Psalms for the Summer: The Haughty Defiance of 76

Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,

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sermon. God Bless. Oh Lord God, your name is

great through all the earth. You are good to

all those things that you have made. We praise

you for your fatherly care. We praise you that

you have embraced the church as your bride. We

ask now that you would open our hearts and our

minds to hear your word. May the words of my

mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing.

In your sight, O Lord, a rock and a redeemer.

Amen. Four score and seven months ago, and another

four years because that's only about seven years,

our passer brought forth in this church building

a new sermon schedule. conceived in liberty,

because nobody made him do it, and dedicated

to the proposition that we would study the Bible

in its various parts in more or less equal intervals.

That is, when Peter took this job, initially,

he started doing these quarterly teaching series

and began doing Psalms in the summers. And today,

in God's goodness, and with God's sense of humor,

which we've already heard a little bit about

today, we are going to study Psalm 76 eight days

after we celebrated the 250th anniversary of

the signing of the Declaration of Independence

in 1776. When we're done here, if you're feeling

especially patriotic, you can jump on Interstate

76 and drive down to Philadelphia and take a

picture in front of the Liberty Bell. And it's

an interesting thing that we're studying 76 so

close to the celebration of 76. I'll just tell

you, this is not something that Peter had planned

11 years ago. We didn't know as a church about

a month ago that this coincidence was occurring

and we all sort of giggled about it. It was just

accidentally the next thing on the schedule once

Peter had got done with his series on the Ten

Commandments last week, which by the way, I thought

was excellent. And I think we should think about

this coincidence a little bit because if you

believe in an omnipotent God, you believe that

his plan and his providence extends to all things.

And so when you get a coincidence or a small

providence like this one, you have to think about

how to think about it, right? The poet Robert

Frost has this great line where he asks quote

if design govern in a thing so small Does design

govern in a little thing like this, right? What's

the point of seeing? Claiming that you see providence

at work if you can't see that there's any sort

of providential point in the action What's my

contention? Excuse me. It's the manner in which

I conducted my study of this particular psalm

that when we see one of these small providences,

something that we know theologically to be part

of God's plan, even if we can't understand the

purpose of it, if it seems like a small thing,

well that should drive us to prayer. That should

drive us to receptivity toward God. Maybe he's

teaching us something. Maybe he's strengthening

our faith. Maybe he's showing he loves us. Maybe

he just wants us to be on our toes spiritually

speaking. So in the spirit of prayer and Receptivity

and being on our toes. I want to talk about 76

and 76 today I want to talk about America as

a historical phenomenon, which I think we can

all agree to be part of God's Providence one

way or another then I want to talk about history

as such in really big picture terms and Because

I'm taking a wide angle on the text today. I'm

not going to talk about a number of things that

I would like to. I have a list of these things.

It's written here. The things that I'm not going

to be able to get to. Feel free to come and ask

me after the service if your unanswered question

is on my list. So after that big picture stuff,

I want to zero in on a song and ask what it has

to say about history and Providence and us as

a congregation. If you want points. If you want

to write down alliterative points, I have got

them for you. My points today are going to be

history, humility, and hierarchy. History, humility,

hierarchy. So let's get into the first point,

history 76 and 76. So I think it's a good and

spiritually mature thing to be interested in

the customs and the traditions of your country.

And I think it's undeniably a mark of holiness,

to be grateful to God for the good gifts that

He gives through all the different facets of

our lives. If you think about the blessings and

curses in Deuteronomy 28, for example, which

go on for a long time, one of the more chilling

parts of this whole litany of curses, it says,

all the cursings come, it says, because, quote,

you did not serve the Lord your God with joyfulness,

and gladness of heart because of his great gifts.

Being ungrateful to God is a mark of great sin.

It is spiritual foolishness not to give thanks

to God for his blessings. And this poem is helpful

for us in remembering that. So Matthew Henry,

who was not an American, when he writes about

this poem, he says, quote, It is a psalm proper

to a Thanksgiving day. that is for all people,

for whatever particular gifts they have received

from God, and I think he's right. So in our context,

I'm pleased that our denomination, the Presbyterian

Church in America, at the last General Assembly,

had no less than three overtures recommending

that we, as a group, solemnly thank God for our

country. The one that passed, one did pass, was

from the Philadelphia Presbytery, and it introduced

itself in these words. Whereas, hold on, whereas,

God's word calls his church, oh, give thanks

unto the Lord for his mercy and doors forever

in whatsoever comes to pass according to Jesus

Christ's sovereign rule and reign over all men

and nations. In other words, it is right always

and at all times to give thanks and praise to

the Lord, right? But of course, there's more

to it just than that. So the overture writers,

And I think that this country has been the instrument

through which God has provided immense blessings

to many people. Consider we have a very large

degree of religious liberty here. I read a book

once where the author who was a missionary was

talking to a guy after a service and he was lamenting

that American Christians were so lukewarm in

their faith. And the guy that he was talking

to who was a Christian from the Middle East.

and was visiting here, he said, this morning

I saw a public baptism conducted openly and without

fear. I saw hundreds of people worshiping God

openly without fear of governmental retribution.

