Sunday Sermon - Every Good And Perfect Gift | Psalm 67 explores how God blesses the elect to shatter enemies like glass, creating an unstoppable cycle of glory. The speaker argues that "your way" refers to the gospel, not just the law, and asserts that fear of the Lord is the necessary condition for receiving certain blessings more sure than the rising sun. Linking this to Mary's Magnificat, the sermon concludes by praying for victory over darkness through the church, while announcing the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference 2023 featuring Dr. James White and others in May. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Savior of All Kinds00:14:45
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Thanks.
Today's text is Psalm 67.
Psalm 67.
Would you join me now in standing for the reading of God's word?
I'll read our text for us in its entirety.
When I finish reading the text, I'll say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point I would appreciate it.
If you would respond by saying thanks be to God.
One final time, our text for this Lord's Day is Psalm 67.
The Bible says this May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face to shine upon us, Selah, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.
Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
For you judge the peoples with equity.
And guide the nations upon earth, Selah.
Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
The earth is yielded its increase, God.
Our God shall bless us.
God shall bless us.
Let all the ends of the earth fear him.
This is the word of the Lord.
You may be seated.
I'm going to go verse by verse through our text today, beginning with the first verse and in chronological order.
Sometimes I will focus my exegesis on just a portion of the text, and sometimes we'll kind of change the order of the text in order to draw out a certain principle going in logical order rather than chronological order.
However, today it will be verse by verse and it will be in order as we find it in the text because I think that the point is plain and clear and we'll see it with the natural flow of the text without any altercation.
Verse 1.
Verse 1a, if you will.
My God, or may God be gracious to us and bless us.
I want to pause there.
There's much that can be exegeted from this simple phrase.
May God be gracious to us and bless us.
Brothers and sisters, let us never forget that there is no blessing from God apart from grace.
God cannot bless any man apart from his grace.
For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and therefore every single one of his blessings comes as a gift of grace.
It comes as unmerited favor.
It comes as something that you and I do not deserve.
Anything other than the floor opening up beneath us and a chute sliding us directly into the fire of hell is grace.
Anything other than that.
Your next breath is grace.
Now, notice this is not merely speaking of salvation.
It's not merely, may God be gracious and therefore eternally save us in and through the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ by grace through faith in Him alone.
No, it's broader than that.
Certainly, salvation is the pinnacle of the blessings of God, but it is much broader than merely salvation.
As Christians, we should never speak of anything less, but we should speak of something more.
All of God's blessings are of grace.
The food that we eat, the sun rising in the morning and setting in the evening, relationships between spouses, parents, and children, friendship all of these things are a gift from God.
Good wine is a gift from God, which is why I believe that if a Christian can do so responsibly, they should drink and they should do so to God's glory.
But those who abstain, abstain to God's glory.
They're simply referenced as those with weaker faith.
According to the scripture, everything is a gift from God.
A glass of wine, a dry aged, bone in ribeye steak, all of these things are of grace.
In your notes, I've written this.
Most Reformed theologians interpret 1 Timothy 4 10.
I'm sorry, let me read 1 Timothy 4 10 first.
For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God, and this is where it gets complicated theologically, who is the Savior of all people, especially those who believe.
This has plagued many biblical commentators and theologians and Christians and pastors for a very long time.
The idea that God is the Savior of all people, especially those who believe.
The idea of God being the Savior of all people is not a problem for the Calvinist.
It's not.
It's fairly easy to resolve that appearance of tension.
And the idea that, you know, 1 John chapter 2, I believe it's verse 12.
It says that God is, it says that not only us, that He's not only the Savior of us, but all people, right?
So you can read that and say, okay, well, that means each and every individual will be saved, in which case you have drifted into heresy, the heresy of universalism, because the Bible plainly teaches that many will perish apart from the saving grace that's found in Jesus Christ.
Or you can interpret that to mean all kinds of people.
That the author is saying that He's not only the Savior of us, aka Jews.
Those who are people of Israel according to the flesh, but he is also the savior of the world.
Right?
We have that kind of language.
All is a word that is used often in the New Testament, but also the word world, and both in context that speak of salvation.
In terms of the world, well, God saved the world in the midst of the flood.
The scripture uses the very same term world.
God saved the whole world.
I thought you wiped out the whole world.
Well, he saved the whole world by virtue of saving eight persons.
Noah and his wife, their three sons, and their three sons' wives.
And God considers this saving the world.
And it was.
God didn't destroy the world, He cleansed it.
He cleansed the world from a deadly plague, an actual deadly plague.
Not to confuse anyone with deadly plagues today, but an actual deadly plague, an eternally deadly plague.
It's known as sin.
God saved the world, He cleansed the world.
And so the idea of God saving the world.
It simply means every tribe, tongue, and nation.
That God is not merely the God of Israel, but that He is the God of the Gentiles as well.
That they have been grafted in.
Grafted in is important.
It's not two separate trees.
There is not a tree with a root to Christ for ethnic Israel, and then a second tree for the Gentiles.
Two trees of life, two trees of salvation, one for the Jews and one for the rest of the world.
This is not biblical.
It is not the language that the scripture uses.
The scripture speaks that there is one tree with one root the son, the son of Jesse, his posterity, the king of kings, the king of Israel, the promised Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
He is the only root.
