Psalm 82 – Psalms In The Summer

Today's reading is Psalm eighty-two, verse one to eight.

And the question for kids today is what will God inherit?

A Psalm of Asaph.

God has taken his place in the divine council.

In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment.

How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

Say laugh.

Give justice to the weak and the fatherless.

Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

Rescue the weak and the needy.

Deliver them from the hand of the wicked.

They have neither knowledge nor understanding.

They walk about in darkness.

All the foundations of the earth are shaken.

I said, You are gods, sons of the most high, all of you.

Nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.

Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations.

So it reads God's word.

Well, good morning.

If you don't know me, my name is Ben.

I am the executive pastor here at City Church.

And we're going to take a look at Psalm 82, which Lena read for us just a few minutes ago.

I got to tell you, back in the 20th century, back in the old days, when I was your guys' age, I was a pretty good student.

I was pretty good at uh pretty good at school, got pretty good marks.

English, oh my goodness, reading and writing, I killed it.

Like all the way through elementary school, middle school.

I was I was great with, you know, uh reading comprehension.

I was good with plot and characters and setting.

I was good with all of these cool topics, made really good grades.

Very, very proud of myself there until I got to the later stages of high school, you know, secondary school, as we'd say here, started to get real then.

We started to dig into concepts that were slightly over my head, concepts that I didn't get then, maybe kind of don't get now.

Uh stuff like literary illusion, right?

If you're familiar with the idea of literary illusion, it means this work over here, this poem or this story or this writing means something different than what you think it does because of this one that's over here that it kind of hints at, and you're like, well, if I don't know this story over here, then how do I know what it means over here?

And if I if I don't pick up this subtle, you know, reference here, how am I supposed to do this?

But that was only the tip of the iceberg, right?

We've got things like hyperbole, right?

We've got things like metaphor, things like satire.

I've got to tell you, I read, uh, I remember I read a modest proposal by Jonathan Swift, right?

The original Swifty there.

Um I don't know if you've read this essay, but it basically is a straight-faced satire calling for the Irish to sell their babies to wealthy families so that those families can eat the babies.

A little shocking.

I figured it wasn't quite as shocking once I figured out it was satire, but you get what I'm saying.

There's all of this stuff here.

Don't get me started even on poetry.

I remember we did a whole unit on poetry, and some of this real sophisticated highbrow poetry doesn't even rhyme.

All right.

So I took my last English class back in the 20th century, and I figured all of this was behind me.

But we come to Psalm 82 today, and you might notice there's some of this figurative language, some of this imagery, some of this stuff here where we're gonna have to dig deep a little bit.

But it makes sense because we have to remember the genre that we're dealing with here.

We're in the Psalms.

Psalms are songs, they are verses, they are poetic, and so it's not out of out of uh character to have some of this metaphor and imagery, painting pictures with the words.

I mean, even nowadays, right?

We can look at music today, might say, oh yeah, this metaphor and all of this highbrow stuff is from a bygone era.

But even today, we we use a lot of metaphor, we use a lot of hyperbole in our songs, even even in popular music.

Do you do you think Olivia Rodrigo was actually dating a vampire?

She was not.

All right.

Right, so we have all of these all of these images that are used in music.

I remember there was a song in the 90s where the woman singing was talking about her relationship, and she said that she described it as always kneeling at your altar or at your throne.

I don't think you'd come away from that song thinking, wow, this lady was actually dating a king or a god, right?

You wouldn't, you wouldn't think that.

You wouldn't take it literally.

But maybe you'd get a deeper sense of how she felt than if she were to just speak it plainly, speak it literally, and say, you know, I feel a bit controlled and smothered in our relationship.

So in this psalm, we have some of that, and uh, the psalmist Asaph uses some word pictures, some imagery, some figurative language to draw us to some deeper truths and to show it and express it in beautiful ways.

We're gonna see three things.

We're gonna see how big God is, we're gonna see how good God is, and we're gonna see how sure and certain God is.

