NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - HOLY BATTLE: Christians Remember & Remind
Aired: 2024-11-17
Duration: 01:02:06


=== Why We Leave a Review (03:15) ===

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[00:00:42]  So, if you'll stand with me for the reading of God's word, please, we will read Psalm chapter 9.
[00:00:48]  After I'm done reading it, I will say, This is the word of the Lord, at which point, please reply by saying, Thanks be to God.
[00:00:56]  Once again, our scripture text for this morning is Psalm chapter 9.
[00:00:59]  It says, To the choir master, according to Muth Laban, a psalm of David.
[00:01:07]  I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.
[00:01:10]  I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
[00:01:13]  I will be glad and exult in you.
[00:01:15]  I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.
[00:01:18]  When my enemies turn back, they stumble and perish before your presence.
[00:01:22]  For you have maintained my just cause.
[00:01:25]  You have sat on the throne, giving righteous judgment.
[00:01:28]  You have rebuked the nations.
[00:01:29]  You have made the wicked perish.
[00:01:31]  You have blotted out their name forever and ever.
[00:01:34]  The enemy came to an end in everlasting ruins.
[00:01:38]  Their cities you rooted out.
[00:01:40]  The very memory of them has perished.
[00:01:43]  But the Lord sits enthroned forever.
[00:01:46]  He has established his throne for justice.
[00:01:49]  He judges the world with righteousness, he judges the peoples with uprightness.
[00:01:53]  The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.
[00:01:59]  And those who know your name put their trust in you, for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
[00:02:07]  Sing praises to the Lord who sits enthroned in Zion.
[00:02:10]  Tell among the peoples his deeds.
[00:02:12]  For he who avenges blood is mindful of them.
[00:02:16]  He does not forget the cry of the afflicted.
[00:02:19]  Be gracious to me, O Lord.
[00:02:21]  See my affliction from those who hate me.
[00:02:24]  O you who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may recount all your praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in your salvation.
[00:02:34]  The nations have sunk in the pit that they made, in the net that they hid, their own foot has been caught.
[00:02:42]  The Lord has made himself known, he has executed judgment.
[00:02:45]  The wicked are snared in the work of their own hands.
[00:02:48]  Higayon Selah.
[00:02:50]  The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God.
[00:02:54]  For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.
[00:03:00]  Arise, O Lord.
[00:03:01]  Let not man prevail.
[00:03:03]  Let the nations be judged before you.
[00:03:06]  Put in them fear, O Lord.
[00:03:08]  Let the nations know that they are but men.
[00:03:11]  Selah.
[00:03:13]  This is the word of the Lord.

=== The Power of Memory (03:13) ===

[00:03:15]  You may be seated.
[00:03:22]  Well, with Thanksgiving right around the corner, I decided to study a psalm of Thanksgiving.
[00:03:28]  I'd never really worked through Psalm 9, and it called my attention for some reason.
[00:03:33]  The call in Psalm 9 is for us to carry out the discipline of Thanksgiving by remembering.
[00:03:42]  The call is for us to remember.
[00:03:45]  And I was thinking a little bit about memory and remembering.
[00:03:48]  Memory and nostalgia can produce some of the most powerful emotions in us.
[00:03:54]  You know, you hear a song that was important to you at a certain time of life and it triggers a memory, or you smell something.
[00:04:01]  Smell can be one of the strongest triggers of memory.
[00:04:03]  I've heard that pregnant women, when they smell certain smells, even years after they gave birth to their child, that smell can still trigger a very strong memory in them.
[00:04:15]  One of the things about nostalgia is that it often comes with a sense of poignancy, right?
[00:04:20]  A sense of regret or sadness.
[00:04:24]  Now, I was thinking about this this week.
[00:04:25]  This is predominantly the kind of memory that our culture capitalizes on.
[00:04:32]  There's an assumption for many people that life, wherever they're at, is all downhill, that the good days are gone, that to remember the past is to remember something that cannot be captured again, and that moving forward will inevitably be worse.
[00:04:48]  We're often told that to remember is traumatic.
[00:04:53]  This is the way people think.
[00:04:56]  In order to avoid remembering, they self medicate.
[00:04:58]  Right on entertainment, on drugs, on alcohol, all to avoid remembering.
[00:05:06]  And certainly, it's true, memory can be painful.
[00:05:08]  There are things that I remember even now and cringe every time, even though they're long past or sins that are forgiven.
[00:05:16]  But memory in Christianity is not a negative thing.
[00:05:21]  God calls us to remember what He has done over and over, and even He calls us to remember what we have done.
[00:05:30]  But here's the thing, brothers and sisters.
[00:05:32]  Remembering and memory in the Christian mindset is different.
[00:05:38]  Every single call to remember what the Lord has done in the past is also a call not just to look backwards, but to look forwards in faith.
[00:05:48]  Because of what he has done in the past, it affects how we live now, and it affects how we hope and believe for the future.
[00:05:56]  In the Christian view, memory is powerful because in it we see our failures, but we see a constant, faithful God.
[00:06:04]  Who will not change?
[00:06:05]  He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
[00:06:09]  The argument of this psalm, Psalm 9, and of this sermon is that Christians are called to engage in a holy battle by remembering and by reminding.
[00:06:22]  By remembering what God has done and reminding people of who God is.