John 15 says, He is the only vine.
And Israel sprang forth from that root, one tree, one natural olive tree.
But God did not plant a second tree for the Gentiles, but rather he cut off.
Many of the branches of this tree and grafted the Gentile nations into that one tree so that all, both Jews and Gentiles alike, have one source of blessing, one source of salvation, one root.
One root.
God, in this way, has saved the world.
So the word all, the word world, does not indicate each and every individual person who has ever lived or ever will, but rather this inclusive language simply is meant to convey that God.
Is a savior of all kinds of people, all tribes, all tongues.
That God is not a respecter of persons, that God, as James says, does not show favoritism when it comes to the outward appearance of man.
Rich or poor, black, white, male, female, Brazilian, Hebrew, God is not a respecter of persons.
In these regards.
So, 1 Timothy 4 10 For to this end we toil and strive because we have our hope set on the living God who is the Savior of all kinds of people, is the way we should read it.
But this is the most difficult verse, in my opinion, because it says, especially those who believe.
If it just said, He's the Savior of all people, the Arminian, no doubt, would give us grief.
All people.
The provision of Christ for all.
And we would say all simply means all kinds of people, not each and every individual.
And the issue would be settled.
What's difficult is that there's a subgroup that's explicitly labeled and identified, namely those who believe.
So this verse doesn't merely say that God is the savior of all kinds of people, but that he's the savior of all kinds of people and, in a particular sense, those who believe.
Which begs the question in what way does God save the pagan?
In what way is God saving the reprobate?
In what way does God save people that He actually doesn't save?
That seems to be what the verse is saying.
Now, there are multiple ways in dealing with this text.
Most Reformed theologians interpret 1 Timothy 4 10 to say that the living God, through the work of His Son Jesus Christ, is the Savior of all kinds of people, as I've already discussed.
Especially, and they would interpret that word, especially, To mean that is to say, or particularly those who believe.
In other words, God shows no favoritism based on ethnicity, gender, age, socioeconomic status.
God has not willed to save each and every individual, which would be again the heresy of universalism, but rather God has willed to save his elect from among every kind of people, from different kinds of people.
So, according to this interpretation, which would be a reformed interpretation and the majority report, According to this interpretation, they would say that the word especially simply means that is to say.
So it would read like this The living God is the Savior of all kinds of people, not just the Jews, but every tribe, tongue, and nation.
However, when I say that, I mean only those elect, only those who believe among every tribe, tongue, and nation.
That's how that would be read.
I think that's a faithful interpretation.
There's a reason why that's the majority report.
I don't think that that's wrong.
I simply think that there's more to it than that.
And of course, I could be wrong.
But I think that there's more to it than that.
See, some Reformed theologians have suggested that 1 Timothy 4 10 means that God is the Savior of all people in the sense of physical preservation.
That He is saving all people.
And the word all in this context actually does refer to a universal sense, to each and every individual.
And so He is saving in one sense, universally.
In what sense?
He is physically preserving all people, He is temporally saving all people.
In that sense, and that God is the spiritual or eternal Savior of only those who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
In other words, according to this interpretation, God would be, we might say, a common grace Savior of all, but God is a special grace Savior only of some, namely the elect.
I personally think that both interpretations are faithful and true, and I don't believe that there's any contradiction in that.
We believe, I believe, I'll speak for myself, that when it comes to hermeneutics and the way that we interpret and read and understand Scripture, we should have a historical hermeneutic.
We should have a literal hermeneutic.
We should have a grammatical hermeneutic.
We don't read the Psalms the same way that we would read a gospel narrative.
There's a difference between historical narratives, there are different genres of Scripture.
So, they're not all to be interpreted in the same way.
There's poetic literature, and then there is historical, narrative literature, wisdom literature, and so a grammatical hermeneutic.
But the tradition, the Reformed tradition, has held that there should also be, in addition to these things, an allegorical hermeneutic, an analogous, or an analogical hermeneutic, or a typological, you might say.
A typological hermeneutic.
Some have said a Christological hermeneutic.
Ultimately, this is really the bedrock.
This gets down to the very bottom of the issue the distinction between a Calvinistic Baptist and a Reformed Baptist or a Reformed Presbyterian.
And in defense of the Reformed Presbyterian, they would say that the Reformed Baptist is not quite allegorical enough, that the doctrine of analogy goes a little bit further.
Distinction Between Denominations00:02:18
But they would tip the hat to someone like me and say, You're close, you're getting there.
So, but the Calvinistic Baptist, John MacArthur would be a wonderful example, incredibly faithful man.
But John MacArthur, in his defense, I don't know if I would have done any different.
In the providence of God, are we not so much, I mean, we're entirely a product of God's grace.
And to a large extent, we're a product of God's providence, the time and place that he put us.
So for John MacArthur, the last, what, 52 years of ministry, as people are getting.
Cutesy with biblical text.
Oh, I think you could be gay, and the Bible allows for it.
Or, oh, I think that you can interpret.
So, John MacArthur, in order to stand against people getting cute with the Word of God, he held ferociously to a literal hermeneutic.
And so he despised any typological hermeneutic.
He was like, it's not worth it in his assessment.
It's not worth it.
Maybe, but it's not worth it because with that might come in an understanding of Old Testament messianic prophecies pointing to Christ.
