Psalm 98

Q: What does the Bible say about singing a new song to the Lord?

The Bible calls us to sing a new song to the Lord because of the marvelous things He has done, especially in salvation. Psalm 98 urges us to sing a new song to the Lord as a celebration of His marvelous deeds and the victory He has achieved through His right hand. This new song reflects a deep understanding of God's salvation, which He has made known to His people. In doing so, we can praise Him for His righteousness and mercy, knowing that our hope lies in His redemptive work accomplished through Jesus Christ. This joy in singing arises from recognizing God's continual grace and the work of Christ in our lives.

Q: Why is understanding God's mercy and truth important for Christians?

Understanding God's mercy and truth is crucial for Christians as it grounds our faith in the knowledge of our salvation and God's character. God's mercy and truth are foundational aspects of His character that reveal His unwavering commitment to His people. As seen in Psalm 98, it is through God's remembering of His mercy and truth that we understand our salvation. These qualities assure us that He remains faithful to His promises. For Christians, this understanding fosters a sense of gratitude and empowers us to rejoice in God's redemptive work. It highlights that salvation is not based on our merits but solely on God's gracious actions toward us, reinforcing our identity as His chosen people.

Q: How do we know that Jesus Christ is our Savior?

We know Jesus is our Savior through His sacrificial work, which fulfills God's promise of salvation and brings us to Him. The assurance that Jesus Christ is our Savior is rooted in His sacrificial offering, which satisfies God's justice for our sins. Psalm 98 highlights the glorious nature of His salvation, made visible to all the ends of the earth. Jesus's life, death, and resurrection are testament to God's faithfulness in providing a perfect Savior who reconciles us to Himself. As Christians, we recognize that our salvation is not based on our efforts but solely on Christ's redemptive work, established in the covenant of grace. This understanding helps us trust fully in Him as the one who brings us into a right relationship with God.

Q: Why is praising God important for Christians?

Praising God is vital for Christians as it acknowledges His greatness and reflects our understanding of His grace and salvation. Praising God is not just an act of worship; it is a recognition of His sovereignty and goodness. Through praise, we express gratitude for His marvelous works, especially the salvation He has provided in Christ. Psalm 98 encourages all creation to join in this joyful expression, illustrating that our praise arises from seeing and understanding God's glory. It shapes our hearts and aligns our thoughts with His truth, reinforcing our dependence on His grace. As Christians, recognizing our position in Him and His role as our Creator and Savior compels us to live lives marked by joy and worship.

Psalm 98. I want to read through this psalm with you. It's only nine verses, and then we'll look at it in overview and try to see the reason why in this psalm God is giving us this word of celebration, really, of His greatness. He says in Psalm 98, verse one, Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song.

For he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm has gotten him the victory. The Lord has made known his salvation. His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen. He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord. All the earth, make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. Sing unto the Lord with a harp, with a harp and the voice of a psalm. With trumpets and sound of cornet, make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King. Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. Let the floods clap their hands. Let the hills be joyful together before the Lord. For he cometh to judge the earth. With righteousness shall he judge the world and the people with equity.

All right, as I was thinking about this psalm, you can tell from the psalm that it is God instructing us to sing this new song with great joy. And let me just turn that down a little bit. The great joy, though, the question is how do we praise God with this great joy? Well, the first thing we see is that really the Lord has given us this psalm to celebrate His greatness.

He doesn't change. He is worthy of all of our praise all the time. But we change. And sometimes we don't feel like praising the Lord. And the reason for that, of course, is that we don't have this understanding, the present enjoyment of why he is worthy. And so this psalm is giving us that. Sometimes I don't feel like praising God, but at the same time, I know He's worthy of all my praise. Everything I have is His. All that I am, I am by His grace. And His grace is never given without producing the effect He intends by that grace. So we always think, how can I avail myself of this grace?"

And the answer is, we have to go to the Lord to give to us what we need to give to Him. We can't give anything to him that he doesn't have already, and everything that we offer the Lord is given first to us that we might have something to offer. And so it reminds me of that verse in Hosea chapter 13, verse nine, where it says, O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thine help. So it's always a reminder that in ourselves we are nothing at all. We have nothing to give to God, nothing to bring, and in fact we wouldn't have any desire to bring praise to God unless the Lord gives it to us. It has to be given, and therefore everything is by His grace. My problem is my fault. My unbelief, my sin, it's all my fault.