=== Remembering God's Character (15:22) ===

[00:06:29]  What's going on in this psalm?
[00:06:30]  In this psalm, David is writing, it's probably later in his life after he has become king.
[00:06:36]  He's fought a lot of the battles in his life already.
[00:06:39]  God has given him victory.
[00:06:41]  We know this because the opening phrase says to the choir master.
[00:06:44]  So already he's writing a psalm that would be sung by the choir that has been established.
[00:06:49]  This is not when he's a shepherd or when he's still fleeing from Saul.
[00:06:54]  He's the king.
[00:06:55]  Israel has been established, the kingdom.
[00:06:57]  There's the choir master, and David is writing a psalm for the choir master to sing with the choir for the people.
[00:07:05]  David has conquered the lands around him to some degree, although it's obvious that there are still battles going on.
[00:07:13]  He's also writing about nations that God has defeated, and the phrase there at the end is a difficult phrase.
[00:07:20]  It says, according to Muth Laban.
[00:07:22]  This is a really interesting phrase, and to be honest, there's not enough information here to make a definitive judgment.
[00:07:28]  But I think it clarifies what's going on in this psalm a little bit.
[00:07:34]  A lot of commentators say that this is a musical term, a mode, or maybe a chord.
[00:07:41]  Progression, or maybe kind of is it minor or major?
[00:07:44]  What kind of song is this, or was it to a tune that already existed?
[00:07:49]  Either way, we know that there's something going on here along the theme of death.
[00:07:54]  That phrase, Muthla ben, means upon the death of the son, most likely.
[00:08:00]  We're not 100% sure, but that last word, the last phrase, ben, is the Hebrew word for son.
[00:08:07]  And it has led some to conclude that David wrote this psalm upon the death of his son Absalom.
[00:08:14]  We know that David grieved greatly for Absalom.
[00:08:17]  In 2 Samuel 18 33, it says this, and the king.
[00:08:20]  Was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and he wept.
[00:08:24]  And as he wept, he said, Oh, my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would that I had died instead of you.
[00:08:32]  Oh, Absalom, my son, my son.
[00:08:36]  Augustine took the view that that phrase was talking about the death of his son, but he found a silver lining in there.
[00:08:45]  He said that yes, probably it was Absalom, but also upon the death of the son is looking forward to the death of the ultimate, most precious son.
[00:08:55]  The Son of God, Jesus Christ, and that the death of God's Son, eventually, this psalm is saying, would be the thing that God would use to destroy his enemies and take victory over the nations.
[00:09:08]  Like I said, we're not sure, but I think it colors the psalm a little bit.
[00:09:15]  I think it kind of is an interesting contrast.
[00:09:17]  It's a psalm of thanksgiving, perhaps in a minor key.
[00:09:23]  The beauty is that because God does not change and because he Keeps his promises as we look back, even as David looked back on the death of his son, he also looked back on God's victory, and that gives us hope to look forward.
[00:09:36]  And so that's why we remember.
[00:09:39]  What are Christians supposed to remember?
[00:09:40]  There are five things, and we'll move through these somewhat quickly.
[00:09:45]  Look through the psalm with me.
[00:09:46]  First of all, we are to remember this we are to remember the Lord.
[00:09:49]  We are specifically to remember to bless the Lord.
[00:09:54]  Psalm 1 says, I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.
[00:09:58]  Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to remember God, to actually remember to bless Him.
[00:10:06]  We get busy and we forget, or we sin.
[00:10:10]  Sin distracts us, or even worse, we sin and we hide ourselves from God.
[00:10:15]  The psalm opens with a declaration that David himself commands himself.
[00:10:19]  It's a resolve and the people around him.
[00:10:22]  The first word here is I.
[00:10:25]  He resolves to give thanks to the Lord.
[00:10:26]  There are other psalms where David beckons the people around him, let us give thanks to the Lord.
[00:10:31]  But here, He says, I.
[00:10:33]  Now remember, this is interesting.
[00:10:34]  This is going to be a corporate song to the choirmaster.
[00:10:38]  And yet he is saying, I.
[00:10:39]  We, as the choir, as the congregation would sing, they would remind themselves, I will give thanks to the Lord.
[00:10:49]  It's interesting when we look in Romans chapter 1, the chief complaint that God has against humanity, and the wicked in particular, it goes through that.
[00:11:02]  Passage where it says that they repressed the knowledge of God in unrighteousness, that though it was clear that what could be known about God was obvious to them, it says that they did not acknowledge him as God or thank him.
[00:11:16]  This is the primary complaint that God has against the wicked.
[00:11:20]  You do not acknowledge me as God, and you do not thank me.
[00:11:24]  And then from there in Romans 1, every other sin flows out of that forgetfulness.
[00:11:32]  Charles Spurgeon said that forgetfulness is one of the greatest sins.
[00:11:37]  That we don't think about.
[00:11:39]  One of the greatest sins that we don't think about.
[00:11:41]  Over and over in the Old Testament, the wicked are said to be those who forget God.
[00:11:47]  They do not acknowledge their position in order and in the order of creation.
[00:11:51]  Psalm 8 has just instructed us on what that position is.
[00:11:55]  It says, You created man a little lower than the angels and the heavenly beings, and yet you crowned him with glory and honor.
[00:12:01]  The position of mankind is exalted in dominion over the earth, but not above God.
[00:12:07]  We are creatures.
[00:12:09]  And so David remembers God and he blesses him.
[00:12:13]  He says, I will give thanks to the Lord.
[00:12:15]  He does four things, and I'm just going to mention them briefly, but they would bear thinking about for your family.
[00:12:20]  Your own personal spiritual disciplines.
[00:12:23]  Four ways that he blesses the Lord in verses one and two.
[00:12:26]  First of all, he thanks God and he thanks him with a full heart.
[00:12:31]  Secondly, he tells of his works, he recounts the works of God.
[00:12:36]  Third, he delights in God.
[00:12:39]  And fourth, he sings praise to the name of God.
[00:12:43]  To the name of God.
[00:12:46]  Notice that David's focus is on the name of God.
[00:12:49]  This is very interesting and an important concept in this psalm.
[00:12:53]  And so important that I made it point number two.
[00:12:56]  We are to bless the Lord.
[00:12:57]  We are to remember to bless the Lord.
[00:13:00]  Remember, we have smartphones.
[00:13:02]  Set reminders, right?
[00:13:04]  Set a timer.
[00:13:05]  Build it into your day, build it into your family calendar.
[00:13:09]  Remember to bless the Lord.
[00:13:10]  But secondly, we are to remember God's character.
[00:13:14]  What do you mean character?
[00:13:15]  It doesn't say his character in there.
[00:13:17]  Well, it says he will praise the name of the Lord.
[00:13:21]  To remember God's name is to remember his character.
[00:13:24]  This is why all over the Old Testament especially, God identifies himself by various names.
[00:13:30]  One that we probably have heard before, God is called Jehovah Jireh, the provider.
[00:13:35]  So to invoke or to remember that name of God is to remember the character of God, that he is the kind of God who will provide.
[00:13:44]  What is the name that David chooses to focus on here in Psalm 9?