But with it also is a floodgate of iniquity.
It drops the standard, the dam holding back the waters, the floods of immorality, and the progressive Christianity that we've seen become so prevalent in our day.
And so I sympathize with John MacArthur, and I respect him greatly.
I disagree, however.
Like Luther, who said against Rome, when they said, if you translate from the Vulgate, the Latin, into the vulgar tongue, which simply meant.
The common tongue, the way that people speak, to where every individual Christian has a Bible on their mantle and can read the scripture and interpret it from themselves, there will be thousands of schisms in the body of Christ.
There will be a floodgate of iniquity, to which Luther responded by saying, So be it.
And ultimately, what Luther was getting at was he didn't disagree with Rome on this point, because Rome was right.
Hocus Pocus and Schisms00:02:15
We have thousands of denominations.
They were right.
Translating the Bible into the common tongue has produced a massive flood of division and heresy.
But ultimately, the difference is this.
Because again, Rush Dooney said, it's not whether but which.
It's not whether but which.
From which direction, from which source, from which oligarchy, from which authority would you like to be fed heresy?
Because you're going to have to confront heresy.
So you either have one standard, like Rome, who twists the word of God to where no one can find the truth, where Mass is done in the Latin that people don't even speak.
Did you know the phrase hocus pocus?
This mystical, magical kind of.
Hocus pocus.
The wave of the wand.
Do you know where that comes from?
It comes from the Latin Mass.
I can't pronounce it, so I'm not even going to attempt to try, but there was the Latin phrase, it sounds.
Similar to hocus pocus, which was the phrase that the priest would utter when he would transition the Eucharist and the wine into the literal body and blood of Christ, which is a doctrine that we would deny, transubstantiation.
But he would utter the phrase that sounded very similar to the phrase we now are familiar with, hocus pocus.
And we get the phrase hocus pocus even in our culture today because what we're referencing when we say hocus pocus is wishy wash.
Because Roman Catholicism, certainly during the Dark Ages, right before the Reformation, was silly.
Silly is a perfectly wonderful word to describe Roman Catholicism.
It was absolutely silly.
Reformation Truth vs Falsehoods00:07:26
The people had no clue what was going on.
That's where we get the word hocus pocus.
That shows you how in the dark the people were.
They didn't know what the priest was saying.
And that's why the priest relied so little on content, word, right?
We believe as Protestants that we are a word centric church, that the church should be centered upon not what we see, but upon the word.
Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing the word of God.
But the Catholic priests and bishops and cardinals, they relied so much on imagery.
Not only did they break the second commandment and having graven images, Worshipping idols and statues made to saints, exalting Mary as a co redeemer with her son.
But in addition to all this, they had robes and tassels and colors and prisms and lights and all these different decorations and artifacts.
And this is holy and that is holy and holy water.
And everything was about sight, it was meant to wow.
See, that's what you do when you don't have an argument.
When you don't have an actual argument based on substance, what do you do?
Well, you have to spruce it up in some other way to where it won't be questioned.
How can you go against Rome?
How do you disagree with the guy who speaks a language you don't even understand?
And how can you disagree with a guy whose hat is so big?
I mean, surely a hat that size communicates a certain degree of credibility, does it not?
I mean, they don't just hand hats like that out willy nilly.
I mean, this guy must be trusted.
Look at the length of his robe.
Look at how big that Bible is that he's carrying that no one can read.
And he's saying that this is what it says, and no one can fact check him.
There's no way to offer a counter.
Proverbs says one is thought right until another cross examines.
But what do you do if there's no potential for cross examination?
Because you can't see the data.
You can't, you don't have a common source that you can both go to and reference.
See, as Protestants, we both have the scripture.
We still disagree.
But at least we're both able to point to something outside of ourselves.
It's not just me versus you, it's thus saith the Lord.
Now, do we speak for the Lord wrongly at times, even often?
Yes.
Should we be much more careful about that?
Yes.
Matthew Henry, the great Puritan, he said that every time we misinterpret the scripture and communicate it to someone else, it is to take the Lord's name in vain.
Because we're putting the Lord's name onto a doctrine that is not His.
So, misexegesis is a breach of the third commandment.
So, it is a serious thing to grapple with the text, to interpret the scripture.
And Martin Luther, he said, given the choice of there being one church, one denomination, no schisms, no factions, no divisions, one translation.
I mean, how many translations of the Bible do we have?
So, one translation, one ecclesiastical priesthood, one cohesive doctrine, given that choice versus thousands.
Martin Luther's pushback was not, you're exaggerating, Rome.
It won't be that bad.
No, that's not his disagreement.
His disagreement is, it will be that bad.
But the point is this better to have 3,000 different versions of the truth, but the actual truth to be present.
To be available.
3,000 different falsehoods, but the truth can be found.
It'll be difficult to find it, but it can be found.
Versus to have one falsehood where the truth is completely absent.
See, what we have today is this massive amounts of false doctrine, but true doctrine can be found by grace, through prayer, through diligent study.
For the people in Rome, underneath bishops, priests like Tetzel selling indulgences to the most downtrodden people you could imagine, there was no.
Think of it, if I was to use an analogy, think of it like this a needle in a haystack versus a singular piece of hay, but no needle at all.
That's the choice, that's the option.
One stalk, one bushel.
Of hay.
