Psalm 76

Let's turn to Psalm 76, and I want to ask this question right at

the beginning of the psalm.

Is your God too small?

Louis XIV of France came to the throne in 1643 at the age of

four, and he reigned for 72 years.

During that time, he built France up to be the leading nation

in Europe.

Everything was centered on him.

The country, indeed the continent, revolved around him like

the planets around the sun.

And just as the sun gives life to the universe, so Louis felt that

he was like the sun, giving life and stability to his people

and indeed to the whole continent.

And so he came to be known as the Sun King.

The palace of Versailles, maybe some of you have been there

on holiday, was designed to illustrate his power.

And all the power resided in the king.

And it radiated outwards from there, just like the rays of the

sun.

And he even had symbols of the sun adorning the palace.

When Louis died at the age of 77, he planned his funeral carefully.

The service was held in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The king was led in state in a golden coffin, and the whole church

was in pitch darkness, save for one light suspended above the

coffin to illustrate that he and he alone was the light.

The congregation gathered.

The crowned heads of Europe sat in the pews.

And as they contemplated the sight of this one candle in the darkened

church, they were meant to think that all the power resided

in Louis and radiated outward like the light given by that candle.

His court chaplain, Bishop Jean Baptiste Massion, conducted

the funeral service.

And Massion's opening words were startling.

Remember, here is the Sun King.

Here are the crowned heads of Europe.

And Massion stood up and he said these words, only God is great.

A reminder to all of them that in the face of God, great though

they thought they were, they were nothing.

And that ultimately, before God, even the Sun King was nothing.

Psalm 76 concerns a king who considered himself to be all powerful

and who even mocked and challenged God.

Judah, the nation of Judah was under threat, and who would they

turn to?

You remember that when Israel split into two nations, Judah and

the northern kingdom of Israel, Israel and the nation of

Aram ganged up and threatened the smaller state of Judah.

And so King Ahaz, the king of Judah at the time, wondered what

he could do.

And so he turned to Assyria for protection.

And Assyria was the greatest nation in the region at that time,

greater than Egypt, greater than all the other nations around.

And they said, yes, we'll protect you, Judah, but you must

become our vassal state.

That means you must pay tribute to us.

Give us all your money.

You must adopt our Assyrian gods.

You must give up your sovereignty.

And in return for all of that, you have our security.

But then godly King Hezekiah came to the throne in Judah and he

began to build up Jerusalem in order to rebel against Assyria.

He strengthened the walls of the city.

He built the Siloam Tunnel to ensure a steady water supply.

He stockpiled food in storage jars.

He smashed those from false idols.

He reopened the temple and restored the worship of God.

Now you can imagine how Assyria would react to that.

They're losing the money that they would receive from Judah.

They're losing the land.

That was a great benefit to them as a frontier against these

other nations.

They were losing their power and their control over the people

of Judah.

And when their king, the mighty king Sennacherib, launched

a military campaign to quell this rebellion he sent an army of

185,000 men to Judah.

46 fortified cities were destroyed.

Over 200,000 people were deported.

Judah's territory was redistributed among the Assyrians.

And Hezekiah and the people crowded into Jerusalem for safety

and that army of 185,000 camped around them.

What would Hezekiah do?

Well, we're told that he tore his clothes, that he went to the

temple.

He sent for Isaiah the prophet, and he prayed.

It was a prayer that was desperate.

Hear, O Lord, our God, deliver us from his hand so that all kingdoms

of earth may know that you alone, O Lord our God.

You can read about that in 2 Kings, chapter 19.

2 Kings 19 · chapter mention

But would God hear his prayer?

Would God answer?

Would God deliver his people?

60 years ago I learned a poem in school.

Maybe some of you learned it as well.

The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold.

His cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold and the sheen of

their spears was like stars on the sea when the blue wave rolls

nightly on deep Galilee.

But the poem goes on.

The angel of death spread his wings on the blast and breathed in

the face of the foe as he passed.

And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill and their

hearts but once heaved and forever grew still.

And the widows of Asher are loud in their wheel and the idols

are broken.

The temple of baal.

The might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword hath melted

like snow in the glance of the Lord.

Lord Byron was no Christian man.

But there he captured the essence of God's delivery in those

famous words.