Some of these pictures are going to point us to layers of truth.

Some of them may feel confusing, but in the end, I hope that we will all see that God is the one who will have the final say, over and above all powers and authorities, and over all injustice.

I'm gonna say that again because that's our main point for the morning here.

God is the one who will have the final say over and above all powers and authorities and over all injustice.

So the first point, first thing that we're gonna look at here, how big is God?

If you got your Bible open in front of you there, it's very helpful because we're gonna be referring back to different verses here.

But we'll start with verse one.

It says, God has taken his place in the divine council.

In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment.

Now think about this.

It says, God has taken his place.

This is his place, it belongs to no other.

The prophet Isaiah records the words of God in chapter 45 of his book.

It says, I am the Lord and there is no other.

Besides me there is no God.

Later on he says, Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other.

Place is his, no one else's.

And what is this place?

Well, the end of the verse, it says, He holds judgment.

So in this exalted, this high and lifted up place, he's the authority.

It's not just that he's in a room full of important beings and people and whatever else.

He's at the top of it.

Everyone else in this divine council takes their cues from him.

It's his judgment that matters.

His authority, the one that controls.

He stands alone, stands apart, and stands above all powers.

So how big is God?

Well, he's bigger than we can get our heads around.

But this, you know, because we're dealing with a psalm here, this brings us to our first sticky turn of phrase.

What exactly does Esaphah mean by in the midst of the gods?

Hmm.

Now, I mean, if you're brand new to Christianity or you're just looking in, this kind of doesn't make sense because one of the things that we're kind of known for is this monotheistic worldview.

There's one God.

Remember Isaiah?

We just said it a little bit ago, there's no God besides me.

Did Asaf not realize this?

Did he have a stroke and forget?

Well, of course, the answer is no.

This is this is imagery.

This is pointing us to the fact that our God, the only God, the true and living God, would even stand alone above any other imagined or invented deities.

Certainly the surrounding nations to God's people there had their own ideas of local gods.

There were, you know, the Old Testament talks about the Baals and the Ashram, Molech and Dagon.

But these are idols.

They're often represented as, you know, works of wood or stone.

Powerless, of course, before a God who is both living and active.

In fact, one of my favorite stories from Scripture is in 1 Samuel chapter 5.

1 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

Go check that out if you like a good story here.

But the enemies of God's people had won out, right?

They defeated the Israelites on the field of battle, and they'd captured the Ark of the Covenant.

And the Ark represented the very presence of God, and they figured, great, we've captured this ark.

We've got another God to put in our temple over here.

So they did.

They put it in the house of their god, Dagon.

And the next day, when they went into this temple, well, here's the Ark, and here's this statue of Dagon falling down, like on its face before the Ark.

It's like, well, that's weird.

So they picked it back up.

And the next day they came in and it had fallen over again.

And this time the head and the hands were broken off of it.

I don't think you need a lot of literary analysis tools with that story to guess that God is demonstrating what we can read in Psalm 96 that all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

Now, this is not, of course, limiting the meaning of this idea to just that God is over and above a bunch of lifeless idols.

I think any one of us could probably hold our own in a room full of statues.

But there's another layer to this, and it's pointing us to a spiritual reality.

As Christians, we do believe in the supernatural, we believe in the spiritual.

The New Testament talks about cosmic powers, talks about spiritual forces of evil.

What we have to keep in mind here, keep in view, is that demonic forces, even Satan himself, they are they're no match for this God who takes his place, this place of authority in the divine council.

That also goes for any kind of human agents or institutions or structures that these dark forces might work through.

God stands over all, above all, all of these spiritual forces, all earthly forces, all human forces.

I am the Lord and there is no other.

Tell your story.

Years ago, I had the opportunity to walk with the family, right?

Uh Doreen and the three children that we had at the time.

We walked across the Golden Gate Bridge.

I don't know if you've been to the Golden Gate Bridge.

You probably have seen it in pictures, if not.

And it is considered to be a marvel of modern engineering.

