Psalm 94
Let’s hear God’s word together.
This is Psalm 94. The Lord will not forsake his
people. And it says this, O Lord, God
of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth. Rise up, O judge
of the earth. Repay to the proud what they
deserve. O Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the
wicked exult? They pour out their arrogant
words. All the evildoers boast. They
crush your people, O Lord, and afflict your heritage. They kill
the widow. They kill the sojourner. They
murder the fatherless. And they say, the Lord does not
see. The God of Jacob does not perceive. Understand, O dullest of the
people, fools, when will you be wise? He who planted the ear,
does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he
not see? He who disciplines the nations,
does he not rebuke? He who teaches man knowledge,
the Lord, he knows the thoughts of man, that they are but a breath. Blessed is the man whom you discipline,
O Lord, in whom you teach out of your law, to give him rest
from days of trouble until a pit is dug for the wicked. For the
Lord will not forsake his people. He will not abandon his heritage.
For justice will return to the righteous and the upright in
heart will follow it. Who rises up for me against the
wicked? Who stands up for me against
the evildoers? If the Lord had not been my help,
my soul would have soon lived in the land of silence. When
I thought, my foot slips. Your steadfast love, O Lord,
held me up. When the cares of my heart are
many, your consolations cheer my soul. Can wicked rulers be
allied with you? Those who frame injustice by
statute? They band together against the
life of the righteous and they condemn the innocent to death.
But the Lord has become my stronghold and my God, the rock of my refuge. He will bring back on them their
iniquity and he will wipe them out for their wickedness. The
Lord our God will wipe them out. This is the English standard
version. This is Psalm 94. In March of this, well, March
a year ago, New York lawmakers made a law that tortoises were being trapped in crab pots
on the coast of New York State a little too often. And so they
required in this new law that a contraption be added to crab
pots for any crab fisherman on the coast of New York. And this
would prevent tortoises from getting caught in the traps and
dying. If you read the news articles, the press releases, it says something
like this, it is a bright day for New York terrapins. And it
is, and it’s a good thing. We want to protect wildlife. But was it just Friday? the same
state legislator, praising themselves for their latest law, said women
of New York now have full control of their bodies. Way to go Terrapins. Sad day for unborn fetus in New
York State. It brought the Babylon Bee, the
Christian satire, To put out this headline, unborn fetus in
New York state identifies as a convicted murderer and escapes
the death penalty. That’s humorous, isn’t it? But
it’s pointing to a great sadness. And we come to Psalm 94 that
says this, rise up, old judge of the earth, repay to the proud
what they deserve. Psalm 94. how wonderful and providential
it is that when New York State has done what they have done
just the other day, as we make our way through the Psalms and
think through how a Christian ought to think about these things,
Psalm 94 comes up. Psalm 94 breaks up in about six
passages, six good sections, and each has a very simple title. Verses one and two, we see the
judge. Look at verses one and two of
Psalm 94. O Lord, or O Yahweh, God of vengeance,
O God of vengeance, shine forth. Rise up, O judge of the earth.
Repay to the proud what they deserve. The context of the Psalm
is the oppression, the oppression of the people of God. Apparently
justice is scarce in the promised land, in the land of Israel.
So Psalm 94 is an imprecatory psalm. It’s a prayer of imprecation. Come God and smite somebody,
kill somebody, judge somebody, avenge with your wrath injustice. This is a type of psalm we’ve
encountered before. It’s not really politically correct
and it’s becoming not really I don’t know if it’s the right
phrase, Christianly correct. Even our Christian culture has
now become politically correct and we would never want God to
avenge wrong because, well, that’s the Old Testament God and we
like the New Testament one better. Apparently some have not read
the book of Revelation about the man on the white horse and
what he is coming with and what he’s coming to do and what will
be left after he’s done. The imprecatory psalm is a troublesome
one, but here it is, in verses one and two, he says, to the
judge of the earth, come, rise up, shine forth, oh God of vengeance. It’s a good reminder to us, as
was our reading earlier from Romans chapter 12, it is God’s
place to avenge. And maybe you have found yourself,
or if you haven’t, you will someday, you found yourself in a situation
where you’ve been done wrong, and maybe you’ve been done really
wrong, and you wanna do something about it. Others want to do something
about it for you. And in this case, This is bad theology in other
cases, but in this case, let go and let God is good theology,
isn’t it? Let go and let God have vengeance. Justice and vengeance is mine,
says the Lord. So there’s the first, the judge.