This is the type of miracle we've been praying

about for years. How about that? Many people

around the world right now cannot worship God

the way they feel is right. There are many people

connected with our own congregation. who have

had to get away from religious persecution in

their country of origin, right? We ought to give

thanks to God that we can worship freely here.

Additionally, peaceful living! has been historically

possible here for a large percent of families,

such that many of us have been able to live quietly

and mind our own affairs, as Paul says in 1 Timothy.

This country and its stability has been a huge

common grace kindness from God to this people.

And I think we should thank the Lord for his

gifts. All of this is not to say that this country

doesn't still have very large problems and doesn't

have huge historical sins in its past that we're

still working through as a country and as a church.

But if we're thinking historically, I think we

need to think as people with a historical sense,

not just as impatient moral idealists. Here's

an example of what I mean. I think it is scandalous.

that women did not have the right to vote in

this country until 1920. I think that was a flawed

judgment on the part of our forefathers. I think

that's all true. It is a bad lack of judgment.

But we should consider what's happening in the

rest of the world at that same time, right? None

of the other large democracies allowed women

the vote in 1920. America beat England. to granting

women suffrage by eight years. It beat France

by 25 years. Really surprisingly, in Bolshevik

Russia, women did have the right to vote. But

just like men, they did not have a legal right

to free speech. They did not have the right to

form an independent political party. So they

were allowed to vote, but only for the person,

the state. chose to be voted for, right? And

soon that was going to be a guy named Joseph

Stalin who famously said it's not who votes that

counts, it's who counts the votes. So there's

that. Then, of course, there's the issue of racial

slavery and following the Civil War racial discrimination,

which is an enduring and awful evil. But again,

we should consider how the US was able, in some

sense, to deal with some of its unjust laws.

The historian John Meacham says, quote, in our

living memory, Christianity has been deployed

as a means of liberation and progress in that

issue. He's talking about the 1960s civil rights

movement, of course, which was primarily the

work of the black church asking the white church

to get the memo. the White Church finally listening

up and voting accordingly. And think about how

the nonviolent protest movement was able to get

things done here in this country. So Martin Luther

King Jr. famously said, quote, we will wear you

down by our capacity to suffer. Do to us what

you will and we will continue to love you. He

said that in 1957. which was the same year that

Eisenhower needed to deploy the National Guard

to protect black students as they walked to school.

And, here's the remarkable thing about all of

this, King's nonviolent Christian approach worked.

Right? Appealing to the consciences of our people,

eventually, gradually, grudgingly, worked. And

I think we should thank God for this. Again,

consider the alternative, right? If you tried

that with Stalin, he would say, you're gonna

wear me down by your capacity to suffer? See,

you try. Here's a quote from Russell Moore, and

I think this gets the balance that we should

have just right. Quote, our patriotism is the

kind that needs our country to be our country,

not our messiah. We have another king for that.

We love our country best when we don't expect

it to be our final city on a hill. So that was

the intro to my history points. Anyway, I want

to go back to Psalm 76 I want to go back to 1776

in 1776 the Continental Army was really destroyed

on several different occasions They were outmanned

by the British who had the largest most well

-funded and most professional army in the world

Supported by the strongest Navy in the world

In fact, the American Revolution came so close

to being snuffed out almost immediately that

the people at the time and smart people since

have talked about God's special providence favoring

the Americans. Here's a quote from a Massachusetts

newspaper in that year, quote, we have thought

that God was for us and had given many and signal

instances of his power. mercy in our favor and

had greatly frowned upon and disappointed our

enemies and verily it has been so." The author

goes on to say that the people needed to give

God the glory for his work and pray for his continuing

favor. Even the cautious historian David McCulloch

says that the outcome of the war quote seemed

little short of a miracle especially for those

who knew what a close call it was. in the beginning.

So when we think about the revolution of 1776,

we're thinking about a bunch of smart guys who

started a war they did not have a great chance

of winning, but which they did win partially

by accident. That's the haughty defiance of 76

that Walt Whitman, our great poet of democracy,

talks about, which I quoted in your bulletin.

But I want to turn back to our actual sermon

text this morning. Psalm 76 is a war song But

in a very strange sense, isn't it? Look with

me at the text. What does it say? What does it

say in essence? What's the main point of it?

