Psalm 9 - Unknown Words and Eternal Justice

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

You could be a whole lot of places today, but you are right here on Tabernacle Talk, and it's great to be with you today. We are in Psalm 9, and we've been journeying through Book One of Psalms, and each of these is from...

Some of them are from different writers, and they're kind of all in different circumstances. They've got different topics, and so it makes it for a little bit of an interesting ride as we go through together.

But we are in Psalm 9 today, and the inscription for Psalm 9 says this, for the music director, on Muthalabbin, a Psalm of David. And there's a footnote right here in my Bible for the phrase on Muthalabbin that says meaning of the Hebrew Uncertain.

And we don't know if that was maybe an instrument, if it was a mood, if it was a particular musical group that was supposed to do it.

There are some of the Psalms that are highlighted as, you know, this is for the Levites to sing, or this is for maybe a chorus of women to sing, and it could be any number of things.

And I'm thankful for some of these divinely inspired question marks in Scripture that we go, all right, I know this is here. It's here for a reason. But why is this here?

And kind of always goes to show us that the Bible is first and foremost a divine book. And it's not something that man made up. And otherwise, they might have made it to where it does not go against all of our own thoughts and desires.

But instead, it tells us what we don't want to hear, but what we genuinely need to hear, the words of God. Let's read together, Psalm 9 and verse 1. I will give thanks to the Yahweh with all my heart.

I will tell of all your wonders. I will rejoice and be jubilant in you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before you. For you have maintained my just cause. You have sat on the throne judging righteously.

You have rebuked the nations. You have eliminated the wicked. You have wiped out their name forever and ever.

The enemy has come to an end in everlasting ruins. And you have uprooted the cities. The very memory of them has perished.

But Yahweh sits as king forever. He has established his throne for judgment. And he will judge the world in righteousness.

He will execute judgment for the peoples fairly. Yahweh will also be a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name will put their trust in you.

For you, Yahweh, have not abandoned those who seek you. Sing praises to Yahweh, who dwells in Zion. Declare his deeds among the peoples.

For he who requires blood remembers them. The requires blood, it's the one that avenges bloodshed. The one that says, Hey, you killed someone, you're not getting away with that.

That person remembers the people. He remembers the ones who have been done wrong. He does not forget the cry of the needy.

Be gracious to me, Yahweh. See my oppression from those who hate me. You who lift me up from the gates of death, so that I may tell of all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion, I may rejoice in your salvation.

The nations have sunk down into the pit which they have made, in the net which they hid, their own foot has been caught. Yahweh has made himself known. He has executed judgment.

A wicked one is ensnared in the work of his own hands. The wicked will return to Sheol, to the grave. All the nations who forget God.

For the needy will not always be forgotten. Nor the hope of the afflicted perish forever. Arise Yahweh, do not let mankind prevail.

Let the nations be judged before you. Put them in fear Yahweh. Let the nations know that they are merely human.

What a great Psalm. It calls to mind the fact that in the end, God wins. Today, we don't often feel like righteousness, godliness, Jesus.

We don't feel like they are winning. It seems like, well, this world wins. This world has, you know, if you look to the Middle East, where you have many of the Islamic countries and kind of their stronghold over those areas.

And we could say, I don't really see how Jesus is winning in the Middle East. Or we could look at maybe Europe in a very kind of post-Christian environment.

And we could wonder as we look there or as we look to Russia and go, okay, and kind of these post-Christian nations, is Jesus really winning? We might look at America and say, okay, well, we've kind of rejected what God says about marriage.

We've rejected what God says about the sanctity of life. We've rejected what God says about a number of topics, about rightness, about sexual morality, about even how we treat immigrants.

There's a number of things that America has just kind of turned its back on the Bible. Things that maybe were once espoused are no longer espoused. And we could wonder, is God really in charge?

Is God really winning? And this Psalm calls to mind, yes, he is. And he's also winning because he is the eternal God, that he will last far beyond everyone that is alive today.

He will continue to reign when America is a long forgotten thought. He will continue to reign when all of this earth has been completely abolished and reshaped. God is the one that is and will forever reign.

Here, his justice that he does in causing the wicked's schemes to fall back on them, we've talked about that many times already through Psalms, he does that because he's good, because he's just.

Not every time that God judges is it thunderbolts from heaven and fire falling down onto the sacrifice and a great flood. Oftentimes, it's just a nation that lived by the sword gets taken out by another nation who lives by the sword.

Sometimes it's the robber is themselves is themselves robbed. And God exacts justice that the wicked aren't going to get away with anything. You might say this person got away with murder.

Like it was just through happenstance that the jury managed to not acquit them. Or maybe they bribed the judge and this person got away with this terrible thing.

Or maybe this person is too high in the realms of government and they got away with evil. Can I comfort us today? God is not blind to what is happening.

He sees all evil. He sees the evil that you don't even know about. You might know about some things and you might say God do right here, but God knows about so much more than you do, than I do.

And he has promised that he will bring punishment. There will be righteousness. There will be justice for wrongs that are done here, for people that have been killed, for people that have been taken advantage of, that he rescues them.

He rescues the oppressed. He does not abandon those that seek him. I love verse number 10.

Those who know your name will put their trust in you. And we know his name. His name is Jesus, and he is the one that we can always turn to.