The second portion of this is the boast. You find it in verses
three through seven. O Lord, how long shall the wicked,
how long shall the wicked exult? They pour out their arrogant
words, all the evildoers boast. They crush your people, O Lord.
They afflict your heritage. They kill the widow and the sojourner
and they murder the fatherless. And they say, the Lord does not
see, the God of Jacob does not perceive. If you watch the, signing
of New York’s law that was passed on Friday. You watch the governor,
you watch the lawmakers, they gather in some great hall and
they pat themselves on the back. This is a wonderful day for women’s
health, women’s right over their bodies, they say. They sign it
into law, they give speeches, they thank all the organizations
and all the suspect ones are named and listed. But God sees. God takes up for the helpless. And maybe sometimes we think
he’s long in coming. This year, as we observe, I think
it’s the 46th anniversary of Roe versus Wade, and I don’t
know, 50 plus million little ones have not made it into this
world, just in our own country. We think sometimes God is slow.
He’s long in coming. And it’s more than we can bear.
And even in the midst of the boasting, And the boasting comes
in the New York State Hall. It comes when you get behind
someone in traffic and you see their bumper stickers. You read
the headlines in the news and you get offended, you get riled
up. And this word reminds us to rest, to wait. Sometimes in this life, injustice
will feel like it’s overwhelmed us. Can we bear it? But God will make all things
right. So there’s the judge, there’s the boast. The next,
the third is the warning. You find the warning in verses
eight through 11. Understand, O dullest of people. And you all who grew up in the
1980s, or at least maybe watch Mr. T, think of Mr. T when you
read these verses, especially the end of verse eight. Understand,
O dullest of peoples. Fools, when will you be wise?
You gotta have the pity the fool speech there. Fools, when will
you be wise? He who planted the ear, does
he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he
not see? He who disciplines the nations,
does he not rebuke? He who teaches man knowledge
of the Lord knows the thoughts of man and that they are but
a breath. This is the warning. My mom always told us when we
were growing up that she had eyes on the back of her head.
and that if we weren’t, she wasn’t facing us, she could still see
what we were doing, and we believed her. I’ve learned otherwise since
then, but God has eyes on the back of his head. He sees everything,
he hears everything, he knows all things, including what is
in the hearts of the man. We’ve seen this so well. In Jesus’
ministry and Luke’s gospel in our morning study, we’ve seen
Jesus teaching and preaching and healing, and the Pharisees
are sitting there, remember, with their clipboards, checking
off what he’s done wrong so they can give him their pastoral evaluation
after the service is over, as it were. And Jesus, the passages
often say, knowing their hearts, he asked them a question. God
sees, He hears, He knows, including what’s in the heart. And He is
writing it down in His book of judgments. So don’t you think
for a minute. that it’s not written in ink
in heaven. What’s been done in New York
State, what’s been done in the Supreme Court, what’s been done
in Eritrea, what’s been done in China, what’s been done in
North Korea, South Korea, what’s been done in every part of the
world where injustice against the people of God has been committed. It has been written down for
a day of judgment. The fourth section of this passage
is the blessing. You’ve got the judge, the boast,
the warning, now the blessing. And you find the blessing in
verses 12 through 15. This is sort of a break in the
darkness of the passage. It’s a, what do we call it? A beatitude. Blessed is the man
whom you discipline, O Lord, and whom you teach out of your
law. What’s the good of hardship in
this life? We speak of the means of grace as the word, Well, it’s
right there in our passage. Blessed is the man whom you discipline
and whom you teach out of your law. We believe the means of
grace are the word, the sacraments. We talked about the blessing
of the Lord’s Supper a little bit ago in our Lord’s Day Catechism. You’ve got word, you’ve got sacraments,
you’ve got prayer, you’ve got fellowship, you’ve got suffering,
and he speaks of that here. Blessed is the man whom you discipline,
O Lord, whom you allow suffering. to come to, it’s a means of grace.