But this is why, in this Psalm, God is telling us these things in order that we would find, by His grace, through His Word, and of course by His Spirit, this desire to praise Him for His goodness because He has saved us from our sins. It says in Psalm chapter 40 and verse 3, this is a psalm spoken in prophecy of the Lord Jesus Christ, Psalm 40 and verse 3.

After the Lord Jesus finished the work God gave him to do, it says, he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God. Many shall see it and fear and trust in the Lord. The result of Christ himself singing is that many hear, many fear, and many trust in the Lord. And the reason he sang is because he's rejoicing in God for giving him to give himself for his people. And because by that offering of himself, by his own life of obedience, his suffering, his agony and substitution for us and his death, He has redeemed us from sin and death and brought us to himself. Therefore, in performing that work God gave him to do, he rejoices and he sings. And that's the same reason that we rejoice and that we sing.

And so this is the understanding we need. So we pray, Lord, give me this understanding. Sometimes we feel on a mountaintop, if you want to compare it to that. Sometimes we feel very qualified to sing and to rejoice because it just whelms up within us when we hear the gospel. And other times, the next day perhaps, or even the next couple of hours after we feel that way, We don't feel that way, and we wonder what's wrong with us. Well, there's certainly something wrong with us, but only the Lord can fix it, and that's the lesson of grace. All that we are in ourselves is sinners. We are nothing at all, and we're dependent upon the Lord to give us this understanding. He has to give us light, life, faith, everything. Joy, love, everything has to come from Him, and He has to do this daily.

And the way that He does this daily is He shows us Himself. He shows His own glory to us. And the way He shows us His glory is when He shows us His salvation. And that's what this psalm is teaching us. He shows us His glory, then we praise Him. And we will always praise Him when we see His glory.

That's just the result of it. As the morning dew renews the earth, and as the sunlight shines and awakens the earth, and as the wind blows the trees and the flowers, so the Lord's grace must be given to us day by day. He must arise as the Son of Righteousness and shine in our hearts. The glorious gospel of Jesus Christ. He must give his spirit to us.

And as we think about in biology, I wasn't ever a biologist, but I've learned just enough about it to know that a single cell has many parts within it. And that cell is alive because all those parts together form the cell. Without any one of the parts, there's no life. And all the parts together have no purpose unless that cell is alive.

And so it is with us. The Spirit of God has to give us life. faith, and he does it by the light of the gospel, and this is Christ's life given to us. All of it has to be there. We can't live without faith, and we can't have life without faith, but life and faith and the word of God are all given to us concerning the Lord Jesus, and it's his life that is our life, and so all those things have to be there.

So we can see that the Lord gives us these comparisons through creation in order for us to appreciate how the pattern of creation is like the canvas, the artist's canvas on which he paints the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it's no surprise that the creator who made us is the one who has to save us. If the Lord created the world, then the salvation that he performs is also his work. And we would expect to see his hand, the same hand of the creator in our salvation. And this is why we trust him. This is why we delight in him.

It says in Psalm 21 and verse one, the King shall joy in thy strength, O Lord, and in thy salvation, how greatly shall he rejoice. The King is Christ. The King Christ, the Lord Jesus Christ rejoices in God's salvation. He rejoices that he could perform that work. He rejoices in those he saves, and he gives glory and honor to his Father that he would so freely give him for his people and that he would be able, by God's will, to offer himself willingly to save his people and to bring them to himself to make them holy by his own blood. This is why the king delights, why he rejoices in God's salvation. He is exalted in order to show that God has accepted him with his people and honors him because he did his father's will.

I heard a story one time about the Queen of England, and she sent her messengers to a businessman and asked him to do something for her. And it would require him to be absent from his business. So he expressed his concern that if he did the Queen's bidding, then his business would suffer. And the Queen's response was, if you take care of the Queen's business, she'll take care of your business.

And so the Lord Jesus took care of his father's sheep. That was his delight. That was his purpose, to bring many sons to glory. And God the Father took care of the Lord Jesus. He emptied himself, but God the Father exalted him in order to show this is the one whom the Lord delights to honor. because he saved his people. Now, we've seen the light, the glorious light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, because Christ has shined in our hearts. And that is by the Gospel. That is what the Gospel does. The Gospel serves to shine the light of Christ in our hearts.

