Psalm 64

Hide me from the wicked, Psalm sixty-four.

To the choir master, a psalm of David.

Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint.

Preserve my life from the dread of the enemy.

Hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the trunk of evildoers, who wear their tongue like swords, who in bitter words like harrows, shooting from the ambush at the blameless, shooting at him suddenly and without fear.

They hold fast to their evil purpose.

They talk of laying snares secretly, thinking, who can see them?

They sound out injustice, saying, We have accomplished a diligent search.

For the inward mind and the heart of a man are deep, but God shoots his arrows at them.

They are wounded suddenly, they are brought to rain, with their own tongues turned against them.

All who see them will wag their heads.

Then all mankind fears, they tell what God has brought about and ponder what he has done.

Let the righteous one rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him.

Let all the upright in the heart exalt.

Amen.

Thank you, brother.

Well, good morning, everyone.

Uh, welcome to you if you're uh new or visiting with us.

My name is Mark, I'm one of the leaders here at City Church.

It's great to have you here.

We're going to be turning our attention uh in just a moment to Psalm 64.

So, can I encourage you to uh have that in front of you on your Bibles or on your on your phone so you can be looking at the text as we uh as we walk through it.

Uh before we do though, uh a uh a little announcement, piece of information by way of announcement.

Uh one of the uh things that City Church has prioritized uh since its uh inception nearly nine years ago in September is the uh the training of uh young men and women uh for for gospel work.

Uh we want uh the idea of raising up workers for that harvest field.

That's what um Jesus says that we ought to pray for in Matthew 9, pray to the Lord of the harvest, that he would send out more workers into his harvest field.

We want to be part of that and join God in that.

Uh, and so we have uh over the years had a uh had a stream of uh interns, people who have uh trained uh alongside us, worked alongside us, and obviously COVID uh put pay to uh to that.

Um but we're uh delighted to uh to announce this morning that uh the elders uh just a couple of weeks ago uh invited uh Gustavo uh to join us as a part-time intern here at City Church.

Uh many of you, I'm sure, will know Gus and Jackie.

And uh if you if you don't, I'm sure that you will soon receive an invite around to their apartment for lunch because they are uh very generous, gospel-hearted uh people.

And so we uh invited them to consider that uh that role and uh we uh put him through an application and interview process, and we're delighted that he'll be joining us in September.

We're gonna be uh commissioning uh him, them, praying for them uh uh probably first weekend in September uh as we mark our uh our birthday.

But just want to let the church know uh as it kind of leaks out and filters out, so may as well tell everybody that Gus will be joining the uh the staff team.

And uh hopefully uh over the course of the coming months there will be further announcements like that.

We're looking to expand our uh our team so that we can expand our reach uh and our impact here in the in the city.

So do be praying for uh the elders and the leaders at that.

One of the reasons why I'm doing this is because as soon as you get in front of the lights, you realize just how dirty your glasses are.

Um and so you see all these lights basically like going to the opticians.

So just all see all these grease smears.

So forgive me.

I can't I couldn't see you anyway, but I definitely can't see you now.

You're like, oh, he looks different when there's glasses on.

Um, so uh congratulate Gus.

Uh uh.

And do be uh do be praying uh for them.

Uh why don't we pray now as we consider God's word uh together, Father?

We do thank you for uh for Gus and Jackie.

Uh thank you for how you've been at work in their lives, particularly over these last couple of years.

Thank you that they joined us in the midst of online church and COVID lockdowns uh and yet have uh become such a uh a rich part of uh our family together.

And I pray for uh Gustavo, particularly as he considers transitioning into this role.

Would you strengthen and encourage his heart?

Be with us all now as we turn to your word, uh give us soft soft hearts to hear uh perhaps hard words we ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

If you're new to City, uh let me tell you a little bit about our uh philosophy of ministry, as you might call it.

On a Sunday morning, we preach three books of the Bible.

We've been doing Psalms in the in the summer.

Uh in uh the autumn time, we'll go into another uh series.

We tend to depict books of the Bible and go all the way through them rather than uh than just preaching uh topical series.

So that does happen from time to time, but the normal staple of our diet is to go through whole books of the Bible.

You can think, well, why why is that?

