Psalm 149
And let’s hear the word of Almighty
God. It begins this way. Praise the
Lord. Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the godly. Let Israel be glad
in his maker. Let the children of Zion rejoice
in their king. Let them praise his name with
dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. For
the Lord takes pleasure in his people. He adorns the humble
with salvation. Let the godly exult in glory.
Let them sing for joy on their beds. Let the high praises of
God be in their throats and two-edged swords in their hands, to execute
vengeance on the nations and punishments on the peoples, to
bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters
of iron, to execute on them the judgment written. This is honor
for all his godly ones. Praise the Lord. I wanna begin
tonight with another quote of scripture. This is 2 Corinthians
chapter 10, beginning at verse three. This is Paul defending
his ministry. The Corinthians wanted an outward show of human strength in their
pastor, and Paul speaks of them of meekness and gentleness and
humility. And he says, for though we walk
in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare
are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments. We destroy
every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. And we
take every thought captive to obey Christ. being ready to punish
every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Then I
have another passage of scripture to quote. It’s from Joshua chapter
eight verses one through nine. Make sure I got this right. Joshua
eight, one through nine. Here we go. All right, the Lord
said to Joshua, do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all
the fighting men with you and arise, go to Ai. See, I have
given into your hand the king of Ai and his people, his city
and his land. And you shall do to Ai and its
king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only its spoil and
its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay
an ambush against the city behind it. So Joshua and all the fighting
men arose to go up to Ai. And Joshua chose 30,000 mighty
men of valor and sent them out by night and he commanded them,
behold, you shall lie in ambush against the city behind it. Do not go very far from the city,
but all of you remain ready. And I and all the people who
are with me will approach the city. And when they come out
against us, just as before, we shall flee before them. And when
they come out after us, until we have drawn them away from
the city, for they will say, they are fleeing from us just
as before. So we will flee before them.
Then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city for
the Lord, your God, and give it into your hand. He will give
it into your hand. And as soon as you have taken
the city, you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according
to the word of the Lord. See, I have commanded you. So
Joshua sent them out. They went to the place of ambush
and lay between Bethel and Ai. to the west of Ai, but Joshua
spent that night among the people. There’s two types of conquest
in the scripture for God’s people. In the Old Testament, it was
what they called the harem in Hebrew, or we understand it generally
as the bands. Remember that God wanted to execute
justice on the Canaanites and all the wicked people that were
in the land of Canaan. And in order to execute justice
on them, he would send his people Israel in during the conquest
with Joshua as their leader, all the way through David. And
they rooted out evil in the land. Their job was to go in and kill
men, women, children, livestock, and plunder. all their riches
for the treasury of God’s house. And anytime they made a treaty
with their enemies, it never went well for them. Remember,
was it the Gibeonites? The Gibeonites dressed up kind
of poor and ratty. They acted like they were from
a long ways off. And so a treaty was made with the Gibeonites
and they were a thorn in the flesh of Israel for many decades. But this conquest, this harim,
the bands as they were called, was the Old Testament way of
God executing justice on a wicked people in order to give his righteous
people a land. Okay, that is not the case in
the New Testament. There’s a famous incident in
Christian history. In fact, it lasted for centuries.
It was called the Crusades. And Christians decided they would
declare holy war on Muslims in order to take back Jerusalem.
And it’s a great stain on the history of God’s people. The
Christian school I went to as a kid up through the fifth grade,
we had as our mascot, the Crusaders. I believe now they are the royals.
They’re children of the king instead of infidel killers. That’s probably a good change
given today’s political climate, but probably a good change given
that when you read history, you realize the Crusades were a black
mark on God’s people some thousand or so years ago. There’s another
example of God’s people being militant in the Old Testament.
Remember when Israel returned from exile? In fact, Psalm 149
is during that context, most likely. Remember, Nehemiah was
in that last wave of people who came to rebuild the city. They
got harassed by Sanballat and Tobiah, and so Nehemiah prayed
to the Lord. He prayed against these enemies,
and they worked night and day with a sword or spear in one
hand and a trowel in the other. That’s where Charles Haddon Spurgeon
came up with his byline, the sword and the trowel. We’re to
work. We’re to work with the tools
in one hand to do our trade, but we are to keep a sword in
our other hand, a spear, in order to fight the battles of evil. Another way to think of this
is a distinction we often hear about the church. We know our
beloved who are gone to the Lord in heaven, they are called the
church triumphant. They have triumphed over sin
and death and darkness. They’ve made it to heaven. They
are in the victorious throng of God’s people. But we who are
still on earth are often called the church militant. And we have
to be careful with this word militant. We are not to fight
wars. We are not to fight battle with
swords and clubs and crusades and this, that, and the other.