The Spirit of God through the Gospel reveals Christ crucified. In that revelation, he gives life. The Spirit of God gives life by the revelation of Jesus Christ through the gospel. And through faith, which the Spirit of God also gives us by that revelation, we come to Christ and therefore we come to God in him.

And the Spirit produces this cry in our hearts of a father as a result of seeing Christ by the gospel that God has made us his children, redeemed us from our sins and the curse of the law, and given us his Spirit to know that in Christ he has made us his children. And so we see the work of God, our Creator, also as our Savior.

Now, Psalm 98 is a gospel song. It's a new song. The song of redemption is the same story. that was in the heart of God from all eternity. When we first hear the gospel, there's nothing more delightful to us than to know that by God's doing, by what Christ did, not by what we do, not by what we can conjure up, because we find such deadness in ourselves.

But by looking away from ourselves and looking to Christ only, we find that God has looked upon him and received us for his sake, for what Christ has done. He doesn't look for something in us to save us, nor does he allow our sin to prevent him from having us as his own. But from eternity He committed Himself to us as our God, as our Father, and Christ as our Savior, as our surety, our Redeemer. And He gave Himself for us. And God so committed Himself to us to be our God and Savior that even our sin was seen as an impediment to prevent Him from having us. And so He gave His Son for our sins.

Of course, he knew all this before, just like when we think about how the cell, a single cell, works with all of its parts in the function of life. So God's salvation was not a piecemeal plan where different steps were put in sequence and in order in his mind.

All of it was at once done in the will and in the purpose of God. All of it was agreed to in a covenant of love, an everlasting covenant made in the Lord Jesus Christ. And so all of this God did to save us. And so this is the song. New song means it's newly fulfilled in the Lord Jesus. It's always fresh. And to us, it is newly revealed. We know it now. We didn't know it before God made it known.

Until the light shines, the world is darkness and our heart is darkness. But when the light shined, then God created everything else. Have you ever noticed that in the book of Genesis, the first thing that God created was light? And have you ever seen that in the gospel, that the first thing God does in the life of a believer is he brings the light of the gospel, and in that light then we see, we see our salvation, and in our salvation we see our Savior, and in our Savior we see our God and Father. So all of it is by the light of the gospel. And that light, it says in John chapter 1, the gospel of John chapter 1 in verse 4, that His life, Christ's life was the light of men. And so this light that shines is just really the glory of Christ's life shining to us. All right, so He made us, He saves us. And this is a requirement both for creation and for salvation.

And this is why we sing. All right, I wanted to also point out here that in this psalm, if you look at Psalm 98, he says, verse 1, Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song, for he hath done marvelous things. Verses 1 through verse 3, especially of this psalm, are telling us what the Lord has done. And this is always the way the gospel comes to us. It's a declaration of what God has done. And it's a proclamation of how God is pleased with his own work. It certainly comes to us in the context of our utter failure. But in the gospel, we see the work of God.

He says here, sing to the Lord a new song for, for this reason, he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm has given, has gotten him the victory. This is something that we need to make a special note of here, that what God did in saving his people, God did for God, if I could say it that way. Notice, saying to the Lord, he has done marvelous things. His right hand, his holy arm has gotten him the victory.

Okay, so this is something that I think that we don't maybe think about this as we ought to normally. That, in fact, it used to be taught by some older theologians, and maybe still is by some, that when Jesus Christ redeemed his people, he paid a debt to Satan. But that is so far from the truth. There was no action on God's part to do anything towards anyone except his own perfections.

Christ offered himself to God for our sins, because our sins were against God. the prodigal son, when he came to his senses in that far off country, he said, I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to my father, father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and I am not worthy to be called your son.

Just make me a servant. And this is what he actually said. In the middle of saying that, his father interrupted him and told him, you know, all that he said about bringing the robe and putting shoes on his feet and the ring on his finger and the party where his servants were told to kill the fatted calf. Of course, all of this speaking about Christ offered for the Son.