He is the one who will be crowned King of Kings and Lord of Lords forever and ever. As I look at this Psalm, our reaction should be what it is in verses 1 and 2. I will give thanks to Yahweh with all my heart.

I will tell of all your wonders. I will rejoice and be jubilant to you. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

We can praise God because He is just.

Even when we don't see everything taking place that is promised here, all the things that God will one day do, we can have reliance and trust that He will accomplish them, even if for right now, He's not bringing justice so that more people can come

to Him. One day, He will bring that justice. So we can sing, we can have hope, we can be happy there. I will rejoice and be jubilant.

We can have joy even in the midst of a wicked world because God will bring justice. And I see here that there's many calls to God of, God, show yourself strong. He says, arise, don't let mankind prevail.

Judge the nations, put them in fear. Let them know that they are merely human.

And I think if some of us recognize that truth, that we are only human and that there is a Holy God, that it would change how we look at our lives, it would change how we look at our world, change how we interact with people, that we are not God, we

are not the judge, we are not the one to bring the punishment on people, but instead that it is put into God's hands. I see in verses number 13 and 14 I want to mention this, be gracious to me Yahweh, see my oppression from those who hate me, you who

lift me up from the gates of death, so that I may tell of all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion, I may rejoice in your salvation. There you have, he's going from the gates of death to the gates of Zion.

It's from the gates of the powers of this world to the gates of, if you will, heaven, that new Jerusalem where God has put his name forever.

That God can take you from the lowest of lows, where you are hated, you are despised, you are oppressed, you are needy, and God can make it so that you are with him, that you are safe.

And I want to encourage us, that isn't a snap of the finger, instantaneous thing. Here, David is praying for this because it's not currently the case. You don't ask someone to do something that they've already done.

He's saying, God, you haven't done this yet, but I'm calling on you, asking for you to, praying for you to do this thing. And maybe you are in the middle of a struggle, in the middle of a fight, and you can pray to God and you can ask him to deliver.

Maybe you are one that, like David, you might say, these people genuinely hate me, they despise me. Maybe they don't like that I'm a Christian.

Maybe they've just got some things in their own heart, in their own life that they're like wrestling with and so their soul is not healthy, and so then how they're interacting with everyone else isn't healthy.

Maybe there's a situation like that where you would ask the Lord, Lord, please save me, see my oppression, rescue me out so that I can go from kind of these gates of death to the gates of Zion, to the gates of heaven.

Then I want to kind of close with this thought in verse number 20. He says, put them in fear, Yahweh. Let the nations know that they are merely human.

I think of that phrase, put them in fear, Yahweh. I think of the verse in Proverbs that says the fear of Yahweh is the beginning of wisdom.

When we realize who God is, that He is holy, that He is just, that He has never blasphemed, He has never cursed, He has never once been unkind to a person. He is the one who actually every single day makes every person on this planet wake up.

And if they have any food, God's given it to them. And if they have any shelter, God's given it to them. And if they have any clothes, God's given it to them.

And if they have any strength to do anything, God's given it to them. God is the one that has been kind. God is the one that always does what's fair.

He's never cheated someone out of anything. Because God is perfectly holy, that we realize I am not, I have not treated people with the love that God has. I have not treated people with the care that God has.

I have not spoken about God in the way that I should. I have not obeyed His commandments. And as a result, I am in danger of being one of these nations, of being one of the wicked, of being one of the ones that kills people.

You can think of Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount. If you hate someone in your heart, you're guilty of murder. If you say that someone is stupid, you are guilty of hell fires, what Jesus says.

As we realize that, as we realize who God is, it ought to cause fear in our hearts that we go, I don't want to be under the condemnation of God. I want to follow Him. I want to know Him.

And that then brings us to that obedience. Verse 10, Those who know your name will put their trust in you. For you, Yahweh, have not abandoned those who seek you.

And as we go to God and pray to Him and say, Lord, I have messed up. I have been in the wrong. I have not followed you.

Then we find grace where there should be at least like some punishment. If I go up to a judge and I confess to a crime and I say, Hey, I have done these crimes. He's not going to say, Oh, thank you for confessing your crimes.

You're fine now. You're gone. That would never happen in a court here and now.

So the fact that we can go before the perfect court and we can find grace and we can find mercy and we can find strength to overcome sin through Jesus is an incredible wonderful thing that even in our weakness and our failures and the fact that we

are wicked and we are not like God, that if we seek him, if we turn to his name, if we call on his strength and follow him, he forgives us. He has wiped our slate clean through the blood of Jesus, that Jesus has perfectly atoned for all of our sin.

So we can ask for God not only to put the nations in fear and remember that they're human, God put fear in me, help me realize that I am human, that I am not God, that the way I think, what I say, what I do is imperfect and I am in desperate need of

you. Hope that would be an encouragement to you today, a challenge from Psalm 10.

Many of us would like to write ourselves in as all of the good things in this chapter, but the truth of it is that as we read, I think even a couple of days ago in Psalms, that there's none who is righteous. No, not a single person.

There's none that understands. There's no one that seeks after God of their own accord. But God, because he loves us, pursued us and he called us.

And as we responded to his call, we found ourselves his child. And that comes with so many wonderful benefits. So let's pray.

God, put fear in me. Help me realize who you are, who I am and the fact that I need you. I need to follow you and I need to obey you.

Thanks for tuning in. Tomorrow we are in Psalm 10.