It is an iconic landmark.

But I will tell you, at least from my perspective, when you are out in the middle of this bridge, 200 plus feet above the icy waters of San Francisco Bay, in the wind and the fog, it feels less like a marvel of modern engineering and more like a flimsy bit of sheet metal.

If you look over to the rail, you can look down, down, down, down.

It's a long way down.

But the thing that got me that was even more than just looking straight down, about, you know, 20 feet below you, there's a net.

There's a net to catch you if you were to fall or, you know, heaven forbid, jump off of this bridge.

And I happen to think that maybe the the worst thing than standing and looking down is to be in that net, looking down.

And then that got me.

So I'm like, okay, we'll stand over here, right?

Over here, this is safer.

But then you look ahead, and there's this massive tower, right?

The towers of the Golden Gate Bridge go 500 feet above your head.

So you're already standing on this shaky ground, you're already, and you're looking up.

Fortunately, that day it was a bit foggy, couldn't see all the way to the top, thank you, Lord.

But that is like knee buckling kind of pit in the stomach.

Might have a little fear of heights, guys.

But in taking in all of that grandeur, in taking in all of that bigness, that's just a stepping stone for us to try to get our heads around how big God is.

Because after all, that was just a small corner of his creation.

I know I go about my week, it's very easy for me to lose sight of how big God is.

I can make him quite small.

I can be more concerned with, you know, my to-do list, my contacts, what I need to do in a given day.

But I can also stop and reflect.

You know how big everything felt on that bridge that one day?

God made it.

God holds it all in his hands.

We can think of the bridge, we can think of the Grand Canyon, we can think of any number of big things here on the earth and recognize God made that.

God holds that, God keeps that together.

We can think about, you know, the mind-bending size of just our own solar system, let alone the entire cosmos.

This all reminds us that he's bigger than everything that we see, all that's going on around us.

So let's hold on to this idea of a big, big God and let it move us to comfort.

Unless.

I'm also seeing that these words are something of a warning as well.

Surely the idea of a God that is so big is not good news to those who are opposed to him.

We see in the next section some of what God is for and what he's against, but for right now, let's recognize that these truths might not be a comfort.

In some cases, they might be a caution.

Maybe you're here this morning and you're not yet a follower of Jesus.

If that's you, of course, you're very welcome.

We're glad to have you.

But I pray that the message of this psalm helps you to heed the warning and to see through to the comfort of our big God.

So, anyhow, that's first one.

The next section explores just how good God is.

And really, like the point that's just done, our minds won't be able to grasp just how good God is any more than they could grasp fully how big he is.

We only have the things that we see in this world, things that pale in comparison to the one that created it all.

But how good is God?

Well, let's take a look and see what he is for and what he's against.

Take a look at verses two to four with me.

What he's against, this is all verse two here.

What does it say?

It says, How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?

God's against injustice, God's against partiality, God's against the wicked.

And maybe if you're new or just looking into Christianity, maybe this comes as a bit of a surprise.

I don't know.

It's easy to trace the history of the church and find that there have been some who've been for what the Lord is against.

But this verse here shows us two things.

Number one, of course, that God is Himself against these things, against injustice, against partiality, but also that these things are nothing new.

You may have noticed we've shifted our gaze from this lofty divine counsel to things that are a bit more terrestrial, a bit more earthbound here.

But these things that he's talking about here, this sense of injustice, it's nothing new.

While verse one might have had the spiritual forces of darkness in view, the next few verses are much more applicable to human authorities.

And so if these verses are calling the earthly leaders to account, it shows us this is nothing new.

And God's been opposed to it all along.

You figure the nation of Israel was set up all those centuries ago to be God's nation, God's people.

So whether we're talking about religious leaders or civic rulers, the call to end their injustice.

It's all one and the same.

There's no distinction in what God's calling here between the sacred and the secular.

It's all God's nation.

And let's not get it messed up in our own minds here.

This is God's world.

Injustice in the church, injustice in the courts, injustice in the government, it's all just as bad to him.