But we think of what we read a few moments ago in 2 Corinthians
chapter 10. Our war is not flesh and blood,
but it is spiritual. And we have the word of the living
God, the sword of the Lord, and we can overtake, we can overcome
strongholds and teachings of deceit. So while war was physical
in the Old Testament, it is spiritual in the New Testament. And we
need to be careful as we approach this psalm not to not to be abusers
of scripture. In the 1980s, it was in vogue
for Christians to go to war against an abortionist. In fact, there
was a well-known case, I think in the 1980s, where a young,
zealous Christian college graduate who had gone on to seminary,
I think it was in the city of Jackson, Mississippi, he gunned
down an abortionist, thinking he was doing God a favor. And,
of course, he was convicted of murder and brought a great stain
upon Christianity, giving a bad name. Or, as we mentioned, the
11th century Crusades. But sometimes you listen to the
news, sometimes you listen to what we call right-wing Christians
and You don’t have to be too amazed that others from the other
side of the political spectrum are a little circumspect about
Christians, because we seem to want to have a war on Muslims
and Marxists. And our war on Muslims and Marxists
seems to be more political. But what does the Apostle Paul
say? We preach the gospel. We share the good news. And yes,
we defend the Christian faith. The Christian faith is superior
to all faiths because Jesus Christ has exclusive truth claims. He is the way, the truth, and
the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. But
that battle is not won with a sword or a club or a louder voice. And yes, the Marxists seem to
be loud these days, but we simply live the word of God. We had
a discussion at our General Synod meeting a couple of weeks ago.
The question came up, we should write a catechism for our children
so that under the current sexual revolution,
if you’ll call it that, of gender identity and gender politics. Our children won’t be confused
about all these issues. And the debate went on and on,
something like this. Our children are in public schools.
Our children are being taught by Marxists. Our children are
being taught by those who are teaching these things. And we need something in order
to protect our children and to teach them what is true. Well,
the fellow behind me, kind of in a tongue in cheek sort of
way, he says, why are these people’s children in schools like this
to begin with? I thought, very good point. Second
thing he leaned over the pew and said to me in my ear was,
do these kids not know the shorter catechism? God made us male and
female after his own image. Marriage is between one man and
one woman. And, you know, we understand
sanctification. We understand sin. We understand
God’s way of salvation beginning to end. And it’s very interesting
how we want to fight our battles. We want to fight them politically.
We want to be reactive. And the truth of God’s word is
sufficient. And so when we come to Psalm
149, I think it’s good for us to see As we look at this next
to last psalm, this next to the last of the great hallelujahs,
we see a fight song. Maybe some of you were in high
school, you played in the band, you played football, you played
basketball, maybe you’re a cheerleader or something of that nature.
Your school had a fight song and everybody rallied around
the fight song, the players, the fans, the parents, the band,
the, Everybody there. You rallied
around the song, and as you sang the fight song, you anticipated
victory over your foe. And if you were the home team,
you had a louder crowd. If you had a home team, you had
the louder band. If you had the home team, you
had all kinds of advantages. And as you sang the fight song,
you anticipated victory over the foe. And that’s what we want
to think of with Psalm 149. It’s a fight song anticipating
victory over evil. And we want to be careful as
we think of this Psalm, not to think Old Testament harem, Old
Testament ban. We’re not supposed to go kill
people. Killing people bad. Killing people for the kingdom
not not good We don’t go down the street to the neighboring
Heretics and we don’t storm their doors and say you infidels you’re
you’re doing bad worship We’re taking your building. God has
said judge you and take your building. Okay, that’s Old Testament.