So God the Father is the one against whom we've sinned. All transgression is transgression of God's law. Therefore, in order for us to be saved, God had to do something for himself. And this is why Jesus Christ is called the propitiation for our sins. This is to emphasize that the offering of Christ was made towards God in satisfaction.

It pleased the Lord to bruise him. Isaiah chapter 53 and verse 10. And he shall see, he shall be satisfied. He shall see the of his soul and he shall be satisfied. So this is God's viewing the offering of Christ. Christ offered himself to God. And so when it says here, he has done marvelous things, his right hand and his holy arm has gotten him the victory, it underscores that salvation is the work of Christ towards God for us. So it's what God thinks. And that's why in Romans chapter eight, in verse 33, it says, who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth.

You see, we can't go to be with the Lord. We cannot enter life. We cannot enter heaven. We cannot be in the kingdom of God unless God grants us entrance. And the one at the gate is Christ. And he's the one who is both a judge and our savior. So we have to go to him. We can only enter through the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth and the life.

So in verse two of Psalm 98, he says, The Lord has made known his salvation. His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen. So the righteousness of God is the reason we're saved. The righteousness of God has been answered. In our salvation, God has made known his righteousness. That means all that he did in our salvation was righteous.

In fact, what Christ did was to establish an everlasting righteousness, according to Daniel chapter 9, verse 24. He established everlasting righteousness in his obedience unto death. And because it was an everlasting righteousness, it had virtue and merit for everlasting ages. The one offering of Christ on the cross, never to be repeated, perfectly completed, that one offering established everlasting righteousness.

And that is why the believer is given everlasting life. And so salvation is the work of righteousness and it's a holy work because God did it. The results of that work make his people his own. They're holy because he made them his own through the saving work of Christ. And that's what he's speaking about here. This is the new song God himself has undertaken. Our creator has has appointed one who is worthy to perform all of his will to open the seals of the book of God's saving work. and fulfill it and bring it to light and to take the throne of His glory as the Lamb of God, having performed this work and saved His people and made them to God, His children, holy, justified them by His blood, by His obedience. And this is all to God's glory. So in verse three, he says, he hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Now, this actually is a you might even remember these words, these words were quoted. by Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, in Luke chapter 1. And in fact, I will read that to you so that you can see the overlap between what he said and these words here. In Luke chapter 1 and verse 68, it says that, verse 67 says, John the Baptist's father, Zacharias, was filled with the Holy Ghost. So these were words uttered by this man by the inspiration of God. perfect scripture. He says Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost and he prophesied saying this, verse 68 of Luke 1, blessed be the Lord God of Israel.

For he hath visited and redeemed his people. He has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David, as he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began, that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us." Notice these words in verse 72. to perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant, the oath which he swore to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him all the days of our life." And so the prophecy goes. And I'm going to also read to you the same words, almost verbatim, from the book of Micah in chapter 7 and verse 18.

He says this. Who is a God like unto thee that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? He retaineth not his anger forever, because he delighteth in mercy. He will turn again. He will have compassion upon us. He will subdue our iniquities. That's our enemies. and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea. That's like the Egyptians and Pharaoh, cast into the Red Sea, our iniquities.

And then he says in verse 20, thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob and the mercy to Abraham, which thou hast sworn unto our fathers from the days of old. Now in Psalm 98, the way his word it is, he has remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. The same thing is being talked about here.

This is God's mercy promised by God to those who, like Abraham, look to Christ as their righteousness. This was the promise God made to Abraham. that in Christ all the nations of the earth would be blessed. They would be justified by Christ substituting himself under the law with their sins and fulfilling that righteousness of God in his own sacrifice and taking away the wrath of God by extinguishing that wrath in his own offering. And this satisfied God, this gave God's justice, God's wrath a full satisfaction, so much so that God has highly exalted him and given him this name which is above every name. And so he has remembered this. This was the everlasting covenant of God's mercy promised to his people in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Psalm 98, verse 3, he has remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel. He says, all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Now, Israel, in this verse, in verse 3, means what it means in the New Testament when God says Israel with respect to salvation. Israel are those who are saved in the Lord.