And notice the blessing. There’s more here about the blessing
that comes out of suffering and discipline than that comes out
of the law. But notice in these verses what those blessings are. Blessed is the man whom you discipline,
O Lord, and whom you teach out of your law. First benefit, to
give him rest from the days of trouble until a pit is dug for
the wicked. For the Lord will not forsake
his people. He will not abandon his heritage. For justice will
return to the righteous and the upright in heart will follow
it. There’s a couple of things there
in this blessing. He’ll give you rest from your
days of suffering. Some of you think I can’t bear
up anymore under this bit of hardship, this sickness, this
travail, this difficulty. God will give you rest from it.
It may not come until the next life. That’s a tough pill to
swallow, isn’t it? We remember the prayer of the
old covenant. Lord, give us back the days which
the locusts have eaten. God will give us rest. He’ll
give us justice. Our enemies will fall in their
pits. A pit is dug for the wicked and they will end up in it. And
then it speaks of the steadfast love in the kindness of God,
verses 14 and 15, the Lord will not forsake his people. He will
not abandon his heritage. Whatever befalls the people of
God, we are never lost. We are never without hope in
this world. He’ll give us victory. It will
be at times temporary, temporal, but ultimately Christ will take
us home to be with him. and there will be no more pain,
no sorrow, no sin, no sickness, no enemies, no wickedness. We
read the scriptures, and it helps us interpret our suffering, and
that is the blessing. That is the blessing, the scriptures,
the law teaching us, and it helps us endure our sufferings and
our hardships. There’s a fifth section here,
and it’s called the answer. Got the judge, the boast, the
warning, the blessing and now the answer, it comes to us in
verses 16 through 19. There’s a question, who rises
up for me against the wicked? Who stands up for me against
evil doers? And then verse 17. It’s kind of a hearken back to
Psalm 73. Look around the world, get you
a little weary. Think everybody else has got it good. If the
Lord had not been my help, the psalmist says, verse 17, if the
Lord had not been my help, my soul would have lived in the
land of silence. I would have been a dead man.
When I thought my foot slips, give it up. Your steadfast love,
oh Lord, held me up. There’s the answer. You can get
pretty blue if you watch the news, can’t you? Fox News depression,
right? Remember when 24-hour news became
a big thing. There was always CNN since I
was maybe in middle school. One of my teachers called the
24-hour news, called it Newsac. Remember Musac? You get in the
elevator and it’s that canned music. And it’s just always playing,
and it sounds like Yanni on his horn. Well, there’s always news-ack,
and now everywhere we go, there’s news. So he called it news-ack. And it’ll get you depressed. It’ll give you a fit of the blues. And you’ll be like the psalmist
in 17. If the Lord had not been my help, my soul would soon have
lived in the land of silence. How do we bear up under 50, 60
million deaths by abortion? How do we live up under the persecutions of God’s people
around the world. How do we bear up under our own
hardships? If the Lord had not been my help,
my soul would soon have lived in the land of silence. You know,
one of the greatest things we can do as Christians is we can
affirm our faith. Because when we affirm our faith,
we remember what is good, right, and true. And all that is false,
all that is weighing us down can be put at bay because the
steadfast love of God and the truth about him triumphs. over
everything, the answer is God. That’s the answer. God will be
with you. His steadfast love will see you through these hardships. Going through the rest of these
few verses, 18 and 19, when I thought my foot slips, your steadfast
love, O Lord, it held me up. When the cares of my heart are
many, your consolations cheer my soul. I don’t know how much
y’all think about this, As a Sunday night congregation,
we’ve made it through 94 songs. I bet you couldn’t count within
100 miles of here on one hand how many churches have done that,
and on a Sunday night. I was listening to a podcast
the other day and a couple of ministers were sitting up on
a panel being asked questions. How do you teach people the character
of God? How do you teach people the truth of the scripture? First
guy was giving techniques. Well, this is how you do it this
way. This is how you do it that way. Well, the third person that
was on the panel was one who taught me. He said, the way you
teach people the character of God is you do it on Sunday mornings
and you do it on Sunday nights and you do it on Wednesday nights.
And he says, when I bump into my students at General Assembly
or in other places, my test question to see how their ministry is
doing is to ask them this, what are you preaching on Sunday nights?
And he said, if they get a little shifty, they get a little wobbly
on their feet and rocking back and forth, he says, I realize
I have struck a nerve, they’re not preaching on Sunday nights.
He says, I don’t ask them what they’re preaching on Sunday morning,
because every person preaches on Sunday morning. And then he
lets out his, Trademark laugh that we all love to hear when
we were taught by him. And he says, I didn’t dare ask
him what he was preaching on Wednesday nights. But that’s
what it takes, isn’t it? To get through life in this world.