Well, the reason is this is because on a Sunday morning, uh, we believe that when God's word is read, his voice is heard, and that Christians are built up when they are taught from the whole council of God.

We want God to set the agenda for what He wants to teach you on a Sunday morning.

It's not about me sitting on, sitting in the study, first thing in the Monday morning thinking, okay, uh what do I think these guys need?

Uh if that was the case, you would only ever, you know, do sermons on, you know, serving and giving and things like that.

But it's not about, it's not about me.

Uh it's not about me setting the agenda for you guys, it's about God setting the agenda.

What that means for me as a preacher, sometimes I come across passages or psalms where I think, gosh, I like if it was down to me, I would never preach this.

Because there's things in here that are not particularly popular to hear.

There are things that kind of cut against the grain of uh of our of our sensibilities.

But God's setting the agenda, uh, not me.

We believe at City Church that that the body of Christ is best built up when nourished by a many and varied diet from his word.

And so this morning we're going to think about something that I know going into it is going to be unpopular.

It's there at the end of this psalm.

It was at the end of the psalm last week as well, and it is this.

We're going to think about judgment.

We're going to think about judgment and what judgment means, biblically speaking.

And I know it's unpopular.

I know that one of the uh one of the things that uh that you here to experience is the sense of being judged by someone.

You know, people maybe get uh uh tattoos, can only God can judge me, or no judgment.

One of the worst things uh that you can do in our city, in our day, is be judgmental.

Now, I hope that by the end of this sermon you're not going to go away and think, okay, well, my take-home is that I need to be a more judgmental person.

That would be a misunderstanding of what's going to happen over the next 25 minutes or or so.

For lots of people, and maybe some of you here, the idea of judgment is primitive at best, harmful at worst.

However, this morning I want to try and show you what the Bible means by judgment and what is good about judgment.

That actually judgment is a good thing.

The judgment that God brings is a good thing.

You might think, well, it's a necessary thing.

We've got to kind of get through it at the end of the age, you know, because God's concerned about justice.

But is it an act of good?

Yes, I want to help you see that it is.

So if this is your first Sunday with us, uh you say welcome.

Uh you're welcome.

Uh sometimes we talk about heavy, weighty things like this.

I mentioned that Psalm 63 uh talks about it.

I'm going to refresh your mind because what tends to happen so what's my method in preaching the Psalms?

Uh, normally the kind of the meat of the Psalm happens in the first kind of few verses, and then there's a couple of verses at the end, it's like, and then God will judge the wicked and the righteous will be fine.

I'm like, oh yeah, okay, and so everything will come out good in the end.

And that just kind of gets parked a little bit.

So we're going to go back and we're going to kind of dive into it and dig about in it for a while.

But Psalm 63 says this: But those who seek to destroy my life, I'm looking down at verse 9, but those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth.

They shall be given over to the power of the sword.

They shall be the portion for jack a portion for jackals.

But the king shall rejoice in God.

All who swear by him shall exult, for the mouths of liars will be stopped.

So judgment coming on the wicked, a portion for jackals, a very graphic image of unburied corpses.

That's that's what we're that's what the psalmist, that's what David is talking about.

And here it comes in verses seven to nine.

But God shoots his arrow at them.

They are wounded suddenly, they are brought to ruin, with their own tongues turned against them.

All who see them wag their heads.

Then all mankind fears.

Uh, they tell what God has has brought about and ponder what he has done.

There's actually just very uh quickly parenthetically, there's two types of judgment going on there.

There's the final judgment that uh that God brings in the in the end, I think, there towards the end of verse 9.

But there's an interesting little thing there where earlier on the psalm we talked about how uh they're shooting arrows at King David, at the righteous one, at you, people with their tongues firing darts at you.

And what do we see there?

God shoots his arrow at them.

And what happens to their tongues?

Well, actually, their tongues that have practiced deceit, it redounds on them.

And so actually, God has ordered his world such that sin often rebounds on people, it's often in the in the mechanism of the cosmos that you know that uh it comes back around.

People end up reaping what they sow.

So it's worth maybe reflecting on that.

But as we think about this idea of judgment, and this sermon is slightly more thematic.

We're gonna look at three ideas.

Here's the first one.

I'm not gonna give you all three because I'll give the I'll give the game away, uh, as I did with Duncan when I was describing all three of my points.