But there is no needle.
No one can find it, even if they tried.
Versus a haystack, what we're dealing with today, it's hard.
It may take me 50 years to find the needle, but it is there.
That's ultimately the dichotomy that existed.
And it's worth mentioning that that's really what we have today as well.
It's interesting to me that the Reformation in the church and God's providence seems to coincide with technological advancements in the culture.
So we have the Reformation with Luther, and we have the Gutenberg printing press.
And that's not a coincidence in the sovereignty of God.
And today I see once more a resurgence and a Reformation in the church again, and we have the dawn of the internet.
Social media, podcasting, where all of a sudden, ultimately, what you have is well, you have a removal and a replacing of the gatekeepers.
Rome was the gatekeepers.
And we've had gatekeepers in evangelicalism in our day.
Some of them have been faithful, and many have been faithless.
But then all of a sudden, you can get a following without having their approval.
Used to.
You had to go to seminary.
You had to jump through the hoops.
You had to work your way up in the Southern Baptist Convention or the PCA.
You had to get the tip of the hat from whoever was in charge, the leaders.
And then eventually you might get your conference.
Eventually you might get your platform.
Eventually you might get your following.
And now a little guy like Eddie Robles.
With a webcam and a home office, it can speak to thousands of people.
Rejecting Private Interpretation00:06:01
And with it comes a new flood of iniquity.
A million different wrong interpretations.
But the truth is present.
The last way I'll say it is this Better a thousand falsehoods where the truth is present than a unified falsehood where the truth is absent.
And it's a mercy of the Lord.
It's a mercy of the Lord.
All that back to the point of our hermeneutic, back to the point of the way that we read and understand and interpret Scripture.
Better to have a typological, analogical hermeneutic in addition to a grammatical, historical, literal hermeneutic, knowing that it will be abused by progressive Christians, knowing that it will be taken as license for twisting and perverting the Word of God in a whole host of manners, but knowing that it also allows us to read the Scripture rightly, knowing that it allows us to read, especially the Old Testament, rightly.
To see certain portions of scripture and how they point to Christ.
Having a covenantal understanding.
Dispensationalism is simply the fruit of a hermeneutic that is not, it has no room or place for a typological reading of the text.
That's how dispensationalism has come about.
It has come about as a reaction to people taking liberty with biblical text.
And then removing an analogous understanding of reading the Scripture for fear that it might be abused.
Dispensationalism, I might add, has also come about as a result of people getting very excited about Israel becoming a sovereign nation about 75 years ago as well.
That has something to do with it also.
But my point in all of that is to say that how we read the Scripture, our hermeneutic, our understanding, our analogous understanding of the Scripture matters.
And with that all being said, Therefore, it is quite possible, and even, I think, probable, in many cases and with many texts of Scripture, that there can be more than one meaning to the text.
The logical fallacy, the unbiblical understanding, is when we say that a text can have more than one meaning and those two meanings or interpretations are contradicting.
That is what the Christian should have no tolerance for.
So, the most common example would be a Bible study, perhaps performed in a home where you go around the room and each person says what the text means for them.
The Bible doesn't have individual interpretations, the Bible doesn't mean anything for you insofar as it means something exclusively for you.
The Bible was not written to you and you alone, the Bible was written.
To people.
It was written to nations.
It is corporate by nature.
So the Bible doesn't mean something for Joel Webb and then means something else for Connor Hensley, and those two things contradict.
How often have you been in that kind of environment where 15 people are seated and all of a sudden we get 15 different personal interpretations and seven of them contradict one another?
And if you ever even begin as charitably as possible to push back the.
The counter that is presented as this, well, that's my interpretation.
As though each individual has some kind of inalienable right to a private and personal interpretation.
That's not true.
You don't have that right.
You don't get to have your private and personal interpretation.
However, that does not mean that a text can't have more than one interpretation.
So we can't throw out the baby with the bathwater as we try to.
Resist a lack of clarity, division, confusion with interpreting texts.
We cannot go so far as to say, well, every text only has one interpretation, it's never analogous, it's always literal, and that's the way it is.
No, a text can have more than one interpretation.
A messianic prophecy would be a perfect example.
David means something by what he says, and it is relevant and true.
For Israel in that day.
And yet, in a deeper, more eternal prophetic sense, it means something about the king of all kings, the one who one day will come and sit on David's throne.
It means something spiritual as well as literal.
Two texts can have more than one interpretation, so long as it's not a private interpretation.
It is corporate always in both senses, and it is not a contradicting interpretation.
All that said, I believe both these interpretations with 1 Timothy 4, verse 10, are correct.
I believe that, in one sense, what Paul is saying to Timothy is that God is the Savior of all kinds, not universally each and every individual, but all kinds of people.
However, only those who believe.
That's a faithful reading.
I also think that this text means that God is actually, in a universal sense, the Savior of each and every individual in a physical preservation.
Grace Beyond God's Law00:06:28
Saving sense, but he is only the eternal and spiritual Savior of the elect of those who have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
That God is a common grace Savior of all and a special grace Savior of some.
And all that is to say, James 1 17, every good gift and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights.
Ecclesiastes says it like this that God causes it to rain on both the wicked and the righteous.
That God works providentially through agency, natural agency, human agency.