That’s Old Covenant We fight with the Word of the Living God
By the weapons of the Spirit and they are sufficient. So let’s
think for a moment about this fight song of God’s people anticipating
victory over evil. This is a song of allegiance
to Yahweh and allegiance to his kingdom. And we wanna start just
by looking at verse one. It begins as it ends with praise
the Lord, or it’s a hallelujah, praise Yahweh. So the psalm begins
in verse one and ends in verse nine with those bookends, hallelujah.
But there’s a command. in verse one, sing to the Lord
a new song, his praise and the assembly of the godly. Now, if you think about the context
of Psalm 149, if it’s in the context of Israel returning from
exile, Israel returning from Babylon and they rebuilt the
city, they rebuilt the temple, they rebuilt their houses, they
rebuilt their wall, there’s incense burning, there’s sacrifices burning,
Israel, in the very small way that they now exist, in Judah,
at Jerusalem, now is worshiping God. And so they want to sing
to the Lord a new song because they had been singing by the
waters of Babylon. Remember Psalm 137, by the waters
of Babylon we wept. We hung our harps, we hung our
lyres up on the branches of the tree and our captors tormented
saying to us, sing the songs of Zion. And there’s that question,
how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land? Well, now
all of a sudden they’re not in a foreign land. They’re back
in Israel, back in Jerusalem, back in the temple precincts.
And so the command is to sing to the Lord. a new song, his
praise in the assembly of the godly. Now, that had a very present,
special meaning to those Israelites when this psalm was composed.
So now think fast forward. We’re gonna be singing in the
new Jerusalem. We’re gonna be singing around the throne of
God forever and ever someday when we are restored from our
present exile as strangers and pilgrims on this earth. And so
there’s a now aspect to the returnees, and there’s a future aspect,
not only for them, but for us. And I want you to take note of
the special word in verse one. Sing to the Lord a new song,
his praise in the assembly of the godly. And when you read
through an Old Testament passage, particularly a psalm like this,
you look for key words that have massive meeting. And this word
assembly in the Old Testament was God’s assembled together
people who met before his presence. They met before his face. In
the Old Testament, the assembly was the key word. In the New
Testament, the key word is the church. And so we believe in
our theological and biblical understanding that the Old Testament
assembly, the New Testament church are are key to understanding
the identity of God’s people. We are the assembled ones. We
are those called out of the world by God to live for his name,
whether in Israel in the ancient days or in the church today. The word church, ekklesia, literally
means the called out ones. We are those called out of paganism
like Abraham. called out of idolatry to live
for Yahweh. And so when we gather, we gather
together as the assembled ones, but we are over and against the
world. And that’s why it’s such a shame
these days to go into a church that feels like a Starbucks,
to go into a church that feels like a nightclub, to go into
a church that feels like a Barnes and Noble. You could literally
identify some of the activities in these places with something
in this world. But remember, we are the called
out ones, the unique ones. And so when someone comes into
our place, they ought to say, this is strange, but it’s a good
strange. It ought to be the songs of Zion,
the words of Zion, the praises of Zion, the people of Zion.
It ought to feel different and special. I don’t think anybody
will ever quit visiting the great cathedrals of Europe. But do
you think in a thousand years somebody is going to be touring
in America and they’re going to go to some concrete building
that, well, looks like a nightclub circa 2020, and they’re going
to walk through and say, wow. Aren’t these hallowed halls?
And I wonder what the sacred music was. I wonder what the
sacred words were. That I don’t think will take
place. And so we ought to remember here
as this command comes, sing to the Lord a new song, his praise
in the assembly of the godly. Church is for Christians. Church
is not for the world. And as James Montgomery Boyce
and many others have said so well, if we want to win the world
with worldly ways, we lose. That’s why we want to keep on
trucking in the vein of Christian history, worshiping and assembling
by God’s word and for his glory. So that’s the beginning of this,
the command to sing a new song, to strike up the band. Well,
the second way we want to look at this psalm is in verses two
to four. So if he calls his people to sing a new song, he now calls
them to have joy in the Lord. And he does that in verses two
through four. Let Israel be glad in his maker. And then to say it another way,
let the children of Zion rejoice in their king. And then another
command, let them praise his name with dancing. Let them praise
his name by making melody with the tambourine and the lyre. For the Lord takes pleasure in
his people. He adorns the humble with salvation. Let’s think for a moment about
joy in the Lord. There is a double delight here. We come to church to delight
in God, right? We come to tell him who he is,
what he’s done, what we’re thankful for, what we’re grateful for.