[00:13:50]  In this psalm, David uses the word Yahweh or the Lord, lowercase capital letters.
[00:13:56]  Nine times.
[00:13:57]  In other words, as David is dealing with enemies in an onslaught, he is choosing to remember about the character of God that God is sovereign, that he is the ruler and the Lord of all.
[00:14:10]  No matter what enemies have come against David in the past, or are coming against him right then as he's writing, or will come against him in the future, David remembers that God is sovereign over himself and over those enemies.
[00:14:27]  The idea of a name is really interesting in this psalm, and I want to take a little rabbit trail.
[00:14:32]  Notice the progression.
[00:14:34]  In verse 2, it says that David remembers God's name.
[00:14:39]  I will sing praise to your name.
[00:14:41]  I will remember who you are, Lord.
[00:14:43]  And he believes it.
[00:14:45]  He exhorts himself to believe in who God is.
[00:14:48]  He is the sovereign Lord.
[00:14:50]  But notice in verse 5, we are commanded to remember the name of the Lord, but there's a terrifying thing that happens with names in verse 5.
[00:15:00]  Where it says that God will cause the name of the wicked to be forgotten.
[00:15:06]  So the way this works is our focus and our emphasis and our call is to remember God.
[00:15:15]  It matters if we remember God, and He is the one who causes all men to be remembered or not to be remembered, based on whether they are righteous or wicked.
[00:15:25]  And then verse 10, it returns to the idea of holding on to the memory of the name of the Lord.
[00:15:30]  It says that the Lord.
[00:15:31]  Is a stronghold for the oppressed, and those who know God's name put their trust in Him.
[00:15:38]  If you know God's name, David says, you will put your trust in him because to know God's name is to know God's character.
[00:15:48]  To know his name is to trust him, and to trust him happens because we know his name.
[00:15:54]  Remember, the idea of knowing God has to do with his character.
[00:15:58]  This is why, by the way, as a side note, Proverbs speaks of a good name being desired more than silver and gold because to have a good name is to be known as a man of good character.
[00:16:10]  Do you know who God is?
[00:16:12]  Do you know his character?
[00:16:13]  Do you trust him?
[00:16:16]  Notice in that verse, verse 10, that this is a point of attack from the enemy.
[00:16:20]  David is talking about enemies in this passage.
[00:16:23]  It could be spiritual enemies, the devil, it could be wicked men, it could be nations that attack us.
[00:16:29]  We face many enemies.
[00:16:31]  But one of the points of attack from the enemy is trusting God.
[00:16:37]  We may know God, but at the end of verse 10, David says, For you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you.
[00:16:48]  There's a knowing about God, and there's a knowing God personally that causes us to seek Him.
[00:16:56]  To believe in Him, to know His character, to know His name means that when trials and enemies arise against us, what will we do?
[00:17:04]  We will seek the Lord.
[00:17:07]  We will seek the Lord.
[00:17:13]  Verse 10 says that those who know God's name put their trust in him, and he does not forsake those who seek him.
[00:17:20]  Difficult trials will make us forget, will make us feel that God has forsaken us.
[00:17:25]  Difficult trials from enemies, when they mount their attacks against us, will make us feel like we are exposed and out in the open, standing in a field as an army of archers is launching their arrows at us, and we're standing there completely defenseless and all alone.
[00:17:45]  When we have sinned and are under the weight of our guilt, or there's a great crisis, or our prayers seem to go unanswered, the temptation is not to seek God.
[00:17:58]  We may know God, but in addition, the life of faith is to seek Him daily.
[00:18:04]  If I can quote the great philosopher, the Christian rock band, the Newsboys, they've got a really profound line.
[00:18:13]  They said, We have found Him.
[00:18:15]  And still are looking for him.
[00:18:17]  We know God, and yet we seek to know him more and more and more.
[00:18:25]  David says that God does not forsake those who seek him.
[00:18:28]  Brothers and sisters, in your trials, when the enemy is attacking you, seek to know the Lord more.
[00:18:36]  This is how we will grow in our faith.
[00:18:38]  God will allow us even to be assailed by enemies, whether men or systems or evil temptations, whatever it is.
[00:18:48]  And those who know God's name will put their trust in him and will run to him.
[00:18:52]  How is your faith?
[00:18:54]  Is it weak?
[00:18:56]  We would probably all say it's weaker than I would like.
[00:18:58]  Seek to know the Lord.
[00:19:01]  Seek to know the Lord.
[00:19:03]  F.B. Meyer said this about our faith.
[00:19:05]  He said, Men complain of their little faith.
[00:19:09]  I like to complain.
[00:19:10]  Oh, I wish I had more faith.
[00:19:12]  He said, The remedy is in their own hands.
[00:19:14]  Let them set themselves to know God.
[00:19:18]  But for all this, you must make time.
[00:19:19]  You cannot know a friend from hurried interviews, much less God.
[00:19:23]  So steep yourself in deep and long thoughts of his nearness and his love.
[00:19:27]  Know the character of God.
[00:19:30]  To know God's name is to trust him, and to know his name is to know his character.
[00:19:37]  This is why David compels himself to remember God's character.
[00:19:43]  He has to hold the character of God ever before him as he's facing attacks from his enemies.
[00:19:50]  This is a daily discipline, this is a family discipline, this is a church wide discipline.
[00:19:54]  We remind ourselves of the character of God, we speak it to each other.
[00:20:00]  Number three, we remember God's righteous strength.
[00:20:05]  In verse three, David looks back at the victories that God has given him over his enemies, and he remembers that it was not his own strength or his own sword that actually defeated the enemies.
[00:20:16]  Yes, his sword swiped through the neck of Goliath, and yes, the army of Israel chased after the Philistines, but David says that it was the presence of the Lord going with them that knocked over the enemies, that caused them to be defeated.
[00:20:31]  Verse 9, David says that God is a stronghold for the oppressed.
[00:20:37]  So, not only is God strength to fight our battles, he is also strength to defend us from the enemy.
[00:20:43]  Remember God's righteous strength.
[00:20:45]  He will fight your battles and he will defend you.
[00:20:49]  Verse 13 shows that though the wicked think that they have killed God's people, it says they are descending to the gates of death.
[00:20:57]  The fact is that God is strong, he has strength to lift up his people from those gates of death.
[00:21:04]  When the hour is darkest and when it is most dire, when it seems like there is no hope, when the enemy seems like it's coming over the walls of the gate, whether that's your faith or your family, something at work, a national disgrace, God is strong to lift his people from the gates of death.
[00:21:23]  We must remind ourselves often of God's strength and, in contrast, of our own weakness.
[00:21:30]  Brothers and sisters, I don't know about for you, but for me, I don't like to admit.
[00:21:34]  That I have these needs, that I'm not self sufficient.
[00:21:37]  There's a sense where we are to be self sufficient, especially men.
[00:21:40]  You are to be capable and competent, and that's good.
[00:21:45]  But that sometimes spills over, and I don't want to admit to God, yes, Lord, I do need you.