But it is always God as the original mover, the unmoved mover, the original cause of all things, meaning that every good and perfect gift that comes down from heaven.
It comes from the Father of Lights.
There is not one good thing that has ever happened to any person in the history of all humanity that was not ultimately done by God.
God is the source of all good in this world.
And every good and perfect gift, every blessing that comes to any person, both the believer and the unbeliever alike, eternal blessings, most certainly to the believer, but even temporal and physical blessings.
To the pagan, all have their root in God.
He is the source of all goodness.
He is the source of all blessing.
So, Psalm 67, verse 1 May God be gracious to us and bless us.
There is no blessing apart from God's grace.
There can be no blessing apart from God's grace.
We know that that's true when we think.
Eternally, we know that that's true when we think spiritually, we know that that's true when we think of salvation for the people of God.
All I'm saying is that we should think more broadly.
That should be the pinnacle of our thought, but not the extent of our thought.
Not only is it of God's grace that He eternally saves sinners, but it's of God's grace that child molesters get to eat.
And it's of God's grace that rain falls from heaven.
It's of God's grace that we're given marriage.
It's of God's grace that we have homes.
It's of God's grace that I'm able to take my very next breath.
May God be gracious to us and bless us.
The psalmist cannot even begin to call upon a blessing from the Lord without first saying, May God be gracious.
Because there is no blessing from the Lord apart from grace.
And to think otherwise is to minimize the holiness of God.
And to make light of the severity of humanity's sin.
Psalm 67, verse 2 that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all nations.
The revelation of God's law is a wonderful blessing.
We preach God's law here in this church, week in and week out, because it's biblical, because it permeates all of Scripture, because I think it's right and proper to be a part of a church's liturgy, and church history seems to support that.
And because it's also been largely forgotten by the church today, the church has become antinomian, an absence of law, not just against law, but an absence of law.
Many churches have completely thrown out the third use of God's law, that the law of God has no function in the life of the Christian.
Certainly, the law does not save us, but the law is a lamp unto our feet.
It does not show the Christian the way to inherit salvation, but it does show the Christian.
The way to respond in gratitude for the free salvation we've received by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.
And yet, many Christians, for fear of being called legalistic and in order to welcome the seeker into their churches, have foregone any application of the law of God today.
So, the law of God is necessary, I believe, even more necessary in this current time because it's been forgotten and neglected.
And yet, all that being said, Is wonderful and good and holy and right as the law of God is, it is still not the most significant blessing that God has bestowed upon humanity.
The revelation of God's law is a blessing and it is wonderful and it must be preached, especially in our lawless generation.
But the law of God still pales in comparison, not in the mind of God Himself, but in terms of the benefit to the Christian, the law of God pales in comparison.
To the gospel and saving knowledge that comes through faith in Christ Jesus.
At first glance, the phrase, your way, at the beginning of Psalm 67, verse 2, it may appear to be a reference to the law of God.
David says elsewhere in the Psalms, that you show me your way, speaking of God's law, or you are a light unto my path, speaking of God's law.
And so, at first glance, this phrase, your way, it may appear to be a reference to the law of God, but the phrase, your saving power, in the second half of Psalm 67, verse 2, removes all doubt that the person and work of the coming Messiah is what the author ultimately had in mind.
Proper Response to Judgment00:08:52
This Old Testament human author, inspired by the divine author who is the Holy Spirit, Did not know the name of the Messiah, did not know all the intimate details and workings of the Messiah as we do today on the other side of the cross, but they did know that there was a Messiah and that there would be no salvation found in anyone else.
They knew that ultimately they needed a substitute, a Lamb of God to take the penalty for their sin.
They knew that there was a Christ.
The Son of God, who eventually one day would come, the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent's head, the seed of Abraham through whom all the nations would be blessed, the Son of David who would rule the nations with an iron scepter in truth and in justice.
Upon his shoulders would be a government of peace, and his advancement would know no end.
And it was just as you and I are saved for these Old Testament saints, including the author of our text today, it was by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, that they were saved.
That's right, Oliver.
In Christ alone.
They knew this.
And so I believe that the author, what he's getting at under the inspiration of the Spirit, is the gospel that your way may be known, verse 2, on earth.
That is to say, in all the earth.
Not just a mystery concealed in heaven that angels long to look into, as Hebrew says, but something that has been revealed, a mystery now manifest.
And not just in heaven with angelic beings, but on earth with men.
And not just in some remote corner of the earth for a few elite individuals, but on all the earth, every tribe, every tongue, every nation.
That your way may be known to all men here on earth.
And what way is that?
The law of God?
In this case, I believe no.
What way is that?
Your saving power among all nations.
Your gospel.
Your son.
The Messiah.
That he would be known in all the earth.
Among all the nations.
The author cannot be speaking of the law in this sense because Romans 3 3 says, For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.
By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.
That is to say, the law is powerless to save, and not because there is some flaw in the law.
It rhymes, so it must be true.
We know how that goes.
It's not because there's a flaw in the law, it's because there's a flaw in the flesh.
But either way, the law still, because of the flesh, is powerless to save.
Titus 2 11 says, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people.
It's the grace of God, the saving grace of God, the grace afforded to us by the person and work of Jesus Christ, that your way may be known on earth, your saving power among all the nations.
This verse.
Cannot be speaking of the law of God.
It must be speaking of the work of Christ.