What I find very interesting is that the psalmist doesn't say, you know, you should really stay away from this injustice.

You should really stay away from this idea of partiality.

No, he says, this is already going on.

How long will you continue to do these things?

This isn't hypothetical.

This isn't a set of principles to kind of mull over and think through.

This is real people, real injustices, favoring the bad guys.

God, through the psalmist Asaph, is asking the question, how long?

Of course, this doesn't mean that God doesn't know the end, doesn't know how it's gonna wrap up.

But it's more like a warning, more like, when are you gonna get this?

When are you gonna catch on?

When are you gonna turn away from these practices?

Going on in the passage here, verse 3.

Yeah, it talks about giving justice and maintaining the right.

Verse 4 talks about rescue and deliver.

And he also draws attention to those who were being harmed in this exchange.

We see the weak, the fatherless, the afflicted, the destitute, the needy.

When leaders wink and nod at justice, when they let injustice stand, there are those who fall victim to it.

And God's people should be about protecting and preserving those victims, not engaging in injustice that makes their lot even worse.

I'm the eldest of three brothers.

You want to talk about injustice?

I know a little bit about it.

I can remember nights when mom and dad would go out for the night and leave me in charge.

Those were those were fun nights for me, not nights for my uh siblings.

Anytime I thought I was out of earshot of mom and dad, I could get away with quite a lot.

You want to talk about rigging the scales of justice?

One of my masterpiece moments was I would wait until mom and dad were gone and then go around and reset all the clocks in the house and tell them tell the little brothers, guys, it's bedtime.

Sorry.

Sometimes I would ally myself with one of them, gang up on the other one.

Terrible stuff, right?

I don't think I was really trying to be malicious.

I don't think I was particularly cruel, but then again, my sense of empathy and self-awareness were probably not very well developed at that age.

But I remember one day I was in the car with my dad.

We were going someplace, and he brought this up to me.

He says, basically what verse two says, he says, When are you gonna stop?

When are you gonna knock this off?

When are you gonna stop making trouble for your brothers?

How long are you gonna keep doing what you're doing?

It was double sting for me.

Because number one, you know, he's giving out to me about something that I was doing, but number two, he knew.

I thought I was really, really good at covering my tracks and, you know, keeping it a secret.

It was not uh in his mind something harmless or innocent.

He was aware of my many unkindnesses.

And through the whole car journey, we're driving along.

He didn't raise his voice, he didn't threaten, he didn't punish.

Very matter-of-fact, in his speech, but I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut because my many injustices had reached the ears of my father.

I knew that something had to change.

So, just like our prior point, guys, this one pays off in one of two ways, depending on which side of the discussion we're on.

For the oppressed, it's again comfort.

God sees, God knows.

This unimaginably big God who takes his place in the divine counsel, he's aware of our plight.

He's taken up our cause.

I'm sure my little brothers had been, you know, listening in that car.

They'd have felt seen.

They'd have felt validated.

They'd have felt like someone was on their side.

How much more comfort can we take from a true and living big, massive God, maker of heaven and earth?

Amen.

But for the perpetrators of injustice, I think the message is all the more clear.

It's not comfort, it's caution, it's warning.

I'll say the exact thing that I said a minute ago God sees.

God knows.

This unimaginably big God who takes his place in the divine council, he's aware of the things done in secret.

He's taking up the cause of the weak and the fatherless and the afflicted and the destitute and the needy.

And even with all of this heaviness from on high, this is still a warning.

This is still a chance to turn it all around.

Maybe even just a chance to see that it needs to turn around.

Because we're pretty good at justifying ourselves.

We're pretty good at playing that we're in the right or that we're the victims in life.

But the power that is being wielded unjustly in this section is not just limited to political power or authority.

If young Ben could act with injustice towards his younger brothers, I'm sure every one of us in this room has that opportunity.

So give it a think.

Ask God to show you where you might need to think or act differently.

We've seen God is both immeasurably big and unbelievably good.