=== Standing on God's Side (12:31) ===

[00:21:51]  But it's not humiliating for a child who can't lift the giant watermelon out of the back of the car yet to ask his father for help.
[00:22:00]  And it doesn't demean the father to reach around the child and help him pick up the watermelon.
[00:22:05]  and carry it inside.
[00:22:06]  It's actually quite beautiful.
[00:22:08]  And so when we as God's children admit our weakness and God says, that's okay, I'm very strong, that's a beautiful picture, not a demeaning one.
[00:22:22]  And so God, their David, remembers God's strength.
[00:22:26]  But that one's pretty normal for us.
[00:22:28]  We talk about this a lot.
[00:22:31]  Christians are pretty good at saying, yeah, God is strong when we are weak, and that's true.
[00:22:36]  But David interestingly focuses on a fourth thing to remember.
[00:22:40]  He focuses on God's pattern of judging the wicked and the righteous.
[00:22:46]  Number four, then, is that we are to remember God's just judgment, not just God himself and to bless him, not just God's character, not just God's strength, but David remembers God's judgment as a great encouragement.
[00:23:03]  Look again with me in verse four.
[00:23:06]  It says that God has rebuked the nations.
[00:23:08]  David remembers this.
[00:23:10]  We are to remember that God judges the wicked.
[00:23:15]  Through David, God had utterly destroyed some of these nations around Israel.
[00:23:20]  They were defeated, they were done.
[00:23:24]  They had come at David and God's presence had knocked them over.
[00:23:28]  But then in verse 5, we see how God had ruled against them.
[00:23:32]  How had God done this?
[00:23:35]  He had blotted out their name.
[00:23:38]  This is actually a stunningly graphic image here.
[00:23:43]  Imagine you've got a piece of paper that you've written on with blue ink.
[00:23:47]  Maybe it's very important.
[00:23:48]  Maybe it was something you were supposed to do, and you accidentally send that paper through the wash.
[00:23:53]  You put the pants on, and there's the paper in your pocket, and you open it up.
[00:23:57]  There's no ink there anymore.
[00:23:59]  At best, there's just a faint blue smudge on the paper where that ink was.
[00:24:04]  Right?
[00:24:06]  The name of the wicked has been wiped out.
[00:24:09]  At best, the best that they are is a hagi smudge in history.
[00:24:14]  They're gone.
[00:24:15]  God has judged his enemies, and David takes great comfort in this.
[00:24:21]  David says, Not only did that happen then, back when I was fighting Goliath with the Philistines, but David speaks in the present tense also.
[00:24:29]  He said, God is continuing to do that now.
[00:24:33]  It was not just in the past, but even now, God sits on his throne and judges.
[00:24:37]  And, brothers and sisters, this is the same in our day.
[00:24:39]  It's not just we read the Bible and God defeated these wicked nations in the Old Testament.
[00:24:44]  God still sits on his throne now and judges the wicked.
[00:24:48]  Right now, right now, he's doing this.
[00:24:51]  He has done it, he's doing it now, and he will do it.
[00:24:57]  In verse 7 and 8, we remember that he continues to judge the wicked.
[00:25:02]  And notice what it says.
[00:25:03]  I love it.
[00:25:04]  In verse 7, the very end, it says, The Lord sits in throne forever.
[00:25:08]  He has established his throne for what?
[00:25:11]  For sitting on and lounging?
[00:25:14]  No.
[00:25:15]  God established his throne, his eternal throne, for justice.
[00:25:20]  That's what it's for.
[00:25:21]  It's not primarily just a place to gather people around him to worship, although they do.
[00:25:28]  God displays his majesty and his glory when he executes justice, when he renders verdicts and decisions, when he evaluates the behaviors of mankind.
[00:25:38]  And says, that was wicked, that was righteous.
[00:25:42]  And from there, David says that God sees every injustice.
[00:25:51]  God sees it all.
[00:25:52]  He's not like some floodlight.
[00:25:54]  You think of a movie scene or a cartoon scene where a criminal has escaped from jail in the middle of the night, and they've got that one spotlight that's kind of peering around, it's trying to find the criminal.
[00:26:03]  Oh, that's just a dog.
[00:26:04]  Oh, that's just a fence.
[00:26:05]  Oh, there he is.
[00:26:06]  Oh, he jumps out of it.
[00:26:07]  Oh, they're chasing him around.
[00:26:09]  That's not how God views the world.
[00:26:12]  He's not just a single beam that can only focus on one or two things.
[00:26:15]  God is the sun and the moon and sees everything that happens.
[00:26:20]  Even, here's the key, even if he does not choose to brightly illuminate an aspect of mankind's wickedness at a particular moment.
[00:26:31]  He sees when the nations shake their fists at him, he sees when wicked men murder and plot against the godly, he sees the godless plotting against God's people.
[00:26:46]  He sees how the great enemy of our souls accuses us and seeks to devour us.
[00:26:50]  He sees it all from his throne, and every time he sees it, he's judging.
[00:26:54]  He knows whether it's right or whether it's wrong.
[00:26:58]  And when we remember that God sees all of these things, David reminds us that this God who sees is also a God who protects and a God who avenges.
[00:27:12]  On the one hand, God protects, verse 9 calls him a stronghold.
[00:27:17]  But then, verse 12, verse 12 says, He who avenges blood is mindful of them.
[00:27:25]  God avenges the blood of the poor and the oppressed.
[00:27:28]  Not one injustice happens that God does not note and promise to punish.
[00:27:36]  And he will punish either on the body of Christ himself on the cross if those sins were committed by the elect or forever in hell.
[00:27:47]  Brothers and sisters, David took great comfort knowing that the wicked do not get away with their wickedness, that God punishes and avenges.
[00:28:02]  I want to make a note here that we need to be very careful of.
[00:28:06]  God is not some genie that we summon to do our bidding.
[00:28:10]  I'm in trouble, and so God is going to defend me.
[00:28:14]  This is what the New Testament speaks about when it says, don't suffer for being evil.
[00:28:18]  If you suffer for being good, it's a virtue.
[00:28:21]  God is not like in the Indiana Jones movie where they crack open the Ark of the Covenant and the Spirit of God now has to come out and destroy their enemies.
[00:28:28]  No.
[00:28:31]  He's not some supernatural force that just gets us out of every bad situation that we're in.
[00:28:37]  The battles that God wins are the battles when we are on God's side.
[00:28:43]  The battles that God wins for us are the battles where we are standing on his side, like David and Goliath, on David's side of the brook, Goliath and the Philistines on the other.
[00:28:55]  This brings me to the fifth thing that we must remember.
[00:29:00]  Because God is strong, he is also just.
[00:29:03]  And so, number five, we remember that God has and still does defend us.
[00:29:09]  How does God defend us?
[00:29:15]  When we are on God's side, the side of truth and righteousness, we can expect God to uphold and vindicate us as well.
[00:29:22]  One of the things for you to teach your children is how to evaluate if something that they feel strongly about, or maybe something they're getting pushed back from, or being mistreated at school or by other friends, how to evaluate whether or not that's something that they're on God's side or not.
[00:29:41]  One of the principles that we have to understand about this idea of God defending us is that God defends those who make their cause God's cause.
[00:29:50]  Spurgeon said, if we seek to maintain the cause and honor of our Lord, We may suffer reproach and misrepresentation, but it is a rich comfort to remember that he who sits on the throne knows our hearts and will not leave us to the ignorant and ungenerous.
[00:30:06]  And, brothers and sisters, we have to remind ourselves that sometimes we see God defend us now, and sometimes it will be in eternity.
[00:30:15]  Matthew Henry says this He says, We are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth, and that with him there is no unrighteousness.
[00:30:23]  Far be it from God that he should pervert justice.
[00:30:27]  If there seems to be To us, to be some irregularity in the present decisions of providence, yet these, instead of shaking our belief in God's justice, may serve to strengthen our belief of the judgment to come, which will set all to rights.
[00:30:44]  This is why it's so important, especially when we go through attacks, that we constantly evaluate ourselves, to make sure that we are on God's side, to make sure that we have not made our own preferences equal with God's will.
[00:30:58]  God only promises to uphold us when we stand on his side.
[00:31:03]  Guys, God defeated Goliath not to prove that David's choice of weapon of stones was better than spears.
[00:31:12]  Right?
[00:31:12]  It wasn't like he was going to say, yeah, David, I'm with you.
[00:31:15]  Stones, that's the way to go.
[00:31:16]  Military technology, I'll defend that cause.
[00:31:19]  No, God defended David and defeated Goliath to show that David and Israel were on God's side and that Goliath and the Philistines were not.
[00:31:29]  And because of that, even a stone could defeat a spear.
[00:31:35]  This is why David cries out in Psalm 139.
[00:31:39]  He says, Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
[00:31:41]  And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
[00:31:44]  I hate them with complete hatred.
[00:31:45]  I count them my enemies.
[00:31:46]  It's good to have God's enemies as our enemies.
[00:31:49]  It's good to hate what God hates, but immediately, almost without drawing a breath, David says this in verse 23 of Psalm 139 Search me, O God, and know my heart.
[00:32:00]  Try me and know my thoughts, and see if there is any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
[00:32:06]  God is the one who gives righteous judgment, and if we are not careful, we can make our causes God's rather than making God's causes ours.
[00:32:18]  We need to be very careful in our time to make sure that we are on God's side.
[00:32:23]  I want to say a note about this also.
[00:32:26]  Right now, it seems that some of our enemies are brothers in Christ.
[00:32:32]  God absolutely cares about this.
[00:32:33]  He will vindicate the righteous even in disagreements between brothers, either in this life or the next.
[00:32:43]  But I want to encourage us that they are not God's enemies in the way that this psalm is talking about.
[00:32:48]  If they know Christ, if they are truly born of God, they are not the kind of enemy that David is praying that God would utterly destroy and wipe from the face of the earth.
[00:32:59]  We don't view our contest with our brothers the same as we view our contest with the true enemies of God.
[00:33:09]  So we are to remember these things about God.
[00:33:11]  We are to remember God.
[00:33:13]  We are to remember his character, his strength, and his judgment.
[00:33:17]  And when we do, this drives away our doubts, it wipes away our fears, it strengthens our faith.
[00:33:24]  And when you go through trials, remind yourself, remember who God is.
[00:33:29]  Ask people to help you remember who God is.
[00:33:34]  But it's not enough just to remember these things in our minds.
[00:33:39]  Pastor Joel has, at this point, thankfully, beaten it into our heads that we are not pietists.
[00:33:45]  We want piety, we want holiness, but we don't want pietism.
[00:33:51]  We don't want a life of introspection.
[00:33:53]  And so, the second thing that we do to wage holy warfare is not just remember in our minds, but we move outward, outside of ourselves, and we remind people of who God is.
[00:34:05]  And this is where the Christian life pushes outward.
[00:34:09]  With our minds remembering who God is, our mouths now begin to speak about who God is.
[00:34:16]  Who are we to remind, and what are we to remind them of?
[00:34:19]  The psalm here really pushes us into some unexpected places.