It says this, God is in control. The strong,

the well -armed, the warlords, they can't stand

before God. God breaks the flashing arrows. That's

verse three. He sinks the stout -hearted into

sleep. The men of war are paralyzed, that's verse

five. At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both rider

and horse lay stunned, verse six. God smashes

up the tanks, we might say. God confounds the

helicopters, right? Here's an interesting thing.

The word arrows in Hebrew is actually the word

thunderbolts. That's why it says flashing arrows.

So the bad guys are guys who think that they

have God -like power, which seems a lot like

most of the governments today, right? By the

way, did you know that the initial tests for

the atom bomb that were conducted in New Mexico

were called the Trinity tests? That's kind of

strange, isn't it? But God shrugs off all human

weaponry. Think about what's being said in this

poem. Here's our poet. He lives in a very tumultuous

time. Think about the records in Kings and Chronicles.

They make you exhausted. He says that it doesn't

matter how big the enemy armies are. Why? Because

God is bigger. We could call this the haughty

defiance of Psalm 76. Against all the materialists,

against all the people who think they can play

God if they just get together a big enough army,

this Psalm is shouting, nope. God is in control.

He will decide the battles that decide the fates

of nations. God will be glorified. His name is

great in Israel. God's faithful people will continue

to praise him, and they can know without hesitation

that he is the boss, even in the face of political

or military opposition. So that's my first point,

or half of it. So God is in control of actual

history, the stuff that actually happens in the

world. God is intensely concerned with what happens

here. And he is at work to bring salvation to

his people and glory to himself. Think about

what we say every week in the Apostles' Creed.

Jesus suffered under Pontius Pilate. That's a

particular person. God did not snap his fingers

outside of time and physical reality. No, he

entered into history and Psalms like this one

say that he has been involved in history since

the beginning. This is the doctrine of Providence.

The Philadelphia Presbytery, when they made their

overture to the General Assembly this year, referenced

a guy named John Witherspoon, who was a minister

as well as a signer of the Declaration of Independence,

from a sermon which he preached on Psalm 76 in

the year 1776. So I'm going to quote his main

point from that sermon. He says, That is... God

is in control even in the evil of history. He

restrains that evil to show mercy, and He allows

that evil in order to bring about His plans and

to let the evildoers store up wrath for the day

of judgment. And we see this supremely, of course,

in the judicial murder of Christ. He was killed

by the ambition of mistaken princes, the cunning

and cruelty of oppressive and corrupt ministers,

and even the inhumanity of brutal soldiers. All

of these things were instruments that got used

in the human life and death of Jesus to bring

about his great redemption. God is at work in

history, even though it's messy. So I want to

come back to that. But first, here's the other

half of this first point. God is not just the

God of actual history. He's the God of all history.

Think about what it means that we're reading

this text here in 2026, right? Many scholars

think that this Psalm was written in celebration

of the destruction of the armies of the Assyrian

warlord Sennacherib. This is a pretty famous

thing. You can find accounts of this in Isaiah,

for instance. The English poet Lord Byron wrote

a poem about this incident. The last two lines

are, and the might of the Gentile, unsmoked by

the sword, hath melted like snow in the glance

of the Lord. It's a pretty good line. Poem is

generally considered to be a part of a classic

romantic literature, right? Well, here's the

thing. Byron was born in 1788, which is the year

before George Washington became president. Byron

writes glowingly about Washington as news. We

think of Byron as old. The English language as

we speak it is maybe 500 years old, depending

on how you want to measure early modern English.

The Assyrian attack on Jerusalem, which is being

celebrated in this poem, was in 701 BC. That

is. At the time of the birth of Christ in Bethlehem,

this poem was already older than our language

is. Considered just in terms of antiquity, this

poem is to Shakespeare as I am to my daughter,

Bella, who turns three today. Wish her a happy

birthday. She's in the nursery. This poem is

at least 10 times older than the United States

of America. Generations have trod, have trod,

have trod, civilizations have risen and fallen,

but this poem celebrating the acts of God in

history is still here. It has weathered all of

history from then till now. All flesh is as grass

and the glory of man is the flower of grass,

but the grass withers, the flower falls, but

the word of the Lord endures forever. Friend,

this word is a rock. It has been a light to all

generations. If you want something that will

last, if you want something bigger than yourself,

you've got it in your hands. Treasure this word.

Treasure the God who gave us this word so that

we can know Him, us, and our children and our

children's children. That was all point one.

God is the God of history. He controls it. He

always has. He's the ancient of days. He has

determined the periods and the boundaries of

the dwelling places of nations as we wrote about

in Acts. Let's move to point two, which is much

simpler. So what do we do as people living in

history, knowing that God rules all of history?

Make it practical. Fill in the blank for me here,

right? Think about the song that we've read.

God rules all history, therefore I should...

What? Right? There's a lot of good answers to

this question, of course. If this was a test,

and my students were raising their hands and

making that look on their face, I would say,

I'll take a lot of... answers. There's a lot

of ways to get full credit, but you need to explain

yourself the reference to the text. Here's what

I think we should take practically from this.

