Psalm 11 - Fire and Brimstone and Sons of Thunder
Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)
Hello, and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. Today we are in Psalm 11, which is another Psalm of David. And the inscription here says, for the music director, a Psalm of David.
I can see some people that this might be one of their favorite Psalms that we go through as we look at Book 1 of Psalms, which is Psalm 1 through, oh, I believe it's 41 if I remember correctly. Yep, that appears to be correct. Psalm 1 through 41.
And I could see some people might like this particular passage of Scripture, and you'll see why as we go through. David says this. He says.
Here, he's looking at his trouble. He's seeing how evil people are set on destroying the righteous, the upright in heart.
Nowadays when we think about this type of thing, what kind of comes into our mind is, okay, someone's trying to pass a law that espouses a worldview or moral considerations that go against God's Word.
And we think, okay, that is how the wicked are trying to destroy the upright. Here when David's writing, like he literally means destroy, it would be people genuinely looking to kill others and take their stuff.
This is not really the affluent culture that we live in today, where there's lots of considerations that we can make and see different laws and be able to pass laws or not pass laws or give certain allowances or not give certain allowances or set
money aside for these types of things or make these things tax deductible. That was not the world that David and his people are living in.
And as we look at scripture, if we come to it with bringing our current 21st century American mindset into it, we can really warp the passage and we can see this even in verse number three, where David continues, if the foundations are destroyed,
what can the righteous do? I've seen this verse well-meaningly but inaccurately used to describe America's foundations. And while there was much that was good, even in some of the political theory, way too much to go into for today.
While there were great things that were anchored in Scripture in the founding of our country, there were also things that were from the very beginning, blatantly against Scripture and against God's Word, from the very, very beginning.
So here, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do is not necessarily something that we can take as like a, hey, we need to get back to the days where it was all muskets and, you know, powdered wigs and, you know, whatever else you
would want to add in with that of, okay, here's the foundations that we need to return to. A foundation that we need to look at is a foundation of a life built on God, which is what this is talking about.
And that starts if you have righteous people in a nation, it might spill over into the nation itself and how it's ruled and what the laws are and how it deals with the poor, how it deals with punishment for wrongdoing, how it interacts with a bunch
of different things. It would spill over into that. But these foundations that it's talking about are personal foundations. So let me read this section one more time.
This is David going through. He's dealing with actual people, actual physical danger for maybe his life or the lives of those that he cares about, that he is the king of these people. And he knows about these troubles.
It doesn't say here what particular time of David's life that he's writing this. He says this, in Yahweh, I take refuge, he says, for behold, the wicked bend the bow.
They have set their arrow on the string to shoot in darkness at the upright in heart. Here secretly, they want to kill others. He says, if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do here?
If there is a general lawlessness, the foundations, I don't want to read too much into this, but at least from the context, there appears to be some aspect of rule and of... If there's no right or wrong or punishment in the land, there is a problem.
So lawlessness is not a good thing. So you can look at the Book of Judges, which details the time from when Joshua passed to to about when Samuel and then Saul and David would kind of take the country in a new direction.
And for the Book of Judges, there's this description given that says everyone did whatever was right in their own eyes. That whatever they said, okay, I think this is a good thing to do. Here's these idols.
I'm going to, you know, whatever with them. I'm going to marry Philistines. I'm going to have all these concubines.
There's just going to be a whole bunch of things that go against God's word in the law, but that I think this is a good thing to do. And so I'm going to do it.
And all of this wickedness and destroyed foundations of God's law and practice in the nation. All of that, I believe, is kind of in view. It says if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
What is our recourse in times of trouble when everyone's doing just whatever they want to do and there's no estimation of God and his perfect law and way in people's eyes? Then what are the righteous to do? Like, how do we survive this?
Which does obviously have implications for how we live as Americans of, OK, if we see a society that completely disregards Jesus, how do we live our lives?
How do we interact maybe in in places and in job sites and whatever where God is not being proclaimed and his rule and reign and way of life isn't being followed? How do we live? Verse four and on, Yahweh is in his holy temple.
Yahweh's throne is in heaven. His eyes see, his eyelids test the sons of mankind. Yahweh tests the righteous and the wicked, and his soul hates one who loves violence.
He goes into some more things there in verses six and seven, but I want to stop here. What's our answer to a lawless world, a Christless, godless world, realizing that he is still in control? He hasn't abandoned us.
He has not left us to our own devices instead. His eyes see, his eyelids test the sons of mankind. It's with every part of him, he is completely focused.
He is laser sighted in. There's nothing else that's distracting his attention. He is solely focused on people.
And so if God is surveying what's happening, well, then I can live my life in a way that's pleasing to him.
No matter if it's pleasing to everyone around me, no matter what dangers might come, if I know God is watching over me, then I can go forward continuing to follow him no matter what anyone else might say.
It says, the Lord tests the righteous and the wicked, that God knows my heart. He knows my actions. And so, I can't...
What can the righteous do? I can continue to follow him. I can continue to be righteous.