=== Reminding Others of Grace (15:09) ===

[00:34:23]  Number one, and I've alluded to this a little bit already, we are to remind ourselves.
[00:34:29]  Go back to verse one, remember?
[00:34:30]  I will give thanks.
[00:34:33]  What do we remind ourselves of?
[00:34:34]  We remind ourselves, come on, self, remember to thank God.
[00:34:39]  We are to remind ourselves to honor God with our whole heart.
[00:34:43]  It's so easy for us to offer half-hearted thanks to God.
[00:34:48]  Challenge yourself.
[00:34:49]  Motivate yourself in your heart to offer full gratitude to God.
[00:34:55]  David reminds himself also of an eternal perspective.
[00:34:58]  Look at verse 7.
[00:35:00]  He says, The Lord sits enthroned forever.
[00:35:03]  He has established his throne for justice.
[00:35:05]  Do you see that?
[00:35:08]  The Lord sits on his throne forever.
[00:35:12]  And this is one of those words that, you know, when you really examine it, it means just what it says.
[00:35:19]  The Lord sits enthroned forever.
[00:35:20]  He, David, is sure of this.
[00:35:23]  As he faces the death of a son, possibly, or the invasion of some enemy, or some assault of temptation to doubt, he remembers, he reminds himself of eternity.
[00:35:36]  Brothers and sisters, nothing.
[00:35:40]  Nothing, not a global war or the murder of 60 million babies or some tragedy in your family can even slightly rattle God.
[00:35:50]  There is no clamor or ruckus that any man or nation or empire can lift up to heaven that causes God to have to react.
[00:36:00]  He does not react.
[00:36:02]  He does not react.
[00:36:03]  He wills and ordains all things that come about.
[00:36:06]  His throne is forever.
[00:36:10]  God is not a slave to the tyrannies of men.
[00:36:13]  He does not have to consider his move and then, like a chess player, wait for his opponent to make a move and then reconsider what he should do.
[00:36:22]  He sits on his throne with perfect judgment now and at all times.
[00:36:26]  He knows the end from the beginning.
[00:36:28]  He knows the way of the righteous.
[00:36:30]  Forever he knows the way of the righteous.
[00:36:32]  And he has decreed forever that the way of the wicked will perish.
[00:36:38]  This is simply how it is.
[00:36:41]  He is not working to try and make the way of the wicked perish.
[00:36:45]  It's already written as an immutable law of the universe.
[00:36:48]  The Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.
[00:36:55]  David reminds himself of eternity, that God is working all things perfectly according to plan.
[00:37:03]  God rules all of these things, all of the enemies that launch themselves against you.
[00:37:08]  God rules forever.
[00:37:10]  He's established his throne for justice.
[00:37:12]  There's never a time when he is not judging rightly.
[00:37:15]  And this is why David reminds himself to worship and honor God.
[00:37:19]  And we must do this too.
[00:37:20]  We must remind ourselves, trust in God.
[00:37:23]  Soul, trust in God.
[00:37:24]  Come on, worship him in the middle of the battle.
[00:37:30]  Number two.
[00:37:35]  Strangely, we don't just remind ourselves, we also remind God.
[00:37:40]  God does not forget.
[00:37:42]  He does not change.
[00:37:44]  He's never wondering where we went.
[00:37:46]  Oh, shoot, I misplaced Covenant Bible Church.
[00:37:49]  No, that's not what's going on here.
[00:37:52]  But there is a pattern in the Bible of Christians reminding God of the things that he has said and done.
[00:38:00]  David here reminds God of all that God has done as a way to praise him.
[00:38:04]  He said, You defeated my enemies.
[00:38:06]  You made them flee.
[00:38:07]  You destroyed them.
[00:38:08]  You defended me.
[00:38:09]  He says, God, you did this.
[00:38:10]  He speaks to God, second person.
[00:38:12]  You did this for me.
[00:38:15]  He reminds God of what God has done as a way to praise God, as a way to confess his faith in God.
[00:38:23]  But he also reminds God of other things.
[00:38:25]  In verses 13 through 14, David speaks to God again.
[00:38:29]  He reminds him of his trials, the trials that he's undergoing right now.
[00:38:34]  And he asks for God to have mercy on him.
[00:38:37]  He says, Lift me from the gates of death that I may tell all of your praises from the gates of death and the gates of the daughter of Zion.
[00:38:45]  This is amazing, the repetition here.
[00:38:48]  He says, Right now I'm in the gates of death.
[00:38:50]  I pray, Lord, that's where I am.
[00:38:52]  Please lift me to the gates of the daughter of Zion.
[00:38:57]  Why does David remind God of his plight?
[00:38:59]  Not because God forgot.
[00:39:02]  This is so important.
[00:39:04]  What is his goal here?
[00:39:06]  His goal is not even that he would be redeemed or saved from this trial and tribulation.
[00:39:12]  He certainly wants to be saved.
[00:39:15]  But on the other side of God saving him is this it is so that God, David, could praise God more fully.
[00:39:23]  The final goal of our prayer to God, our reminding God of our plight, of our situation God, I'm in a trial, I'm in an attack.
[00:39:31]  The final goal of our reminder to God.
[00:39:36]  Is that we would better be able to praise God.
[00:39:40]  This is like Psalm 143 11, where David says this For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life.
[00:39:47]  In your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble.
[00:39:52]  Notice verse 14 again David reminds God of his difficult trials and asks God to save him so that David may rejoice in God.
[00:40:01]  When God saves us from an enemy and from a trial, from the devil, The purpose is so that we might recount all of God's praises and rejoice in his salvation.
[00:40:13]  In many ways, this is one of the strongest evangelistic tools that we have.
[00:40:17]  Our joy when God gives us victory.
[00:40:19]  We're not arguing about whether God exists or not.
[00:40:22]  We're assuming that, and we're praising God for what he has done to save us.
[00:40:30]  It's easy to minimize.
[00:40:31]  It's easy to forget to praise.
[00:40:34]  It's easy to be downcast all the time.
[00:40:37]  It's easy to blackpill.
[00:40:40]  Again, parents, there is no more powerful testimony to your children than that you rejoice in God's great and small deliverances.
[00:40:49]  Don't minimize them.
[00:40:50]  Don't talk them up to chance or just happenstance.
[00:40:54]  Be vocal with your children.
[00:40:56]  God saved us.
[00:40:57]  We swerved out of the way and we didn't run into the tree.
[00:41:02]  That's a big deal.
[00:41:03]  Your children need to know that it was God who saved them in that moment.
[00:41:07]  We are to rejoice in God's salvation, not just, oh, look at that.
[00:41:10]  Neat.
[00:41:11]  Move on.
[00:41:11]  No, wow, God saved us.
[00:41:13]  That's incredible.
[00:41:14]  He's so good.
[00:41:19]  There's a quote here from Spurgeon.
[00:41:21]  And it's interesting about Spurgeon because Spurgeon himself went through long and deep periods of melancholy and doubt and discouragement and depression.
[00:41:32]  And yet he says this in commenting on Psalm 9.
[00:41:35]  He says, It is a good thing for the melancholy to become a Christian, it is an unfortunate thing for the Christian to become melancholy.
[00:41:44]  If there is any man in the world, That has a right to have a bright, clear face and a flashing eye.
[00:41:53]  It is the man whose sins are forgiven and who is saved with God's salvation.
[00:41:59]  So we remind God of our plight so that we might praise him when he redeems us from it.