He's over above, over and above all power and rule, and he sees the small and the weak to oppose those who would oppress.

Now we're going to have a look and see just how sure and certain God is.

Remember where we started.

God will have the final say.

That means he's not going anywhere, right?

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

And what is God's word in this matter?

Let's go through some of these hard verses.

Verses 5 through 7.

Verse 5, it says, They have neither knowledge nor understanding.

They walk about in darkness.

Well, who's the they in this verse?

It looks like we're talking about the marginalized groups, right?

The needy, the fatherless, the weak.

They don't know why this injustice is happening.

They don't see the inner workings.

The verse is calling out the oppressors.

It's like saying, you saw a blind beggar and you took money from him.

You should be ashamed of yourself.

At the very least, you should stop congratulating yourself.

Congratulations, you robbed a blind guy.

You took sweets from a baby.

You convinced an illiterate person to sign an unfavorable contract.

It doesn't make you clever.

It doesn't make you strong.

It makes you all the more guilty before God, and He surely sees.

You think you're getting away with it now, but it won't go unpunished.

Going on with verse 5, it says, all the foundations of the earth are shaken.

This is more poetic language, more imagery.

The idea is that the strong opposing the weak upsets God's good and right order in the world.

The voice in our head when we're being tempted is often, no one will know, no one will see, it won't matter.

But this verse contradicts all of that.

Wrongdoing cuts against the created order.

God's people, God's leaders, are meant to do God's work in this world.

When they go against God's work, it is certainly contrary to God's design.

And that was true in the Old Testament, the New Testament, and it's true now.

Maybe you can think of a church scandal.

Like a church leader, some moral failing, someone who stopped pursuing God's best and was instead pursuing money or sex or power.

As a Christian, those times certainly feel earth-shattering.

And as a church leader myself, oh Lord, please keep me on your path by your spirit for your glory.

Let me not be turned aside.

Verse 6.

What do we make of verse 6?

We've got some more imagery, some more expressive language.

Verse 6 says, I said you are gods, sons of the most high, all of you.

Now, this language here, this verse, is hyperbole.

Hyperbole means that you are exaggerating something to make a point.

It'd be like if I said, you know, those speakers over there, they weigh a ton.

I don't literally mean that they weigh 2,000 pounds or 1,000 kilos, if you like the metric system.

It would be just a dramatic way of saying, you know, they're really heavy.

They're really awkward to try to get up on those stands, and if you've done it, you'll know.

But it's also a bit of a juxtaposition.

We've seen this idea of this God who is so big, so powerful, and then we put up against him these kind of earthly leaders.

Yeah.

You see people who would commit injustice.

It's a way of putting these bad actors in their place.

I don't think it's meant to be sarcastic, though you could certainly read it that way.

It's more like, yeah, you've got power and authority.

Yeah, you're getting away with stuff now.

Yeah, you feel like you'll always be on top.

But the hyperbole is short-lived.

Verse 7.

What does it say?

Nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince.

You're on top of the world, but your life is not forever.

Think back to history.

So many great and mighty people who did great and mighty things, some of them things incredibly good, some of them things incredibly bad.

But every one of them was on a march to the grave.

Albert Einstein, dead.

Adolf Hitler, dead.

You got captains of industry, national leaders, artists, influencers, innovators, dead.

Whatever we may achieve in this life, whatever kingdoms or empires we may build, everybody shares this common fate.

But you know who doesn't share this common fate?

God.

He is eternal, from everlasting to everlasting.

You are God.

That's Psalm 90.

I like how the psalmist doesn't say, you'll fall like any common person.

He says, No, you'll fall like any prince.

Even princes die.

You might be princely in some ways now, but you won't be forever.

Clinging to power in this world is like trying to be the most important person on a sinking ship.

You might have your moment, but it's fleeting.

In the end, it all comes crashing down.

Shelley had this idea in mind in his poem Ozymandias, a traveler, right?

If you've read this poem, it's a great one.