We’re to sing his praises, save people sing. Christ, we love
you. You’ve redeemed us. You’ve saved
us. But we never think about the opposite. God is in heaven,
delighting in us. In fact, we’re told when we get
to heaven that God will sing over his children. Some of you
who’ve had little ones, you know, this experience, you get a little
baby and you hold them in your arms and they’re cooing and they’re
smiling and they’re gurgling and making all those sweet noises.
This isn’t middle of the night. This isn’t diaper change. This
isn’t fussy baby. This is just the sweet times.
And what do you do? You sing to them because you delight in
them. And so we need to see a double,
have a double understanding of delight. God delights in us and
we delight in him. Let Israel be glad in his maker. Let Israel be glad in his sovereign
one. Let the children of Zion rejoice
in their king. This has creation overtones,
the maker. This has covenant overtones,
the children of Zion, the king, Yahweh, who has elected and redeemed
a people. It has sheep and shepherd overtones. We are the sheep of his pasture.
And it goes on, verse three, let them praise his name with
dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. When I was a kid in church, I
grew up in contemporary worship for probably 10, 12 years of
my life. That’s why I can’t stand it.
But I remember one Sunday, this lady was going through a particularly
hard time in her life. And she brought a tambourine
to church. And oh my goodness, somebody should have met her
with the door. But she quoted Psalm 149, and she said, God
has called me to bring and play my tambourine to church. And
I can remember my dad very gently saying, no, God has not called
you to bring and play a tambourine in church. And she said, but
it’s right there in the Psalms. And one of the things we have
to be careful of when we read the Bible is not everything we
see is what we call normative, right? Solomon had, what, 300
wives, 700 concubines? Okay, men. One’s enough, right? We don’t do that, right? Or we
think about other things in the Bible. It would be ridiculous
to say, oh, that was done, so therefore it should be so. And so sometimes you’ll hear
people make an argument. Every noisemaking device ought
to be played in church or ought to be used in the context of
worship. And so just a caution when you come to a psalm like
this, we’ll see it even in a bigger way next week with Psalm 150.
But this is how they express their phrase. If you go to a
Jewish-type worship service, whether it’s a Messianic Jewish
service or you go to a full-blown Jewish festival, you will hear
lots of dancing. You’ll see lots of dancing. You’ll
hear lots of tambourines and lyres and those sorts of things.
It has a flavor to it. But God wants them to strike
up the band and take great joy in the Lord, their God. And why do that? Verse four has
the word, the reason for Yahweh takes pleasure. He delights in
his people. He adorns the humble with salvation. And so there ought to be joy
in the Lord. We are no longer in bondage.
Now, we are no longer in bondage to sin and death and darkness.
Satan has no dominion over us. They had no more bondage to Babylon
and to Persia. The Israelites who were freed
from Egypt, they no longer are in bondage over Babylon. with
Egypt over them. So what does saved people do?
Saved people sing. That’s right. And so they sing
a new song and they sing with joy to the Lord. Now we come
to the last section, which is the odd section, and we’ll call
this Christ shall have dominion. We sing that hymn slash psalm
from time to time, Christ shall have dominion over land and sea,
to earth’s remotest regions, ever shall his rule be or whatever
version you have heard. So Christ shall have dominion
in verses five through nine. Now I want to point out something
really interesting. Look at how verse five ends,
let the godly exult in glory and let them sing for joy in
their beds. When do you praise God? Well,
when you come to church, when else do you praise God? As you’re
skipping down the road, shopping for groceries, washing dishes,
whatever it takes. But do you sing for joy when
you get on your bed? You get in bed at night, your
pillow, your head hits the pillow, your body caves into your, Apostrophetic
or whatever it is you have and you think whoa, I’ve made it
through another day God has been faithful and I need to confess
my sins and repent So we should sing for joy in our beds, but
notice the connection with verse six. Let the high praises of
God be in their throats, or their voice, and two-edged swords in
their hands. So here we go again. Are we supposed
to be a people of holy war? How do we interpret this? How
do we see this in light of being Christians, in light of Christ?