[00:42:07]  The third group that we are to remind is we remind fellow Christians.
[00:42:14]  And just as we saw right now, sometimes our fellow Christians, the people around us, are rejoicing in God.
[00:42:20]  And when they're rejoicing, we are to remind them.
[00:42:23]  Remember, this psalm was written to the choir master.
[00:42:27]  It's going to be sung publicly to the congregation of Israel.
[00:42:31]  We are to remind each other, brothers and sisters, of God's faithfulness.
[00:42:37]  We just saw that David longed for deliverance so that he could recount all of God's salvation to the people around him.
[00:42:45]  It's almost like he's saying, okay, I'm really in a mess now.
[00:42:48]  This is going to be a fantastic way and opportunity for me to encourage the people around me.
[00:42:53]  With God's salvation.
[00:42:56]  He wants to recount all of God's praises at the gates of the daughter of Zion in fellowship with other Christians.
[00:43:04]  I don't know if this has happened to you, but it's happened to me.
[00:43:06]  Sometimes when we're singing together as a body and I hear your joyful singing, your proclamation of the truths about God and what He has done, I hear you singing those things and I believe them more.
[00:43:22]  I rejoice in them more because you're singing them with me.
[00:43:27]  It's for good reason that we are to encourage each other and teach each other with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.
[00:43:33]  This is a collective reminder.
[00:43:35]  We build each other up as we recount and remember who God is.
[00:43:39]  We remind each other.
[00:43:42]  I think there's also a special application here on the Lord's Day.
[00:43:45]  When we come together, we ought to remind each other of who the Lord is and what he has done.
[00:43:51]  That should especially happen on the Lord's Day.
[00:43:56]  Not only do we remind Christians who are doing well and rejoicing in the Lord, But we remind those who are suffering and being attacked.
[00:44:03]  Over and over again, David reminds the congregation of Israel that God is a refuge for the oppressed.
[00:44:11]  Even this is a form of evangelism.
[00:44:13]  The cities of refuge in the Old Testament, where someone who was being chased to be killed could run to and be saved.
[00:44:22]  In the same way, the gospel is a city of refuge for us.
[00:44:26]  And we remind ourselves run to God in trials.
[00:44:29]  You're down, you're discouraged, you feel beaten, run to God.
[00:44:35]  God is our defense and safe harbor under the gospel.
[00:44:38]  And when we remind each other that God is our hope, this testifies to the world that God is the kind of God who rescues his people.
[00:44:49]  To take refuge in God, to run to God, to flee to God means to hold fast to his promise to judge rightly.
[00:44:56]  You put your situation, whatever it is, I'm being attacked, I'm being persecuted, I'm a Christian, and my boss is making me, he's penalizing me for not using pronouns.
[00:45:06]  You take your situation, whatever it is.
[00:45:09]  And you hold it up to God and you say, Lord, I will run to you and I will let you vindicate me.
[00:45:18]  There's a perspective here that is very important.
[00:45:21]  The wicked and the nations want us to believe that whoever is currently winning, is currently prosperous, whose platform is currently advancing, is the one who is right.
[00:45:33]  They say, See, we, and in our time, maybe they wouldn't acknowledge God, but they would say, See, we're right and you're wrong.
[00:45:39]  We're winning.
[00:45:40]  We have the cultural power.
[00:45:42]  We have the success.
[00:45:43]  We have the businesses.
[00:45:44]  We have the media.
[00:45:45]  We're vindicated.
[00:45:48]  No, we hold ourselves up to God and to His judgment.
[00:45:52]  We remind each other that God is the one who avenges blood, in verse 12.
[00:45:58]  God is the one who takes up the cause of His people.
[00:46:00]  We remind each other, even when our brothers and sisters are under attack, we remind them that God is mindful, He's aware of the trial that they're going through.
[00:46:08]  Verse 18, in particular, shows us that when we are being attacked, either by the devil, by wicked men, or by adversaries, The temptation is to believe that God has forgotten us.
[00:46:18]  And so, brothers and sisters, we have to remind each other.
[00:46:21]  Don't just assume.
[00:46:23]  Don't just assume, yeah, I'm sure he knows these things.
[00:46:24]  I'm sure she knows these things.
[00:46:26]  Encourage one another.
[00:46:27]  Remind each other.
[00:46:30]  God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.
[00:46:34]  In fact, very often, God allows the enemies to assail us.
[00:46:39]  We must remind each other that God will not always let the proud exalt themselves.
[00:46:46]  We must remind each other that God, who in the past judged and destroyed and protected and defended, is the God who's currently doing that.
[00:46:59]  Fourth, we remind ourselves, we remind God, we remind our fellow brothers and sisters, we remind the nations and the wicked.
[00:47:09]  Look what David says to the nations and to the wicked all throughout the psalm.
[00:47:16]  He reminds the nations.
[00:47:18]  That God has already destroyed some of them.
[00:47:21]  Guys, I don't know if you've forgotten, but back then when Saul was in charge, we beat those nations.
[00:47:28]  We destroyed them.
[00:47:31]  He rejoices in the fact that God has removed their names even from history, which was the greatest harm, really, that could be done to a people.
[00:47:40]  Remove their names from history.
[00:47:43]  God tells the nations around him that all their efforts now to currently continue to oppose God and his people are going to come not just to ruin.
[00:47:52]  But he says to everlasting ruin.
[00:47:55]  David is hinting not just that their nation and their name will be wiped from history, but that they will be destroyed and ruined forever in hell.
[00:48:05]  On top of that, David reminds them that they are not the final arbiters of truth.
[00:48:11]  He reminds them that God is currently judging them.
[00:48:13]  Just because God judged some of the nations in the past and is leaving them alone seemingly right now, these other nations, does not mean that they have escaped judgment.
[00:48:21]  David is saying God is still judging.
[00:48:24]  Evaluating, looking at you, preparing his wrath.
[00:48:32]  And God, David even goes so far as to taunt the enemies.
[00:48:37]  He taunts them.
[00:48:39]  He's mocking them.
[00:48:40]  He's saying to them, he's saying, Look, remember those nations that in the past rose up against God that are now a smear in history?
[00:48:47]  Now their cities are utterly destroyed.
[00:48:49]  It's like he's saying, Wait, is that, nope, that's just a pile of rocks?
[00:48:53]  Is that the civilization, the city?
[00:48:55]  Nope, that's just a forest.
[00:48:56]  What was that one king, what's his name?
[00:48:59]  Oh man, I just, I don't remember.
[00:49:00]  God, David is mocking these people who have been destroyed and utterly wiped from history in hopes that taunting them would call in other nations around him to sober judgment.
[00:49:13]  Again, Spurgeon says here the psalmist exults over the fallen foe.
[00:49:17]  He bends, as it were, over his prostrate form and insults his once vaunted strength.
[00:49:22]  He plucks, I love this, he plucks the boaster's song out of his mouth and sings it back for him in derision.