He's like, oh, I see where you're going.

So I'm not gonna do that.

I'm gonna give you the first point.

Here's the first point.

You ready?

You must have a judgment day.

You must have a judgment day.

One of the reasons why people are, I think, thrown off or put off by religion, particularly the empty religion of our of our country's past, is because of this idea of judgment.

And so we have cast that off, and in its place, uh we have uh sought to champion uh liberation.

We want to throw off the shackles of of religion and guilt and judgment coming from the from the old man in the sky.

And in throwing that off, uh there's a sense that we feel more liberated, we feel more free.

At least that's the idea, that we've cast off the shackles of the old oppression.

But there's a problem.

And the problem is this that the sense of liberation, while euphoric perhaps for a moment, and maybe you've felt it, kind of, oh, I'm free from all of that that old stuff in the past, all of the guilt and the oppressiveness and judgmental people.

And to our shame, there are plenty of them within the church.

And so there's a sense of liberation of throwing that off.

But after a while, you begin to realize, well, it hasn't translated into a feeling of feeling more secure in yourself, more more loved, more accepted, or accepting even of yourself.

That the the the liberation feeling is a bit like a it's a bit like a quick high.

But then reality sets and you think, well, I'm not actually less anxious.

I'm not actually less uh sleepless and uh and worrisome.

I'm not actually less concerned about what other people think of me.

So you've thrown off this and you've gone liberation.

I'm gonna do what I see is right.

And there's that high, but then there's the come down.

You realize, well, actually, there's something a little bit empty to that too.

Why is that?

So you sit here and you think, well, okay, he's saying that we we need more, we need to bring back the judgmental people of the past.

No, no, no, that's not what I'm saying.

Hear me out.

Arthur Miller, who is an American playwright, wrote a play called After the Fall.

And in After the Fall, there's a character called Quentin, and Quentin's a lawyer.

Towards the end of his life, he reflects on his life, and he says, This, I'm going to read you his words in the play, After the Fall.

Listen.

You know, more and more I think that for many years I looked at life like a case at law by a series of like a series of proofs.

When you're young, you prove how brave you are, or smart, then what a good lover, then a good father, finally how wise and powerful, or what the hell ever else.

But underlying it all, I see now there was a presumption that I was moving upward towards something, some elevation where God knows what.

I would be justified or condemned, but there would be a verdict anyway.

And I think that my disaster really began when I looked up one day and I saw that the bench was empty.

There was no judge in sight, and all that remained was an endless argument with oneself.

This pointless litigation of existence before an empty bench.

What's Quentin saying now?

He's saying he's gone through his his whole life trying to prove to others how smart and how brave, what a good lover, what a good father, how wise, how thoughtful, how competent he was.

And he realizes one day that he looks up and the bench of his life, where the judge is, it's empty.

He goes, Well, why am I doing any of this?

It actually leads him to a sense of meaninglessness, not of liberation.

You see, if there's no judgment, if there's no judgment day, then in Quentin's words, life is one endless litigation.

That is just endless argument without a verdict, without somebody saying, that was right, that was wrong, that was virtuous, that was not.

One endless litigation.

What's more is who's to say that one person's actions are better or more useful or more virtuous than another's?

If the bench of the universe, if the bench of your life is empty, then you're free.

The judge is gone.

You have been liberated.

But you're also doomed to a sense of meaninglessness, an endless, meaningless wandering.

Because there is no ultimate, no ultimate being, no ultimate standard, no ultimate good towards which to strive.

There is no verdict, just an endless argument with yourself.

Maybe, in a sense, part of the reason why you're here this morning is you you're beginning to feel that.

You hadn't quite been able to put the vocabulary to it, but there's a sense of okay, why am I doing what I'm doing?

I believe that I believe that there's no if the bench is empty, yes, I've tasted the liberation of that.

I've tasted the high and how good that feels, but actually, is there more?

Is there something more solid?

So you're beginning to kind of sense and taste the meaninglessness of the bench of your life, of the universe being empty.

So no judgment ultimately leads to meaningless individually, but it also has problems for us collectively.

As a community, as a society, as a world.

It leaves us meaningless as individuals, but it also leaves us hopeless as a society in the face of injustice.