And there, his soul hates one who loves violence. Today, mainly because of movies in which, and perhaps video games and different things in which violence doesn't normally result in actual death for most people in America.
As we see movies, someone's getting punched, someone gets shot, someone gets stabbed. It's all CGI. It's special effects.
It's stunt people. Like, it's not real. And yet, we kind of get desensitized to the violence.
And sometimes people then glamorize violence or war because of things that they hear. And they hear about the good that was accomplished even through very difficult and very terrible wars. And they go, oh, yeah, it's a great thing.
And man, I would just really want someone to make my day by, you know, breaking into my house. And I've got protection. I've got protection.
I've got, you know, all these things. We can glorify, glamorize violence in our mind. And that's not something that we should adopt.
It's not a value that God has for our lives. It says his soul hates the one who loves violence that goes against human nature. We like violence.
Violence is how we establish dominance over other people, over other nations. It's how we establish dominance, you know, for some people, over their children through, you know, different, maybe abusive things and aspects of that.
Violence is very useful to mankind, and so we like violence. It gets things done. But that's not what God values.
It's not what he loves, as we've mentioned before, because other people are made in the image of God. Other people's lives are valuable, even when they're really messed up, even when they sin, they still have an intrinsic value.
It doesn't mean that justice isn't done. It doesn't mean that there aren't times in which wars need to be waged in order to protect people, to save people's lives. But it shouldn't be something that we relish.
Violence shouldn't be something that we love, which then colors how we look at verse 6. God will rain coals of fire or snares and fire and coals of fire upon the wicked, and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.
For Yahweh is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright will see his face.
Here, if we ignore verse 5, we're like, yeah, rain down fire and brimstone on the wicked. Yes, we love that.
I can think even of James and John, the sons of Zebedee that Jesus called, he nicknamed them the sons of thunder, that they had this exact response to when the people of Samaria in this particular town, they didn't want anything to do with Jesus.
They were like, no, get out of here. And James and John were like, oh, Jesus, like, let's let's call down fire and brimstone on to this town because they rejected you. And so, yeah, let's let's destroy him.
And Jesus tells them, you have no idea what kind of attitude, what kind of spirit you have in saying that they are loving violence. They want people to die. God is not willing that anyone would perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.
But God is just, and there will come a day when the wicked, the violent, those that dwell in wickedness, in dominating other people, in doing wrong by others, the ones that reject God, reject his way of life, there will come a day where there is
judgment. And we can know in times when we have been deeply wronged, if we have loved ones that have been deeply wronged, that there is a punishment one day that will come. It doesn't mean we relish that punishment for other people.
We want other people to know God. We want them to become new through Christ. But we can take comfort in realizing, I know God is just, and he will exact perfect judgment wherever it's needed.
It says the Lord is righteous. He loves righteousness. The upright will see his face.
What's our response to a wicked world that will one day be judged? Look to God. Talk to him.
Live his way. He loves you if you are following him. He loves you if you are his child.
He loves you if you, through your failures, through your sin, are continuing to go, God, I want to follow you. I want to obey you. I'm doing it imperfectly.
I'm messing up. I'm not saying what's right. I'm not thinking what's right.
I'm not doing what's right. But I want to follow you. He says God loves the upright, those that have a desire to go God's way.
And he says, oh, I forgot the very last part of that verse. And I close my Bible just too soon. The upright will see his face, that God's blessing, his presence, is there for those that will seek after him and follow him.
If the foundations are destroyed, if the foundations of society and our world are erased, that God had built it on his law, on his order, and mankind has just said, we don't want anything to do with that, we want to do what's right in our own eyes,
that the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do? We can seek God, we can seek his face, we can realize he is looking on our lives, and so it doesn't matter if everyone else hates us for following God, that we can follow him.
And the truth is, if we are following God, that there will be that testimony that goes in front of people, so the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, he says, let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father
who is in heaven. Let's have that desire today. Not a desire for wanting people to be judged, but that they would be reconciled to Christ just as we are.
And that we would share that gospel with others, that judgment is one day coming, and we don't love violence.
We don't want anyone to be condemned, that we would be like our Heavenly Father, who doesn't want anyone to perish, but that everyone would come to repentance.
Psalm 12 is tomorrow, and I haven't peeked at it yet, so I don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow. And so look forward to joining you then. And not this week.
Next week has some incredible Psalms that I already know very well, including one of the dearest portions of Scripture to me. So I'm really looking forward to going through Psalms, I think it's 16 through 20 next week.
This week, I love being able to dive into these chapters that, you know, you don't normally hear a Psalm 11 sermon. I can't think of a time where I've ever heard it preached.
And so I really love getting to dive into these Psalms with you all to be able to go, OK, these are things I would never just look up on my own or read through on my own. Hey, I really want some encouragement for today.
Oh, yeah, firing brimstone on the enemies. But it's so helpful for us to be able to see all of God's Word together. So thanks for tuning in.
And tomorrow we are in Psalm 12.