Which, C.A., is precisely why we have to have a typological hermeneutic.
We have to be able to read texts like this in light of the New Testament, under the banner of analogy, knowing that it will allow those who want to pervert the scripture.
It will allow opportunity for them to get cute with the text.
And let our response, as those who are classically reformed, be as Luther's response to Rome.
So be it.
Psalm 67, verse 3 through 4 says this Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon earth.
Stella.
John Gill.
The Baptist version of John Calvin.
So fantastic, but not quite as good, but still really good.
He says this meaning not the people of the world, commentating on these two verses, verse 3 and 4.
Meaning not the people of the world at the last day, at the general judgment or the final judgment of all men, which will be righteous, when God will judge the world in righteousness according to the strict rules of justice and equity by Him.
Whom he has ordained, but rather verse 3 and 4, according to Gill and many other Reformed theologians, verse 3 and 4 refers to the righteous judgment which will be executed on the enemies of Christ's church and people in this life, is the implication, which will be a matter of great joy, to shouts of great gladness.
Verse 3 and 4, again, Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
For you judge the peoples with equity and guide the nations upon the earth.
Speaking of the final judgment?
No.
In this case, it is more likely, I believe, the more faithful interpretation is to say, For you judge the wicked.
In this life, here on this earth, in temporal ways, you break them to pieces, you shatter them, and in your wind of wrath, you blow them away to the four corners of the earth like chaff.
And what should the righteous respond with?
Again, verse 3 Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
Let the nations be glad and sing for joy.
Do not fall into the arrogance that is so prevalent among Christians today that asserts that we are somehow more compassionate than God Himself.
Stop it.
I get angry when I hear what ultimately amounts to people claiming to be more loving than God.
God gives us the proper response.
Let God be true and every man a liar, as the scripture testifies elsewhere.
God tells his people how to respond when he shatters the kneecaps of his enemies and breaks them to pieces.
And the proper response is gladness and praise and rejoicing.
So, when God begins to topple powers and principalities in this world, and He will, it is not a matter of if, it is merely a matter of when.
He will do as He did for Israel great and marvelous wonders in our midst.
Marvelous Wonders Amidst Fear00:02:51
It may be a frightening time to be alive, but I think the excitement in this season far outweighs the fear.
Or at least it should for the people of God.
I'm excited to be alive.
I am excited, like Psalm 2 says, when I see the rulers of this world shaking their fist at God in heaven and attempting to sever the bonds of his sovereign rule over all things, I get excited knowing that my Bible tells me that God sits in heaven and he laughs and holds them in derision.
And I get excited thinking, in what way will we get to witness God in His marvelous power bringing to nothing the authorities and pagans of this world?
Could you imagine being among the people of Israel in bondage in Egypt and in God's sovereignty being chosen as the generation?
Where he would send marvelous wonders, ten plagues, the parting of the Red Sea.
Could you imagine?
I mean, the fear as you're hearing all over Egypt, the screeches and wailing of mothers and fathers and little brothers and little sisters as they're discovering that their firstborn son has died in his sleep because the angel of death has gone in and killed him.
The fear, the terror, but also the wonder.
Knowing that the blood of the Lamb is on the mantle of your door and that you and your children are covered, are blessed, are secure in the promise of God.
Can you imagine the fear?
Yes, but the wonder, the exhilaration.
The awe of seeing God in His providence allowing you to be cornered between the mountain and the sea and the quickly advancing armies of Pharaoh.
And then all of a sudden Moses holds up his rod and says, Behold, people of Israel, the people of God, He has promised that He shall do great wonders, marvelous works in your midst.
Cycle of Glory and Power00:15:57
And he holds up his rod.
And all of a sudden, a great wind from heaven blows down, and two walls of the sea rise up, and all of Israel walks through on dry land.
And the Presbyterian gets excited because the New Testament says they were all baptized.
I can't imagine.
I cannot imagine.
And I'm not saying that we're going to get to witness things like that.
But I believe with every fiber of my being that the Lord is doing a marvelous work in this generation.
Romans 9 says this What if God raised up Pharaoh so that his glory, his power to the righteous might be revealed?
See, for God to show off, and he does.
Not in a vain, fleshly, arrogant way, but God does delight to show his glory.
But for God to show even the tip of the iceberg of his power, his majesty, his wonders, his might, he has to create and sustain and prop up his own opposition.
That's how strong our God is.
Our God is so powerful.
So mighty and so glorious, if he doesn't use and delegate at least a portion of his own power to sustain his own opposition, there'll be no opportunity to show how strong he actually is.
Did you know that?
So, God actually had to designate a portion of his power to propping up Pharaoh.
Because, by comparison, Pharaoh is so weak and so puny.
That all of his power as the leader of the most powerful empire in the world at that time, all of it is like a gnat trying to make it through Niagara Falls.
I believe that's a Paul Walsh quote.
It's a good one.
It's nothing.
So God has to supernaturally sustain and raise up Pharaoh, just like he does all rulers of this world.
God has to delegate a portion of his own power to propping up an enemy just so that his people can marvel when he knocks it down.
I believe that that's what he's doing presently.
That he is holding up a weak, feeble, foolish old man in the White House just so he can.
Knock them over.
And so that the people of God can praise the Lord, be glad, and sing for joy.