People tend to think that uh religion is the thing that breeds conflict, that judgment is what causes people to become uh aggressive towards others.

But step back and think a second and ask yourself this question.

What is more likely to cause someone to take up arms in revenge?

The idea that there is no ultimate judgment, that justice will never truly be done in the future by another?

Or the idea that there is a God, that there is a God who sees, who hears, and who will ultimately act to answer the injustice of the world?

What is more likely to lead to the laying down of arms?

What do you say to someone who has experienced profound injustice?

Profound abuse and trauma at the hands of another who's been sinned against grievously, who's experienced the abuse or perhaps even the murder of a loved one?

What do you say to them?

Violence won't solve anything.

It'll only damage society further.

It will be fine as far as I go.

What do you say?

There is a judge.

There is a judge who sees, who knows?

Who will not?

It's not you.

There will be a judgment day.

There will be a reckoning and answering.

But it won't come from you because there's a better judge than you.

There is a judge and it's not you.

David, the writer of this psalm, Psalm 64, he's the king.

You remember that?

This is the king writing.

And look at what he he says in verses 1 and 2.

Hear my voice, O God, in my complaint.

Preserve my life from the dread of the enemy, hide me from the secret plots of the wicked, from the throng of evildoers.

There's a little parenthetical note.

The complaints department of heaven is never closed.

I love that word complaint.

I wish to lodge a complaint.

You can always lodge a complaint with a God who made you.

Hear my complaint, O God.

But look at what David is doing.

He's not crying out into the void.

Into the void of meaninglessness because he's the bench is empty.

What am I to do?

No, no, he doesn't say that.

Nor does he, as the most powerful man in the land, take up arms and command his generals to take vengeance on his behalf.

No.

And why not?

Because he knows that there is a judge and that it's not him.

You see, if there is no judgment, no final analysis, if there is no judgment day at the end, then we are left in a world that is at base about brute power, about you asserting yourself and your rights, your community asserting itself and its rights over another.

Of you having to avenge those around you who have been wounded.

Even if you say, No, that it's the job of the state, well, even the state fails to execute justice fully and effectively.

Or oftentimes states command explicit injustices.

If there is no judgment, then we are left with meaninglessness individually because the bench of our life is empty.

And we are left hopeless in the face of sin and despair as a community, as a society, as a world.

So that's point number one.

You must have a judgment day.

Here's point number two.

You cannot have a judgment day.

I want you to feel the paradox of that, because both are true.

You must have a judgment day.

You cannot have it.

You cannot have a judgment day.

If there is no judgment day, then there is no hope for us.

But if there is a judgment day, there is still no hope for us because of what David goes on to describe.

He goes on to talk about the wicked, to talk about how they how they act, what their weapons, what their methods, what their attitudes are.

Let's read uh it from verse three.

Those who wet uh W H E T is like wetting the blade of a sword, those who wet their tongues, they're sharpening their tongues like swords, who aim bitter words like arrows, shooting from ambush at the blameless, shooting at him suddenly and without fear.

They hold fast to their evil purpose, they talk of lying snares, secretly thinking who can see them.

They search out injustice, saying, We have accomplished a diligent search, for the inward man, mind and heart of a man are deep.

What do these people do?

They use their tongues as weapons.

They speak bitterly about others.

They speak resentfully, snidly, cruelly.

They do these things, and they know that they are wrong, and in their pride they say, Well, who can see?

Nobody can see me.

I'm doing this in the privacy of my own home.

I'm not harming anyone.

And they are proud.

They are proud of who they are and what they have done.

That's verse 6a.

And then something strange happens in verse 6b, where David gives us this little comment, that little phrase.

It's you you think about it and you think, well, what does that mean?

And that's part of my job is to sit all week and think, what does that mean?

Verse 6b, for the inward mind and heart of a man are deep.

How does that flow?

How does that fit?

Here's what I think is happening.

Think David is complaining about these people who are after him.

Think David is complaining about people who speak bitterly, who are snide, who stab folks in the back, who lay traps in order to catch people out, who love to see people come to ruin, who like to kick people when they're down.

I think he's complaining about these people that are harming him.

But in the midst of his complaint, 6B comes and he catches himself.

He catches himself and he realizes, do you know what?

I'm not too far from that.