In Psalm 45, let me read these words to you. It's not just the New Testament, it's also the Old, and that's why it's used here in this way, Psalm 45. He says this. In the last part of the chapter, in verse 22, he says, look unto me. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. You can compare this to Romans chapter 14, I think it is. He says, look unto me and be ye saved all the ends of the earth.

OK, so all the ends of the earth is going to occur later in Psalm 98. But let me help you see what the significance of those words mean. It means the uttermost parts of the earth. But it also means the nothingness of the earth. It means the part of the earth that's really nothing. And so God's salvation, he's saying here, is going to all the ends, the remotest parts, and the nothingness of the earth. Because that's where his remnant are. That's where Micah said, he delights in mercy, he will pass by, he pardons the iniquity of the remnant of his heritage. He's talking about his elect.

And so here he goes on in Isaiah 45, look unto me and be ye saved, the Lord Jesus says, all the ends of the earth, that means those who are nothing, And to those who in the nation of Israel thought they were something, these people are the outcasts, the alienated.

They have no hope without Christ in the world. These are the ones God is talking about. The despised of the earth, the not many mighty, not many noble, Not many rich are called. But you see your calling, brethren, that these things are true of you, that God has chosen the weak things of the world, the things that are despised, the things that are nothing, to bring to nothing things that are. And so, this is the ends of the earth.

He says, I am God and there is none else. The Lord Jesus Christ is God himself. I have sworn by myself the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear. Surely shall one say, one meaning everyone in the Lord's kingdom, shall say, in the Lord have I righteousness. I don't have it in myself, it's in him. In the Lord have I righteousness and strength. I have no strength. He is my strength. Even to him shall men come and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed. To be hostile towards Christ and his salvation, you will be put to shame because he's the only hope of a sinner.

Verse 25, in the Lord, notice, shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory. Now, all the seed of Israel cannot include every person born to Abraham because many of those perished. He says in Romans chapter 11 that that there were many. that perished and shall perish, and yet that he says there that God's elect whom he foreknew will not perish. They will be saved because it's of God's grace that we are elected, that we're chosen, that we're saved. And so going back to Psalm 98 in verse 3, The house of Israel, therefore, are God's people, the Lord's, the ones the Lord has chosen, who he made Israel, the true, the spiritual Israel, those who are called in the New Testament, the true circumcision, because they've been born of the spirit of God. They've been given faith. They've been given the light of the gospel. And so they're alive. Christ is their life.

And that's who he's talking about here. the ones in verse three called the House of Israel. He says, all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. That's in Psalm 98, verse three. All the ends of the earth, the same word that we looked at in Isaiah 45, 22. Look unto me and be ye saved. All the ends of the earth, the remotest part, the nothings of the earth, look to Christ.

That's what he's telling us. I don't have anything to bring. I don't have any worth, I don't have any potential. If we look to ourselves in any way, it's the opposite of faith. Faith, by definition, ascribes everything to Christ alone. And that's, to me, that helps us to understand. Looking to Christ means looking away from all that I am and finding my all in Him. Coming to Christ means leaving everything that I formerly trusted and thought I knew and realizing that He is my wisdom, my righteousness, my sanctification, and my redemption. And calling on him means I don't call on all these preconceived notions about God which were idols that I had made up or that I had believed because some religious person said it, but I look to the one God speaks of in his word, the Lord Jesus Christ. And notice here, he says, they've seen the salvation of our God. When we think about creation, Or when we think about Providence, we think about how great it is, don't we?

I mean, every day the waves of the sea continue hitting the shoreline. You can go to the ocean and you can just, it's like clockwork. It just keeps crashing against the sea. And yet the land isn't consumed by that water. The moon goes through its cycles, the sun rises every morning, and the seasons are always there. You see God's faithfulness in creation. So we see the greatness of creation and what do we conclude from that if we're thinking properly?

We conclude that the one who made all this must be so much greater than all that we enjoy in creation. He must himself be the most enjoyable of all. And we have life, we have breath, we enjoy the pleasant things of life, whether it be food or sleep or our relationships, whatever it might be, the ability to do things and accomplish things, all those things are given to us from God, our creator, our sustainer. But he's so much greater, infinitely greater than his work.