We need to hear God’s word. We need to be reminded of his
steadfast love and his character because it won’t be long into
Monday before something will wear us down. And we need to
know the truth of God’s word. The answer is always God. Made me think of Martin Luther.
at the diet of worms. He had no one at his side. He
was like the same as the Apostle Paul before Caesar. No one was
with him except God himself. And Luther was able to give that
wonderful speech. Here I stand. I can do no other. God, help me. And that’s where
we are in the world. It may be wicked all around us. That’s why we say every Sunday
morning before the pastoral prayer, let’s go before the Lord together
and ask for his help and grace, for we live in a dark and dying
world, and we live before a crooked and depraved generation. And
oh, do we not need God’s help, for he is the answer. Well, the
last section of the psalm is the faith. You’ve got the judge,
the boast, the warning, the blessing, the answer, and now the faith.
Pick it up in verse 20. Can wicked rulers be allied with
you? Those who frame injustice by
the statute, they band together against the life of the righteous.
They condemn the innocent to death, but the Lord. But Yahweh has become my stronghold
and my God, the rock of my refuge. He will bring back on them their
iniquity and he will wipe them out for their wickedness. the
Lord our God will wipe them out. You know, it’s rather overwhelming
if you look at the amount of corruption that is in the world.
It is a dark and dying world. It is a crooked and depraved
generation that we live in the midst of. It is why we are still
strangers and aliens and pilgrims and sojourners. This is not our
home. We’re still exiled in Babylon. Jerusalem is our home. Yet Babylonians
are all around us. The Babylonian captivity of the
Old Testament is a picture of our spiritual state. We are the
children of God, but we’re in a foreign and strange land. And
the people taunt us and they say, get your liars and strum
them and sing us the songs of Zion. And we say like the psalmist,
how can I sing the Psalms of Zion? when it lies in ruins and
we sit in a strange land. Well, now we sing the songs of
Zion because we’re marching there. We’re making our way there. And
only our faith, only our faith in God will get us there. You
watch the news and you get the blues. It better not last but
a second because why? The Lord is your stronghold.
That’s what it says in verse 22. The Lord has become my stronghold,
my God, and the rock, of my refuge. We have no other place to go.
No other place to go for our salvation than faith in Jesus.
No other place to go for our daily bread. No other place to
go for the righting of wrongs in this world. The just will
live by faith and we must press on. We must keep the faith. We
must keep marching to Zion and live the life of Christian warfare. when I was in a different denomination
for a short little while, there was a pastor from Eritrea. And
he spoke often as he came to America, he had to escape for
his life. He had to, of all things, escape
from Eritrea into Sudan. If that doesn’t brighten your
day, to have to go from Eritrea to Sudan. But he had to escape
with paid mercenaries. He had to make his way to Nairobi,
and then it took him a little while to get to America, and
then it took his family another two years to get here. But he
spoke of the persecution of Christianity. how the people of God would be
locked into shipping containers, contained, jailed in them in
the darkness with no food, no restroom, and a little sliver
of the scripture would be poked through the doors by a guard
who knew better, who feared God. And from that little sliver of
scriptures, the just, the persecuted just, they were in a human stronghold. but their real stronghold was
their faith in Almighty God. Dear friends, persecution hasn’t
really hit us. So you wake up tomorrow and have
a happy day. Your checkbook may balance by
the end of the night. You may not suffer persecution. We may
not face what others do, but we must live by faith, looking
for the day when Christ will come again. Let’s pause and pray
together. Our Lord and God, we thank you
for this psalm and how timely it is when the world in a state
just above us has exalted, it has boasted in their making of
a law that takes the life away from those who cannot defend
themselves. Oh Lord, have mercy on this world. Have mercy on this world. Come
and make all things new. Come and Make your vengeance
known to those who have oppressed, the fatherless, the orphans,
the widows, and the helpless. But even more, Lord, put in our
hearts and minds to be godlike to this world, to see those who
are needy and to help them. We look after our own needs pretty
good, but help us to see the needs of others and to be godlike
toward them. because we are your children
and we want to live in such a way. Help us, we ask and pray in the
strong name of the Lord Jesus, who is our stronghold and our
God of steadfast love. Amen.