Because you know the depths of my heart, the depths of my mind are deep.

The word deep could be translated evil.

It's like David is complaining about legitimate injustice, but he stepped back and goes, Do you know what?

That apple doesn't quite fall as far from the tree as I would like.

I know I'm complaining about these guys, and I know that what I'm experiencing is legitimate injustice, but it's not just the case that I am a completely white victim and they are a completely tainted uh persecutor.

It's not that I'm completely innocent and they're completely guilty.

He's steps like and goes, you know what?

All of the things that they're doing that exists in my heart too.

Exists in my mind as well.

There's something quite mature, quite reflexive about David, I think, in 6b.

And that is why he says in verse 9, uh, then all mankind fears.

Why?

He fears the judgment of God.

David realizes not just the depths of the sin that is being committed against him, but his own depths.

Do you?

You think about the the way these perpetrators are acting, the way that they are speaking, the way that they have been given to pride or think that God does not see.

Do you have a 6B moment where you step back and go, oh, this isn't just me pointing fingers?

Actually, there are three others pointing back at me.

If that is what you do, then you're in the company of the king and you are taking a very necessary step towards what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

Why does all mankind fear in verse 9?

When the judgment of God comes, why is everybody terrified?

Well, because as the psalmist says elsewhere, Lord, if you counted our iniquities, who could stand?

Who can stand in the judgment of God?

That's why point two is point two.

You need the judgment day, but you cannot have it.

You cannot possibly take it.

Because who could stand?

And again, we look at verse 6b and we dig around in it a little bit more, and and you see what what else David says there.

What is it that are that is evil in a man, in a woman, in a person?

Is it their actions?

No, it's not even what David says.

The inward mind and heart of a man are deep, are evil.

You see, in the end, you'll be judged on your heart, not on your obedience.

Have you realized that?

Think of the the parable of the prodigal son or the parable of the two sons.

The prodigal uh tell you know, flips his father the bird, goes and lives the uh the high life uh with you know at sex and drugs and rock and roll, and and comes back to his father, a broken man crying out for mercy.

Where's the older brother?

The older brother's out in the field.

The older brother has always served his father.

The older brother has always obeyed.

The older brother was always by the father's side, he was always at church, he was always at Bible study.

But one of the things you realize at the end of that is that the heart of the older brother couldn't be further from the father.

Wasn't I always here with you?

You didn't even give me a young goat to celebrate with my friends.

So he excludes himself from the party.

Not because of his obedience or lack thereof, but because of his heart.

You'll be judged in the end, not on your obedience, but on your heart.

And on your mind.

You'll be judged in the end on what you know.

People love to come to me and they they say things like, Well, if you believe that Jesus is the only way to go, well, what about people who have never heard the gospel?

What about people uh in the in the Amazon rainforest?

Do you believe that God is going to going to judge them?

Yeah.

God is going to judge them on what they know.

God is going to judge them on their mind.

I think that's clearly argued from Romans 1.

We don't have time to go into that, but you can ask me about that later.

But here's the thing: God will judge them on what they know, and he will judge you on what you know.

And you're here, and they're there, and you know more.

And so you will be judged more harshly on what you have done with the information that you have gathered.

When you come Sunday by Sunday and we say, Do you know what Jesus is the only way to the Father?

That he has paid for your sin, that he stands ready to receive you by his grace.

Would you not come to him?

You know more.

And what will you do with that?

God's judgment comes suddenly on the wicked.

In verse 9, he shoots his arrow and they are ruined.

It's almost though as though they're they're shooting volley after volley after volley of arrows at David, and God just quickly fires off one arrow and they're dismayed, they're destroyed.

Such is the the swift and final judgment of God.

And so you must have a judgment day.

But you cannot have a judgment day.

So, what is the answer?

Point three.

Judgment day has already happened.

That's why I didn't give away the story.

Judgment Day has already happened.

How does David finish in verse 10?

He says, Let the righteous one rejoice in the Lord and take refuge in him.

Let all the upright in the earth exult.

Given what we have seen already, how is it that we can, or David, how is it that David can say, Well, uh I'm righteous, and so I'm going to take refuge in the Lord?

How is it that you can say, Well, I'm going to I'm going to take refuge in the Lord and be counted righteous?

How can you say that?

How can I say that?