=== Nations Fall in Their Snares (05:23) ===

[00:49:32]  After this fashion, does our glorious Redeemer ask of death, Where is thy sting?
[00:49:36]  And of the grave, Where is thy victory?
[00:49:38]  The spoiler is spoiled, and he who made captive is led into captivity himself.
[00:49:44]  Let the daughters of Jerusalem go forth and meet their king with praise and timbrel and harp.
[00:49:51]  We preach warnings to the wicked, yes, but we also exult over the defeated foes of God.
[00:49:58]  It's true that God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but it's also true that he who sits in the heavens laughs.
[00:50:05]  At the wicked.
[00:50:08]  And so when God defeats something that actually is truly wicked, we ought to have some time to exult.
[00:50:16]  Remember, there's a time for everything.
[00:50:18]  There is.
[00:50:19]  There's a time for laughter and for celebration, and there's a time for that to come to an end.
[00:50:25]  But even the fact that Christians are called to exult over the death and destruction of the wicked is a testimony.
[00:50:33]  There are many evangelicals and evangelical leaders right now who are grieving.
[00:50:38]  The loss of trans rights in America.
[00:50:41]  They're grieving the fact that America hates women.
[00:50:46]  No, Christians, if the trans ideology truly is being destroyed, we are to exult in that.
[00:50:55]  Do you know what happens if we don't exult in that?
[00:50:57]  If we grieve the loss of it, what we're saying is that was actually good.
[00:51:01]  Why did God take it from us?
[00:51:04]  If it's actually evil and God has removed it and destroyed it and crushed it and ground it into dust, we should say, hooray.
[00:51:11]  That's fantastic.
[00:51:17]  Even God has a holy mockery in this passage.
[00:51:21]  Notice that God says, this is actually hilarious to me.
[00:51:25]  He says that the Lord has executed his judgments.
[00:51:28]  How?
[00:51:30]  The Lord has executed his judgments by causing the nations to fall into their own snare.
[00:51:37]  I loved how Connor pointed out in Psalm 119 today in the liturgy the wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts.
[00:51:47]  The reason why a snare is a problem for Christians is.
[00:51:51]  It's not like out in the field somewhere.
[00:51:53]  The wicked put the snare in the path that we must walk on to follow God, like with Daniel.
[00:51:59]  They put that snare right in front of him, so the only choice was walk into it or deny your faith in God.
[00:52:07]  The wicked put their snares in the way of obedience and righteousness.
[00:52:14]  And yet, how does the Lord execute his judgment?
[00:52:16]  He does it by causing the nations to fall into their own traps.
[00:52:21]  It's almost like something right out of a cartoon, right?
[00:52:23]  You remember the Looney Tunes, I don't know if it was Looney Tunes, but Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons, right?
[00:52:28]  The Coyote always setting up these elaborate traps.
[00:52:32]  He's going to blow up the Roadrunner, which if he did that, he would have no dinner.
[00:52:37]  I don't know what his plan was, but he's going to make the Roadrunner fall into a pit or the rock is going to smash the Roadrunner.
[00:52:44]  And always, at the end of every one of these bits, that exact trap is what the Coyote himself falls into.
[00:52:52]  Kids, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can ask your parents for some good old fashioned mockery of the foolish.
[00:53:01]  Roadrunner and Coyote.
[00:53:03]  Look at what David says.
[00:53:03]  He says that the wicked afflict the weak, they build up in vanity, they lay elaborate traps for the righteous.
[00:53:09]  But what is the result of all of that?
[00:53:11]  They fall into their own traps.
[00:53:14]  It's hilarious, actually, when you think about it.
[00:53:17]  This is why God laughs.
[00:53:20]  It's not just laughing at their foolishness and folly, that's true, but He's also laughing as they set this trap.
[00:53:25]  And he just reroutes them right back into it.
[00:53:27]  And he's laughing at them.
[00:53:34]  Now, God is known by how he executes his judgment.
[00:53:36]  And the way that he executes his judgment is by humiliating the wicked.
[00:53:41]  And then, verse 17, God says that the end result of the wicked is that they return to Sheol.
[00:53:49]  Why does it say here that they return?
[00:53:52]  Spurgeon says that God's hands are like magnets pushing.
[00:53:56]  And pulling.
[00:53:56]  He said, God hath two hands of mercy and of justice.
[00:54:00]  With one, he will draw the godly to heaven.
[00:54:03]  With the other, he will thrust the sinner to hell.
[00:54:05]  And oh, how dreadful is that place!
[00:54:07]  It is called a fiery lake, a lake to denote the plenty of torments in hell, a fiery lake to show the fierceness of them.
[00:54:14]  Fire is the most torturing element.
[00:54:16]  And Thomas Watson adds an even more terrifying commentary about this.
[00:54:23]  He says, What does it mean that they return to shield, that they return to death?
[00:54:28]  He says, Behold the deplorable condition of all ungodly ones in the other world, in death.
[00:54:35]  They shall have a life that always dies and a death that always lives.
[00:54:43]  May not this affright men out of their sins and make them become godly unless they are resolved to try and find how hot the hellfire is.