Now we need to understand that when we speak about salvation, we don't just look at the gifts, we look to the giver. Jesus Christ himself made himself an offering to God for our sins. Jesus Christ is the resurrection. He is the life. He is the way. He is the truth. He's all in all things and we're complete in him. So when we talk about salvation, that's why scripture talks about Christ. as our salvation. In Luke 2, verse 30, Simeon picks up the baby Jesus and he says, now let your servant depart, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.

When Jesus hung on the cross and the people saw him hanging there, pierced in his hands and his feet and his head was, the thorns were pressed into his head, did they see salvation there? They didn't know that He was their salvation. They didn't recognize Him as God's salvation, but He was the salvation of His people. That's why He was there, saving them.

In fact, His name, His very name, means Savior, or the Lord is salvation. Jesus means that. He shall save His people from their sins. So when it says here, he has remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel, all the ends of the earth shall have seen the salvation of our God.

He's not talking about every individual on the earth over all of time, seeing Christ crucified. Because many people died, have died, and many will yet die who never know the Lord Jesus Christ. And until we see Christ as God's salvation, then we don't see God's glory. We don't have a new song. We don't have a reason. to praise God.

Have you ever thought about how in that case in Matthew chapter seven, where those men appear before Christ in judgment, and they are pleading for their lives. They know that this is the final judgment, and they're given a defense of themselves to Christ, who is the judge. And in that section in verse 21 of Matthew 7, Jesus said, not everyone that says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he that does the will of my father, which is in heaven, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, and then they give their defense. Have we not prophesied in thy name? We were teachers, we were preachers. And we did it in your name, and in thy name have cast out devils, and in thy name have done many wonderful works. And then I will profess to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you that work iniquity." What was missing? Well, he never knew them. And the evidence was they didn't know him. And how do we know they didn't know him?

Psalm 98, verse 3, all the ends of the earth, these remote nothings in the earth, have seen the salvation of our God. They've seen that Christ is their Savior. By God's will, by the work that He did, by the fact that God raised Him from the dead and set Him at His own right hand through the Gospel, They see Christ as their salvation. They've relinquished all hope except that God would accept them and receive them in Christ.

That all of their hope for salvation from sin and from death and from the devil and from the curse of God's law, the wrath of God, separation forever, this edict that Christ declared to these men, depart from me. He's severing them from himself. He's severing them from life. This is the definition of death, eternal death. And the evidence that he never knew them is that they never knew him as the savior, you see. They never trusted Christ. to be their savior from their sins, to bring them to God, to clothe them in His righteousness.

That's the work of God that does that. That's what seeing God's salvation does. And so in Psalm 98, the first three verses, what we're seeing here is God's work in our salvation, the work of the Lord Jesus, in fact, Christ himself, our Savior, our salvation. And that's what produces, that's God's command to us to sing the revelation, the knowledge, the understanding of what he has done in Christ, the light of a glorious gospel shining in our hearts produces the effect it brings about the behavior God designs by that revelation, which is to cause us to sing this new song, this new, new song. And it's the same song that God sang from eternity, his work in Christ to save his people from their sins. And it's the same song that his people have have sung ever since the Lord showed this to them. And it's the same song we'll sing in glory. He is worthy. He is worthy to receive all blessing and honor and glory. He is. He's worthy of all this. That's what we'll sing. All right.

In the next verse of Psalm 98, it says, make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth, make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise. Sing to the Lord with a harp, with a harp and the voice of a psalm. with trumpets and the sound and sound of a cornet make a joyful noise before the Lord, the King, that's Christ. Let the sea roar and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. All right. So and verse eight, let the floods clap their hands. Let the hills be joyful together.

What is this all about here? It sounds like creation is it is uproarious, if you will, is joyful. because of the Lord's salvation. Look at this, he says, sing, make a joyful noise unto the Lord. All the earth make a loud noise and rejoice and sing praise.

And then he lists these instruments, trumpets, this cornet, this was the ram's horn. that they would use to blow through, made a loud noise. Remember, Joshua had the priest blow that horn on the last time around Jericho when the walls fell down. This is a loud sound. Employ the trumpet, employ the ram's horn.

These instruments God has named, the instruments that you would use to express joyful, triumphant, the highest form of joy that you would normally use them for, employ them in the praise of your God and Savior. That's what he's saying. Take everything that you would normally use for all these different things and deploy them and put them to use in the praise of your Savior. Just just put them all to use. Devote them to Christ. That's what he's saying.