It is because of the righteous one.

The righteous one.

How is it that we can stand in the judgment?

How is it that we can stand in that judgment day that we need?

Because it has already fallen on the righteous one.

This is the gospel.

Judgment is coming.

Judgment is necessary for the writing of injustices and the wickednesses of men and women in the world.

We don't at bottom want a God who, in the final analysis, will look at the people who have harmed you and harmed who you have loved and say, it's all right.

Come on in.

You don't want that.

You want judgment to fall.

You just don't want it to fall on you.

But the gospel is that judgment is coming.

The judgment is necessary for the righting of injustices in the world.

But if it comes to us all, it would sweep us all away.

The only one who can be submerged under the floodwaters of God's judgment only to emerge victorious is Jesus the righteous one.

He is great David's greater son.

He is the king par excellence, the one who sits eternally upon David's throne.

He is the only one who has the power to be submerged under the judgment of God.

Why?

Because he had no sin of his own.

And yet he bore ours on his body on the tree, as Peter tells us.

So the judgment day has already fallen.

It came outside Jerusalem one Friday afternoon around 33 AD.

And Jesus died, and he takes the judgment of God for all who would trust in him.

How can you stand in the judgment?

By taking refuge in the righteous one.

And in doing so, Jesus on the cross has shown us that God is a God of justice and that every injustice will be paid for, either in the lives of the perpetrator or in the lives of in the life of Jesus Himself, as he dies upon a cross.

And so David's invitation could not be clearer.

It is this it is take refuge in the righteous one.

How do you stand in the judgment?

In him, because you're sheltered in him, sin taken, judgment born.

And so you really can live a liberated life.

A life free from guilt and shame because Jesus has taken it, but also not just a life free from the from the those negative things, but free to something.

Free to live for Him, to live into the way that you were made to be.

It's a much fuller and truer liberation.

Why?

Because the bench of the universe isn't empty.

There is a judge on it, but he loves you and has taken away your sin and has set you as captives free.

You then can rejoice in the judgment of God because it is no longer something to be in fear and dread of.

Until you realize that everything is ultimately meaningless.

It is sand spilling through your fingers.

If you believe that there is a judgment, but that you could stand up in it because of your virtue, then you will become proud and condemning of others.

Like the religious leaders of Jesus' day.

That is how you create a judgmental person.

That is why I hope that you will not leave here thinking, okay, I need to be more judgmental.

You will only do so if you think, well, yes, there is a judgment, and I'll be fine.

Because of my own merit, because of my own virtue.

But if you believe that there is a judgment, and that you could not possibly stand in it, that you need someone to take that judgment in your place, then brother or sister, you are a follower of Jesus.

The result of that outlook is not pride.

We do not condemn others.

Why?

Because we know the depths of our own sin.

We know what lengths it was that Jesus had to go to in order for us to be forgiven.

So how can we stand in condemnation of others?

But it also gives us courage, knowing that the depths of all mankind, their minds and their hearts are wicked.

And so we call them to turn aside from that coming judgment and to take refuge in the righteous one.

This is how we can be tolerant of people.

You know, people talk about tolerance being such a great virtue.

Tolerance, not to get too technical about it, but tolerance is a contingent virtue.

It's got to kind of sit on something else for it to really mean something.

Tolerance now means everybody else is equally right.

But to actually disagree with someone and to not harm them, you need to realize that there is a judge and I'm not him.

That's how you tolerate people.

That's how you become a tolerant person.

Because you realize that the bench of the universe is not actually empty.

You see, if you realize that there is a judgment day and that there is a judge, and that you could not possibly stand in that judgment, it should have the effect of making you more humble, more courageous, more tolerant, loving, and compassionate.

That is why the biblical idea of a judgment, a judgment day, or God who judges is good.

It's good for you individually, it's good for this church body.

It's good for our city.

It is good.

It keeps us from despair.

That in the midst of sin and abuse and trauma and an injustice and oppression, that we know that in the end the judge of all the earth will do right.

And it means too that we can work in our lives, in our day, to bring about that justice now, to advocate for those who are voiceless, weak, and helpless, to be an advocate for the orphan and the alien and the widow, and to strive and to work for their justice because God is concerned for it.

And one day justice will roll down like a mighty river.

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