God rules all history, therefore I should be

thoughtfully nice. That's how I would fill in

the blanks. Let me show you how I got this. Look

again at the poem. Go to verse seven. It says,

but you You are to be feared. Who can stand before

you when once your anger is aroused? From the

heavens you uttered judgment. The earth feared

and was still. When God arose to establish judgment

to save all the humble of the earth. Selah. You'll

remember that Selah is kind of a mysterious term.

That's why it's left untranslated. That's the

English version of the Hebrew word. Our best

guess is it's some kind of musical term meaning

pause. Stop, breathe, think about that a second.

That's what we should do here. God is in control

of all things. No one can stand against him and

he is a judging God and he is going to judge

in anger in order to what? Save the humble of

the earth. My point too today is humility. The

God of history is on the side of the humble.

What does this mean? Well, it means for our own

good, we need to be on the side of the humble.

We have this phrase in our society that's kind

of this moral prod. We say we want to be on the

right side of history, right? People say that

when they want you to vote for them. And I think

what they're saying is right, but they're not

saying it with the meaning that this text has.

People today seem to mean that in, you know,

if you get things wrong today. In 50 years some

teacher with a book in his hand is going to be

shaking his head and saying, well those guys

were wrong and we will feel shame in our grave

or in our old folks home or something like that.

It's a pretty windy judgment really. This text

says something very different. It says that God

intervenes in history and when he does he is

on the side of the humble. The word translated

humble here means what you think it means in

the context of history. In different places it's

translated meek. poor, lowly, oppressed. When

Jesus says that the meek will inherit the earth,

he's probably thinking of verses like this. Matthew

Henry says, quote, though the meek of the earth

are by their meekness exposed to injury, yet

God will sooner or later appear for their salvation.

And so when we read this text, knowing that we

are those who are favored by history generally,

we need to put ourselves on the side of the poor

and the humble. Don't be an oppressor. Be kind

in a thoughtful way. Be on the right side of

the history and for the right reason. I think

there is messiness, there is injustice, there

is enormous pain in history, but God is not complacent.

God sees the ugliness of history and it makes

him angry. The oppressors of history aren't just

going to get away with it. God is on the side

of the poor and the meek and the humble and we

want to think about who those people are and

make sure we are nice to them. So that was point

two. My last point is hierarchy, and it's related

to both previous points. Let's look at the last

few verses of this poem quickly for my last point

here. Verse 11. Who should we serve? Well, it's

God, obviously, right? But then look at verse

12. Who else should fear God? Princes and kings,

right? The people who in a traditional society,

everybody else is supposed to fear and serve,

right? So there's a sense of course in which

we're all equal before God. God's chose no favoritism

or partiality as Peter says in Acts. A beggar

woman can be the spiritual peer of the disciples

as Jesus shows, but there's this still a sense

and a very obvious sense in which a beggar woman

and a king are different, right? One has money

and power, one doesn't. This poem is saying that

everybody on the earthly totem pole, everybody

in every part of the social ladder will answer

to God and the ones at the top are going to answer

the most. They need to fear him. Let's put all

of this together, and here's what I'm suggesting.

I think we need to train ourselves to have concentric

loyalties, or layered loyalties, right? Broadly,

right? We should be loyal to ourselves. That's

part of being a creature. But our loyalty to

ourselves need to be bounded very tightly to

our loyalty to those around us. And there's family

loyalty, there's social loyalty, there's loyalty

to one's country. And I think that's a good and

healthy thing. Loyalty to this state is good,

right? When it's correctly possible. And then

of course there's loyalty to God who expresses

himself most fully in Christ. And that's the

hierarchy that should most concern us. God is

at the top. and everything else, every other

loyalty, no matter how real, needs to be subordinate

to that. I think we need to be a thoughtful people.

We should thank God for his grace, I think, in

giving us this country. We should thank God for

his grace in giving us this word. I think we

can praise God freely in this country, and we

should praise God for that. And further, we can

praise this country under God because God is

over. this country just as he's over everything

else in all of history. Let's pray. Oh Lord God,

your might is evident throughout all the world.

You come in weakness when you come in the person

of Jesus. We praise you that you are on the side,

not of the warlords, of the poor. not humble.

And each of us, Lord, in our sin is poor and

humble. Come to each of us, Lord, bind our wounds.

Help us to look to you in gladness, knowing that

you are good, that your mercy endures, that you

will be God to us. Help us, Lord, to love you

and do your work. We pray these things in Jesus'

name. Amen. Thank you for listening to Second

City Sermons podcast. We hope this sermon has

encouraged you to worship God and to celebrate

the gospel of Jesus. Please consider subscribing

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bless.