It doesn't mean that we have to have a church where a trumpet is blown and there's a ram's horn that's blown, all these things. That's what we tend to do. And people go to these extremes. Well, he says a ram's horn, we better have a ram's horn in our congregation and blow it now and then, you know, that would be silly, wouldn't it?

No, he's talking about a spiritual heart worship as you would do this physically, do it so much more from the heart. And this is something that all the earth, meaning all the Lord's people. because they are, his people are without the earth. He also talks about creation, the mighty waves, the sea roaring, the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein, the floods clap their hands and the hills joyful together. All of creation joined together to praise and give joyful praise, triumphant praise to Christ the creator because he is the savior.

Isn't that wonderful? That God, our creator, is our savior. He made us. He has to save us. He made the world out of nothing. And that didn't stop him, did it? No. He commanded the light to shine out of darkness. He spoke the land when there was no land. He separated the land from the sea and did all these things. Everything he did was starting with nothing, and he made it by his word.

How much more, when he gives his life for his people, he can create them from the dead, new, out of nothing, and we bring nothing to the table, because to try to do so would be to try to add to his work, as if he needed our help, or that we could find some cause for glory in what we provide or do. It's not possible.

All right, so that's the second thing we see here in verses four through eight, we see this. Actually, verses four through six, what we see is all the earth rejoicing, making this loud noise because that's God's elect throughout the world, making this joyful noise. But it expands to creation in verses seven through nine. And then we see in verse nine, this last thing, let me get to my notes here.

In verse nine, he says, before the Lord, this is the floods clapping their hands, let the hills be joyful together before the Lord, the people throughout the earth, singing, rejoicing, all of creation, joyful together. He says, do this before the Lord, the Lord Jesus.

For he cometh to judge the earth with righteousness, shall he judge the world and the people with equity. All right, so the first few verses speak about the work, the marvelous works, an accomplished redemption. The second verse speaks of his righteousness and the third verse of this righteousness revealed and seen by his people. And then there's this proclamation which corresponds with the gospel. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the spirit, seen of angels, preached under the Gentiles, believed on in the world. Isn't that a mystery? that the world, the heathen, the Gentiles, the uttermost parts of the earth, the nothings, the despised, the poor, people who have nothing, nothing to offer, nothing to bring, no potential.

The Lord saves them like little infants. He carries them in his arms like little sheep or sheep that are gone, that go astray. He finds them, he picks them up, he carries them and he he folds them in his own sheepfold. So he says here before the Lord, for he cometh to judge the earth. And he puts it in two categories. First, with righteousness shall he judge the world. And second, and the people with equity.

So I said this earlier, that the reason we're saved is because of God's righteousness. God always does the right thing. And the right thing is to do whatever is in God's heart and mind, his character, his nature. God is holy. He can't do anything that is not holy. Holiness is defined by God's character. Righteousness is what God does.

So justice is the way God thinks. He's the plumb line to which everything else must be measured. So he says, before the Lord, he cometh to judge the earth with righteousness, shall he judge the world and the people with equity. So what we see here is that there is a judgment of the people with equity and there's a judgment of the world. It turns out that the Lord is the one who executes both judgments.

When the Lord Jesus Christ, and I want to turn with you to John chapter 18 on this one, when the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself to do the will of God for the salvation of his people, he said that it was drinking a cup, a cup that his father gave him to drink. In John 18, The setting here is Gethsemane, Christ is in the garden, Judas is bringing a band of soldiers, men, officers, to arrest him, to take him, they would crucify him, and Judas is at the head of this group. He leads them to the Lord Jesus, and it's dark, it's in the garden, it's at night, and when they get to him, Jesus knew all things, and he asked this crowd that was coming to arrest him, whom seek ye? And when he said this, they fell backward. Those who answered him, Jesus of Nazareth, they heard him say this. As soon as he said these words, he says in verse six, they went backward and fell to the ground. So here the Lord Jesus is showing his authority. They didn't come and take him against his will. He gave himself. He gave himself.