Let us fight.
Let us resist.
But when we win, a lot of Christians don't have a plan for winning because their theology doesn't include winning.
They don't think they'll win.
And they shoot themselves in the foot as though to help Christ out to speed up their loss, which is precisely what they think He wants.
I'm going to try my best to be faithful by losing even faster.
Because that's God's will.
And that's what God loves.
God loves a losing church.
I don't believe that doctrine.
I used to.
No, I believe that Christ wins.
And to be fair to the pre mill, they believe Christ wins also.
But as I said before, I think the difference is does Christ win despite his losing church?
Or does Christ win through his church?
I don't think that it's just the church gets weaker and weaker and loses more and more.
And then finally, in the bottom of the ninth, Christ steps in and wins the game.
So the church benefits from his victory, but the church itself was losing terribly.
No, I believe that Christ wins not despite his church, but through his church.
And one of the scriptures that I would point to. Is I will build my church.
All authority in heaven has been given to me.
I will build my church.
So the church will not shrink but advance.
And the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
The gates being a defensive mechanism.
So the church is not on the ropes taking blows from hell.
But rather, Christ is building his church in such a way that hell is on the defense.
And the church is the battering ram of Christ.
That is knocking down the gates of hell.
So it's not if it happens, winning, victory.
It's when it happens.
And I believe that verse 3 and 4 of our text cause us to carefully consider what our response will be.
And I would suggest that it should not be a response of arrogance and gloating as though we brought something about in our own strength.
But it should be a response of joy and gladness.
That when the enemies of God are put to open shame, that the people of God should not be so arrogant as to pretend we're more sympathetic and compassionate than God Himself.
We should not, essentially, this is what we do we should not indirectly chastise God for doing that which is just.
Let the people's praise.
I think that's the difference.
In a nutshell, when God gains for Himself victory on earth, do we praise God?
You have done right.
Or do we chastise God?
You have been harsh.
Just wasn't very loving.
The way you defeated your enemies and put them to shame, I just.
But was it nice?
That entire thought process is not rooted in compassion.
It's not rooted in love.
It's not rooted in humility.
It's rooted in arrogance.
Thinking that you know more than the infinitely wise God and thinking that you love more than the omnibenevolent God.
Repent of your pride.
Bringing the plane home.
Psalm 67, verse 5 through 6.
Let the peoples praise you, O God.
Let all the peoples praise you.
The earth has yielded its increase.
God, our God, shall bless us.
The psalmist is likely speaking here in a spiritual sense of the Christian church.
The word of God preached in the world is the seed which is sown into all the world.
It converts to Christ.
Its converts to Christ are the increase or the fruit of it.
And this increase is of God.
It is the work of his grace which is promised to accompany the preaching of his word.
1 Corinthians 3 6.
You're probably very familiar with this text.
It says, Paul speaking, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.
So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
So the progression of the text thus far is this The psalmist cries out and asks the Lord for a blessing.
But before he does, he first recognizes that there can be no blessing apart from God's grace.
Implicitly, he is acknowledging his sin and the sin of his nation and the sin of the nations plurally before the Lord, but asking the Lord because, not on the basis of human merit, but on the basis of his own character, that he is the gracious God.
On that basis, the basis of the gracious character of God, he asks for a blessing.
That God's face would shine upon.
And he asked for this using the best motive that you could ever set before the Lord God's own glory.
Would you bless us out of the abundance of your character, not what we deserve, but out of your character, your nature, your mercy, your grace?
And would you do it, God?
Not just for our good, but would you do it that your way may be known on the earth?
Would you do it that your glory might be manifest in the world?
Would you do it, God, to show people how awesome you truly are?
But knowing that the pinnacle of your glory, what brings you praise, is also your saving power that does us good.
And when you do it, oh God, when you save your elect, From among all the tribes and nations of the world, would you also bring to nothing the enemies of the church?
Would you shatter them like glass and blow them away like dust?
And when you do, let us, let our response not be to chastise the Lord for being too harsh, but to praise the Lord for his justice and doing that which is right.
And when your enemies are scattered and brought to nothing, let the increase of your work increase all the more.
That's verse 6.
And let it all be a cycle, an unbreakable, unstoppable cycle of the good of God's people and the glory of the gracious God.
That you would pour out blessing for your glory.
And you would bring your enemies to nothing for our good and your glory.
And that would set the landscape as your enemies are pushed back, it would set the terrain, the landscape, the context for you to increase the church even more for your glory.
And then, if it be your will, if you want to prop up another enemy like Pharaoh simply so that you can knock him down to show off a little more, let the people praise you and rejoice.
It's this cycle of God increasing his people, shattering his enemies for his glory and our good.
For his glory and our good.
He increases his people out of grace, and when he shatters his enemies, we praise.
He increases his enemies, or his people out of grace, and he shatters his enemies, and we praise.
And so on, and so on, and so on, until the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the water covers the sea.
And he finishes in verse 7 by saying, God shall bless us.
Let all the ends of the earth fear him.
It seems peculiar the way this psalm ends.
It's the blessing of God.
If you are the people of God by grace through faith alone, if you belong to God, if the blood of the Lamb is on your mantle, what is there to fear?
And it's especially peculiar that he would end the psalm by saying, Let all the peoples of the earth fear him, which is common throughout the scripture, but that he would preface that statement, not just statement, but command to fear the Lord, by saying, God should bless us.