Well, these verses, five through nine, we ought to consider the
fight song, the fight song of the Christian faith. Christ wins. Christ has victory. Satan loses. Satan is cast away into outer
darkness. He goes to hell where he belongs
forever. And so part of the reason we
praise God is for who he is and what he’s done, but we also praise
him for the future eschatological events that we know and understand
to be true in the scriptures. We ought to exult in the glory
of God. We ought to sing for joy on our
beds and have the high praises of God in our throats. But we
ought to remember, and this we need to think through spiritually
in light of the New Testament and in light of what Paul says
in 2 Corinthians 10. We do carry a two-edged sword,
and it’s this thing. What does Hebrews 4.12 say? God’s word is sharper than a
two-edged sword. It cuts to the joints and marrows.
It gets deep. It can win any argument. It can
win any argument against any religion, against any ism, against
any belief. And so we have a two-edged sword
in our hands. It is a deadly sword, a devouring
sword. Nothing, no falsehood can stand
in the way of the scripture. What will happen at the last
day? God will execute vengeance on the nations, those who do
not bow the knee to God, those whose nations and worldviews
stood against God. Their judgment is coming. Their
kings will be bound with chains, their nobles with fetters of
iron. This is language of Isaiah, language of Daniel, language
of revelation. At the last day, one of our great
joys, which is why we should sing all of Psalm 149, not just
the happy half, One of our great joys will be to see the demise
of those who hate God. That’s hard to think of in today’s
terms. We’re told to be kind, we’re told to be gentle, we’re
told to be full of the fruit of the Holy Spirit and all the
rest. But when God executed judgment on Christ on the cross, it was
an exact judgment. It was for those he came to save. So when will God exact judgment
on the wicked? It will be at the last day. And
just as Jesus dreaded the cross, these people should dread that
great day. But they don’t dread it, do they?
They’re just happy building their towers of Babel. They’re happy
poking fun of Noah for being righteous in his age and building
an ark of salvation for his family. They’re happy to poke fun at
you for believing in a God of creation. They’re happy for poking
fun at you for pulling your children out of Marxist schools. They’re
happy to call you, what is it, those Bible and gun-toting people? You know, all the rest, all the
ridicule. And so it ought to be a source
of strength to us, a source of praise that Christ will have
dominion over land and sea. And at the last day, if you don’t
bow the knee to Christ, there will be vengeance and punishment
and chains and fetters of iron and judgment will be executed
on them. Because why? This is the positive
because we preach the word. We lived exemplary Christian
lives. We raised our children right.
We set an example of godliness. We were bright light shining
in a dark and dying world. And guess what? They said, no,
thank you. And so their due, their judgment
is just. And notice how the Psalm ends.
This is honor. Verse nine says, this is honor
for all his godly ones. You think it’s tough being a
Christian now? You’re gonna be exalted. And
where will the proud be? They will be laid to waste. They
will be laid low. And it ends, praise the Lord. So a thought or two, it’s good
to be a Christian. It’s good to be a Christian because
at that last day, the vengeance, the fetters, the punishment has
already been meted out on Christ. That’s why in the garden, he
prayed, Father, if there is another way, take this cup from me. Remember that a couple of weeks
ago in our study of Luke, he agonized over the cup of God’s
wrath. And you don’t have to agonize over God’s wrath. It
has been fully meted on Christ for you. And so it’s good to
be a Christian. There’s another thing I think
we ought to consider. It’s good to have perspective. Christianity
these days is you don’t wanna go to hell, so become a Christian
and you’ll go to heaven. And it’s come to Jesus and he
forgives you of all your sins. But we need to be full Christians,
well-rounded Christians. We need to understand his whole
program, his whole ministry in this world. And so we ought to
consider these things as part of his glorious plan. So when
we watch the news, we read the papers, we hear of another summit
in this part of the land or another cabal in the American government
or whatever all this is that we hear, we ought to remember
these things will fail and Christ will win. Let’s pause and pray
together. Lord, these are some strange
words to us, and we thank you that you have given them to us
to help us consider what is good, right, and true. And we pray
that you would bless us as we go by your word and spirit, strengthen
us, and encourage us in the Lord. And so help us in Christ’s name
we pray, amen.