When they took him, they stripped of his clothes. They mocked him by putting other clothes on him, a purple robe to mock him because he claimed to be a king. They pressed thorns into his head. They covered his head and they beat him with their fists. They removed the covering and they brought up vile spit and spit in his face. They hit him with a reed on the head, they beat him on his back until his bones were showing, they took him to the cross, they pierced his hands and his feet, and they thrust his heart through with a spear. And all those things the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself to them, allowed them to do these things to him.

You can do these things to me. You can reproach me. You can lie against me. You can accuse me falsely. You can beat my face. You can spit in my face. You can press thorns into my head. You can whip my back until the bones are showing. tearing the flesh, you can you can pierce my hands and my feet and you can hang me on the cross of cursing.

But notice what he says here. In verse eight, Jesus said, I told you that I'm he. If you seek me, then let these go their way. And verse 11, Jesus said to Peter, put up your sword into its sheath. The cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it? You see these two things together? Christ told the soldiers, if you seek me, let these go their way.

The cup which my father has given me, shall I not drink it? He drank the cup. It was a cup of unmixed wrath, unmixed cursing. There was no blessing in that cup. But he did it so that we would not drink that cup, but that we would drink a cup of unmixed blessing and life.

You see, he told the soldiers, let these go their way. This was his command. You can do to me whatever you want. but you do not touch my people." You see his authority here? This is what he did. He judged his people with equity. He made himself an offering for our sins. He gave himself to God. He bore our sins as his own sins and confessed them as his own sins. And then under the law, he endured the curse of God's law so that the curse was expended and wrath was pacified. And God was pleased in the justice that was executed upon his son. God himself in Zechariah 13, seven says, he has pierced him.

His sword has entered into the shepherd. This was God's cup. The father has given me this cup to bear. But all the time that he gave himself to all these horrible things, he was saying, but not my people. Not them. You cannot touch them. And he shows this in his power. These soldiers who came in, they all fall backward to the ground because they couldn't do more to him than he allowed them to do. And they certainly couldn't touch his people. So that's judging the people with equity.

By our perverse nature, our iniquitous nature, it means crooked, perverse heart, He took our iniquities and He bore them as His own, Isaiah 53. It says He bore our sins and our iniquities. The transgression which is defiance against God's clearly revealed law. That rebellion, that hostility to perversely and defiantly go against God's throne and God's nature, He took our transgressions. That sin that is falling short of God's glory, never measuring up.

He took our sins and blotted them out. The Lord Jesus did that. He judged the people with equity. God was satisfied. God was glorified. God was pleased. But he says, he cometh to judge the earth. He's going to judge the one who was judged. God didn't spare him. He delivered him up for us all.

Therefore God is going to give us all things with him. But the same righteousness, the same judgment of God must be poured out on all sin. And if it wasn't poured out on our sins in Christ, then it will be poured out on us. That's why the Lord tells us, look unto me, all the ends of the earth, and be ye saved. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory.

To glorify. The glory here he's talking about is this new song that we sing with joy. God has to reveal it to us again and again. Like dew, like sunshine in the morning, he has to keep giving us his gospel and renew us by his Holy Spirit to bring Christ into the light, the light of Christ into our understanding so that we would sing with joyous, heart like the earth and these trumpets and all these loud things making this noise, this clamor of praise to the Lord Jesus Christ. He's done everything for us. He's everything for us. He gets all the glory. I want nothing. I want Him to have it all. Otherwise, I have no hope of salvation. Let's pray.

Father, thank you for this psalm. Thank you for the Lord Jesus, our great Savior, who saved us in righteousness and in holiness. He gave everything God required, and God delivered us from all those enemies that were against us, because he received from Christ all for us, and received us in him and for his sake. We pray, Lord, that we would be able to join the chorus of heaven and sing praise to the Lord Jesus, because He alone is worthy. He has redeemed us by His blood to God, redeemed us from our sins and from death itself. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Psalm 98

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about singing a new song to the Lord?

Why is understanding God's mercy and truth important for Christians?

How do we know that Jesus Christ is our Savior?

Why is praising God important for Christians?

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Psalm 98

Key Quotes

What does the Bible say about singing a new song to the Lord?

Why is understanding God's mercy and truth important for Christians?

How do we know that Jesus Christ is our Savior?

Why is praising God important for Christians?

Sermon Transcript

About Rick Warta

Comments

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