unto me, all you
who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of
heart. Remember? That's in Matthew 11,
verse 28 through 30. So the Lord Jesus Christ now,
very God of very God. He's the one against whom we
have sinned. He's the judge. And yet, he stooped And he delighted
to stoop to lift the burden of our sin from us and bear it as
his own before God to answer for it so that the justice of
God was satisfied. And his answer to God's justice
in his death was an obedience of submission that established
our very righteousness. And then he tells us this and
he makes intercession for us as our advocate to God. You see
this meekness? Now I mention this because this
is in verse four, thou art more glorious and excellent than the
mountains of prey. This is the antithesis of pride,
isn't it? Man and the devil in the pride
of their heart, want to take the place of Christ. But what
is the place of Christ? It's the place of a servant.
It's the place of the one who delights to unburden his people
by making himself a sacrifice to God for them, and then interceding
to God to deliver them from their sins and to bring them to himself. That's fantastic, isn't it? And
that's the glory here. Thou art more glorious and excellent
than the mountains of prey, than the men who exalt themselves
as devouring wolves and lions of God's sheep. All right, enough
on that verse. It says in verse five of Psalm
76, the stout-hearted are spoiled. They have slept their sleep,
and none of the men of might have found their hands. So this
describes the utter humiliation that the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
when he overcame the kingdom of Satan. Satan and those who
are in his kingdom, he's like a tyrant who rules over all the
people in his castle, and they don't even know they're being
ruled by him, but he holds them in bondage in darkness. And they're
stout-hearted, they're proud, without any knowledge of their
nakedness before God and the terror of His wrath that they're
facing. And so they fight against Christ, they fight against His
people, and that entire kingdom, our own natural selves, was part
of that kingdom. He had to translate us out of
that kingdom. He had to liberate us by his
redeeming blood. And so he's saying the stout-hearted
are spoiled. He's talking about how at the
cross Christ took from Satan not only his strength because
he took away our sin and he nailed the accusing law to his cross,
answering for it and fulfilling it. He took away all the teeth
that Satan had He didn't have any real teeth against us, but
he tried to get God's judgment to come against us. That was
his teeth, as it were. But Christ took that out of the
way. So Satan is left without any strength over God's people.
Who can condemn, who can condemn one for whom Christ died? That's
the answer of the New Testament in Romans 8, 34. Okay, so Christ
is spoiled. He's taken his people out of
that very kingdom. Satan was content like a king
over the people in his castle. He thought he had complete dominion
and Christ comes in, binds him up like a strong man, stronger
than Satan, binding him up at the cross and then casting him
out at the hearts of God's people. You see that in Mark chapter
five, for example, where the demoniac is made to submit to
Christ and in his right mind and wants to follow him. Okay,
Psalm 76, verse 6. At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob,
both the chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep. Of course, this brings Egypt
and Pharaoh and the armies of Pharaoh to our mind in the Red
Sea, doesn't it? But it's not limited to that.
In Zechariah chapter three and verse two, it says when Joshua,
the high priest, stood before the Lord and Satan was there
to accuse him, God said, the Lord rebuke thee, O Satan. And this verse in Psalm 76, six
says, at thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, both a chariot and a horse
are cast into a dead sleep. Again, this is Christ. as the
Lord, the one who has conquered our sin, and Satan, and all of
death, the grave, and the hell, and the curse of God's law, and
taking it out of the way, all those things that were against
us for our eternal death, he took them out of the way, and
he rebuked Satan. The Lord rebuked thee, O Satan.
And that's the only thing that has to be said. At the rebuke
of Christ, having overcome our sin, and Satan, and death, and
hell, and the grave, all of our enemies, and all of their strength,
and all of their weapons, were cast into a dead sleep." And
Jacob here, he's the God of Jacob, because in Romans 9, we see that
God loved Jacob. He loved him, and he chose him
before he was even born, while he and Esau were still in the
womb of their mother, Rebekah. And so, Jacob's name means God's
chosen, those he set his love on from eternity, and yet it
also means scoundrel and cheat. So they were sinners in themselves,
and yet he chose them in love. He chose them in Christ, in love.
It says in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, God has not appointed us to
wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ who
died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live
together with him. That's just one example of how
Jacob's name refers to God's people in distinction from all
the others. that God chose to save. And what
this does to the hearts of God's people, it makes them recognize
that it was not for their sake that God did this. but it was
for his own purpose of grace, for his own namesake, that he
loved them because he would love them, and he saved them for his
namesake. But in doing this, he didn't
do it in some stoic detachment, but he set his love upon them,
so that it was an act of grace, but an act of everlasting love.
Oops, I've gone too long. I'm looking at my time, and I
realize I just went over my time. Alright, I guess we'll have to
finish this psalm up next time. So keep your thoughts there and
we'll pick it up at verse 7 next time and see if we can finish this psalm. Alright? Let's
see, next week is the 23rd. Is next week the 24th? Yeah,
okay, 24th, Thursday the 24th. We have an appointment to be
in San Diego on the 23rd, but I'm hoping to continue to hold
Bible study the next day, the 24th. So we'll pick this up then. All right, let's pray. Father,
thank you for your word. Thank you for the Lord Jesus,
for this grace you've given to us to look to him and trust him. How great his name is to us,
Lord, is in proportion to your grace. So we pray for much grace,
that in our hearts we would not be proud, but we would be humbled
by all that the Lord Jesus did to save us from our sins. In
his name we pray, amen.