A traveler runs across the remains of a statue with the words of a long-forgotten king.

And it says, My name is Ozymandius, king of kings, look on my works, ye mighty, and despair.

And yet nobody had heard of this guy.

There was nothing around of his kingdom, it was all just wasteland.

Verse 8, we end the Psalm with a prayer.

It says, Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations.

It's kind of like an amen at the end here.

We've seen a big God, we've seen a good God, we've seen a sure and certain God who will have the last word.

This last verse is like the psalmist responding to all that's come before.

Yes, Lord, I agree with who you are and what you stand for.

I come before you with expectancy.

Do the things that you've promised to do.

I long for your justice.

I long for your rule.

Based on what we're seeing in this psalm here, guys, I think this rule is something we would all love to see in this world.

What a world that'll be.

The marginalized, upheld, defended, the guilty, punished, justice done even in hidden things.

Now, as we close out, our third point here, it's all the same application, right?

It's caution and it's comfort.

Comfort, our God is sure and certain.

He will be there for eternity future.

He's been there from eternity past, he'll have the last word.

There's no earthly power, no spiritual authority, no one, know-how who will outlast him.

Even those in our world who seem entrenched, immovable, permanent, they'll fall like any prince.

What a great comfort that our God, the mighty, faithful, true, and living God, will have the final say over everything.

And it's caution.

If you're not reconciled to this God, if you're opposed to his good rule, if you're ignoring him and holding out for something better, be warned.

He will rise up, he will judge the earth, he will inherit the nations.

While there's still time, take this message of caution and let it be turned to comfort.

God is sure and certain.

Before we wrap up, though, there's the question of guilt.

We've established what it means to be guilty in this passage, in this psalm.

We've got injustice, we've got partiality, impartial, yeah, partiality and upholding the wicked, harming the marginalized.

But let's not get it wrong here.

The message of this psalm is not that the weak and the fatherless and the afflicted are the good guys.

In the book of Leviticus, there's a command not to be partial either to the great or to the poor, but to judge equitably.

And the equitable judgment that we see throughout Scripture is that all of humanity stands guilty before a holy God.

That's you, that's me, that's everyone at every time, going all the way back to the fall of man.

So that prayer at the end of our Psalm for God to rise up and judge the earth, that's not a question of who's got the better behavior.

If it was, that judgment would be universal and severe.

There's more going on here, and this points us finally to Jesus.

Where we are today, in the 21st century, this side of the cross of the Lord Jesus, we can look back and see how Jesus took on our guilt, how he paid our debt, how he made a way for us to be reconciled to God.

This psalm was written before that time, when God's people were looking ahead.

Who is the Savior?

How is God going to do this?

But God worked through Asaph in ways that Asaph probably didn't even recognize to point ahead to Jesus in ways that we can see as we look back.

Take a look at this theme here.

Take a look at this idea of speaking out against injustice.

The thing that comes to mind for me is Jesus cleansing the temple.

Back in Jesus' early earthly ministry, I should say, there's this time where he was in the temple, and there were all of these people buying and selling where it should have been a place for outsiders to come and worship.

And Jesus was opposed to that injustice, and he drove them all out.

Second thing Jesus says in John 10, he says, I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.

All of that talk that we just had about our earthly lives being temporary, that's true.

But because of Jesus, we look ahead to life everlasting with him.

Finally, the last verse where there's this call for God to judge the earth, that just reminds us of the last parts of the Bible.

Revelation chapter 22, there's this whole scene at the end where he's wrapping it up, and there's this phrase in there that says, Come, Lord Jesus.

Revelation 22 · chapter mention

So, my friends, I hope that you can see the comfort and the caution in this psalm.

This God who is amazingly big, this God who is so good and so sure and certain from everlasting to everlasting, he will have the final say.

This psalm written so many centuries ago holds relevance to us today.

We still live in a world of injustice.

We still live in a world with the high and the mighty stepping over the weak.

We still need this caution and comfort.

And we look ahead to the day when he'll set everything right.