You would imagine that he would say, God will destroy his enemies, so let all the peoples of the earth fear him.
But he says, no, God shall, not just God could or he might.
No, he's saying God will bless us, not if, but when.
It is merely a matter of time.
More surely than the sun's rising tomorrow morning is the blessing of God that is coming for his people.
You can take it to the bank, it's a guarantee.
He has set his seal upon it.
It will come as surely as anything else you can imagine, and more certain even than that.
God's blessing shall come to us.
So fear Him.
We do not fear God because of His blessings.
We fear God so that we might receive His blessings.
See, Psalm 67 7 says, God shall bless us.
In other words, God's blessings are certain, they are sure to come.
Therefore, if God's blessings are so certain to come, then let all the ends of the earth take haste to fear God.
Why?
Because the fear of the Lord is precisely.
The necessary posture in order to receive his blessing.
Luke finished with this, chapter 1, verse 46 through 50.
It's Mary's Magnificat.
It is her song of praise in response to the word of the Lord delivered by the angel Gabriel that she should be the mother of the Messiah.
This is her joy filled song, this is her delight filled ode to the Lord in response, in gratitude.
For this marvelous promise of blessing that would bless all the peoples of the earth, but uniquely her, and the great honor of being our Lord's mother.
She says this My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked upon the humble estate of his servant.
Magnificat Song of Praise00:05:24
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
And don't miss verse 50.
And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
You see, the beauty of Psalm 67, perhaps after my study this past week, perhaps my favorite psalm now.
The beauty of Psalm 67 is that the final verse brings us full circle back to the first verse The Lord shall bless us.
Therefore, let all the earth fear him.
Why?
Why?
Not fear him for his blessing, but because fear is the necessary and appropriate posture of the people of God in order to receive his blessing.
So he ends, the psalmist ends it by saying, The blessing is coming, it is certain.
So now, right now, don't delay.
With haste, posture yourself.
Like the woman at Elisha who says, The Lord is going to pour out oil and bless you.
This poor, humble widow.
And what you need to do is quickly go to all of your neighbors, your family, anyone that you can, and get as many jars as possible so that you will be appropriately positioned to receive as much blessing from the Lord as possible.
As possible.
That's how the psalm ends.
The psalm ends, and I want, as the one preaching the psalm today, I want you to feel the urgency.
That we would go out from our Lord's Day worship today with a sense of urgency.
Not an urgency of a fear of punishment or dread, but an urgency of a fear of wonder, of the great God who punishes the wicked but pours out such a blessing that his people cannot contain it.
And with urgency, we would go to posture ourselves to fear our great and gracious God so that we have room to receive as much blessing as possible.
The psalmist ends this psalm by saying, The blessing is coming, so fear him.
And that brings us all the way back to verse 1 that says, May God be gracious to us and bless us.
See, Mary speaks of fear, saying, And his mercy is for those who fear him.
The final thing the psalmist says in our text today is to fear God.
Mary says that God's mercy is for those who fear him.
And it brings us all the way back to the first verse that says, May God be gracious, or we might say, merciful.
And bless us.
So let us fear the Lord that we might be blessed.
Let's pray.
Father God, we thank you for your word.
We thank you for your truth.
We thank you for your grace.
We thank you for your blessing.
We also thank you for your justice.
We thank you for your power.
We thank you for your might and your glory.
And God, we believe that you are doing a marvelous thing in our day.
And we are humbled and with great and holy anticipation long to witness it.
Father, we pray, we pray that your power might come quickly.
We pray, Lord, that not despite the church, but through the church, through your people, through courage, through righteousness, and through humility, that you would use your people to bring about a great victory over these present powers of darkness, over the present tyranny, the present perversion.
In our day, in our nation.
Father, we pray that you would use us, and we pray, Lord, that the victory would be great.
And if perhaps now you are holding that inevitable victory at bay simply to prop up your enemies a little taller so that you might gain even more glory when you use your church to knock them down, so be it.
But we trust that it will happen.
And we trust it will be marvelous in our eyes.
Father, we pray that we would work towards this end in a righteous manner.
And Lord, we pray that we also would respond properly when it comes, not with gloating, but also not with pretense, imagining ourselves to be more loving than you.
We pray that we would respond to your glory as it's revealed here on earth in grace to your people and justice to your enemies.
That we would respond to both with praise and shouts of gladness.
We pray this in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Oh, hi, I didn't see you there.
Thanks for sticking around.
I've got an important announcement to make.
Theonomy and Postmillennialism00:00:56
That's the Theonomy and Postmillennialism Conference 2023, May 5th, 6th, and 7th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Theonomy and Postmillennialism.
We've got the speakers that we've already had lined up.
That's Dr. James White, Dr. Joseph Boot, Dr. Gary DeMar, non doctor Pastor Joel Weben.
But we also have a bonus speaker, and that is Dale Partridge from Real Christianity.
Perhaps you've heard of him.
If not, you should start listening to his podcast.
It's fantastic.
Dale Partridge is going to be joining our team.
We're going to have live panels on Friday night and Saturday night where you'll be able to write in questions and get them answered.
We're also going to have a catered barbecue, Texas style barbecue meal on Friday that's a part of your registration fee.