=== A Prayer for Humility (04:45) ===

[00:54:55]  As I said, God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked.
[00:55:00]  This is why David does not only exult over the defeat of the nations, he doesn't just rub their noses in it.
[00:55:07]  The last thing I want to point out is.
[00:55:09]  Is what we see in verse 11.
[00:55:10]  He says, Sing praises to the Lord who sits enthroned in Zion, tell among the people his deeds.
[00:55:19]  David is saying, Even when God destroys the enemies, the call of God's people, who do we remind?
[00:55:25]  We remind the wicked.
[00:55:26]  We tell of God's deeds and praises among the peoples.
[00:55:31]  When we remember and recount God's deeds and righteous judgment to the nations and to the wicked around us, this is a call to them to repent.
[00:55:42]  This is evangelism.
[00:55:44]  It is not done merely out of spite.
[00:55:47]  It is done in a call that they would humble themselves.
[00:55:51]  Guys, you saw what just happened to that nation.
[00:55:54]  Humble yourself.
[00:55:56]  Don't go that way.
[00:56:00]  It's like Paul and Silas in the jail in Philippi when our enemy seeks to destroy us and God rescues us, and when we reply with praise, this indicts the enemy and it calls him to repent and to know this God.
[00:56:15]  David's desire, and ours as well, really, is that the nations not come to know God's hammer, but God's hand of kindness.
[00:56:28]  Now, at that time, it was unlikely that nations would convert en masse, but David had that heart.
[00:56:34]  And, brothers and sisters, we live in the gospel age, and we know from the Great Commission that the job of the church is to disciple the nations.
[00:56:41]  And so we can pray with a great hope and a great fear.
[00:56:45]  That God would cause the nations to humble themselves.
[00:56:50]  This is why David closes his psalm with these two verses Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail, let the nations be judged before you.
[00:56:59]  Put them in fear, O Lord, let the nations know that they are but men.
[00:57:06]  Put them in fear, O Lord.
[00:57:09]  This is a good and legitimate prayer that we should pray often for the nations and for our nation.
[00:57:14]  God, put them in fear of you.
[00:57:19]  We see the plan of God being worked out here through the prayers of David, through the prayers of his people, through our prayers.
[00:57:25]  God, would you put the nation in fear?
[00:57:28]  Would you remind the nations that they are but men?
[00:57:32]  The hope is that as God stands up, kind of like in a movie where a big, strong guy comes on scene and the camera slowly pans up, pans up, and he's just bigger and more massive the more the camera moves up.
[00:57:45]  The hope is that as God stands now, remember, he sits on his throne and renders judgment.
[00:57:51]  He is going to arise to execute that judgment.
[00:57:54]  And David's hope is that as God arises, the nations will see his strength and they will humble themselves.
[00:58:04]  Remember, over and over in this psalm, David has said that God hears and sees and is mindful of who?
[00:58:10]  Of the humble.
[00:58:14]  This is David's prayer in verse 20.
[00:58:16]  O God, put the fear of the nations and in the wicked and let them know that they are but men.
[00:58:23]  This is always our prayer for the nations.
[00:58:25]  This is always our prayer for our nation.
[00:58:29]  I have one more quote here from G. Campbell Morgan, who was a very well known theologian in the late 1800s, early 1900s.
[00:58:37]  He was the preacher at Westminster Chapel in London that preceded Martin Lloyd Jones, and interestingly enough, he was a dispensationalist for most of his life, but as he continued to study the scripture, he became convinced of covenant theology.
[00:58:52]  This is what he said about Psalm 9, verse 20.
[00:58:56]  He says, What prayer then can we pray which is of more vital importance? than that the nations may know themselves to be but men.
[00:59:05]  Such knowledge must drive them to dependence upon God.
[00:59:10]  And such dependence is the secret of national strength and of national prosperity and permanence.
[00:59:17]  Brothers and sisters, our prayer for America, we have many of them, but at the heart of all of them is, God, would you make a country fear you and know that they are but men?
[00:59:30]  When I sent Nathan my notes, I had a third point, but as I was working through it, I realized it was going to be too much.
[00:59:35]  So let me close with these words.

=== Working to Remember God (02:24) ===

[00:59:41]  I was going to say something like this.
[00:59:42]  We have to work to remember God.
[00:59:46]  We have to work at it.
[00:59:47]  That's the whole point of this psalm.
[00:59:48]  We remind each other, we work at it, we don't forget.
[00:59:52]  We have to work at it even though it's the most obvious and immediate thing in every moment of our life.
[00:59:59]  And yet, when we face battles, when we face enemies, enemies of temptation, of guilt, of evil men, of nations that rise up against God, Even of brothers.
[01:00:13]  When we face these enemies, we have to work to remember God's character.
[01:00:20]  We have to remind ourselves and each other what God has done and what kind of God He is.
[01:00:26]  We, brothers and sisters, think about this.
[01:00:29]  We are the ones, of all the people in the world, we, the Christians, know God's name.
[01:00:35]  And we run to Him over and over.
[01:00:39]  But God knows us as well.
[01:00:40]  It's not just that we know God, but that He knows us.
[01:00:43]  And the names of His children are written in the Lamb's book of life.
[01:00:48]  We are the ones who praise Him.
[01:00:51]  We exalt in the God of our salvation.
[01:00:53]  And in doing so, we call the world, the wicked world around us, to repent.
[01:00:59]  So I pray that as you celebrate a special time of Thanksgiving, of remembrance of what God has done over the next couple of weeks, Thanksgiving and the Christmas holidays.
[01:01:10]  I pray that you will make a special effort to remind yourself and those around you of this God who reigns upon his throne and is totally and eternally faithful.
[01:01:22]  Let's pray.
[01:01:27]  Father, we're painfully aware that it is only by your grace that we know your name.
[01:01:33]  It's only by your mercy that your hands pulled us to heaven rather than pushed us down into judgment and hell.
[01:01:43]  Father, we confess that we forget easily.
[01:01:46]  Lord, we should be full of praise at all times, and yet at best we remember to thank and praise you once or twice a day or at mealtimes.
[01:01:54]  Lord, forgive us for that.
[01:01:57]  Help us to remember you and to remind people of you in a way that draws people to yourself and draws glory to your name.
[01:02:04]  We pray this in Jesus' name.
[01:02:05]  Amen.