And that final line answers the question, would God hear the

Prayer of Hezekiah the gentile enemy hath melted like snow in the

glance of the Lord.

God heard Hezekiah's prayer, and the prophet Isaiah gave this

message.

And you can read about this in Isaiah chapter 19, which also tells

Isaiah 19 · chapter mention

the story.

Isaiah said, he that is sennacherib will not enter this city

or shoot an arrow here.

He will not come before it with shield, or build a siege ramp

against it.

By the way that he came, he will return.

He will not enter this city, declares the Lord.

And so it's in the light of this great deliverance that Psalm

76 is written.

It's split up into three simple parts, three verses in each

one.

The first part, verses 1 to 3 1, reminds us that God knows, or

his people know God.

And what does it mean to know God?

Well, it's not just to know about him.

It means to have an intimate relationship with God.

To know God in this way is to have a saving relationship with him.

And it's wonderful to know God in that way, not just to know about

him.

Maybe you learned about God in school, as we were talking to the

children in Sunday school, as we were saying to the children, you

heard stories about him, you learned about his character and about

the great things that he did, or hearing sermons from this pulpit

over the years.

But the word know in the Bible means more than simply to have head

knowledge about somebody.

It means more than to be able to say, well, I know him.

In the Book of Amos, God says, you only have I known of all the

families of the earth.

Now, that doesn't mean that God isn't aware of other families,

but that he has entered into this special covenant relationship

with the people of Israel.

And that's exactly what Psalm 76 means when it says that God is

known, the people have an intimate covenant relationship with

him.

I know King Charles iii.

If he were to walk in the door, I would say, you, Majesty,

I know you.

You're very welcome.

Take a.

And he would sit down and somebody would turn to him and say,

do you know Michael Barry?

He said, who?

Never heard of him.

And there are people who say they know God because they know about

God.

But does God know them?

One of the saddest passages in the Bible, one of the saddest things

that Jesus ever said, was there a time when he was talking

about that great day of judgment when people will be divided

into two.

There will be the sheep and the goats, there will be the saved

and the unsaved, there will be the righteous and there will be the

sinful.

And there will be people that day who will say, lord, Lord, did

we not prophesy in your name?

Did we not preach in your name?

Did we not serve in your name?

Did we not hold the church together in your name?

Is that you today will you plead that on that great day when

you stand before the judge, and then we hear the words of Jesus

depart from me?

For I never knew you.

Oh, I know who you are.

I know your name.

I know your life.

I know everything.

I know you better than you know yourself.

But I never knew you in that saving, covenantal, intimate relationship

that the Bible is talking about.

The psalm goes on to point out that God's tent is in Salem.

Salem is the oldest name for Jerusalem.

And in Genesis, chapter 14, we read that Melchizedek, king of Salem,

Genesis 14 · chapter mention

met Abraham.

And by using Salem as the name here in Psalm 76, we are reminded

that the people of this city, just where they are, are in the place

of peace.

Because Salem comes from the word shalom, Peace.

And it's even more telling that the psalm says, his tent is

in Salem.

The word is actually the word tabernacle.

Now, if you know your Old Testament story, you'll remember

that when the people of Israel came from Egypt and were going to

the promised land, they made a tabernacle, a tent, on the instructions

of God.

And this was to be the place of sacrifice.

It was to be the place of meeting with God.

And it was always in the very center of the camp.

And from the people's point of view, this is where God lived.

God dwelt there in our midst.

And so whenever the psalmist is reminding them that God's tent

is in Salem, it's in Jerusalem.

God is dwelling in our midst.

I don't remember much about the Greek that I learned at Union

College, but one thing always stuck with me.

We were studying John's Gospel, and we had to learn to translate

it from the Greek into the English.

And you know that John 1:14 says, the word became flesh, talking

John 1:14

about Jesus, the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among

us.

Well, it literally says the word became flesh and tabernacled

among us.

Or as our teacher used to say, the word became flesh and pitched

his tent among us.

Isn't that lovely?

That has always stuck with me that Jesus came and he pitched his

tent, our midst.

He came to be with us.

He came to live with us, not in a house, not in an apartment,

but in the tabernacle, the place of sacrifice, the place of

worship, the place of meeting with God.

And as the people of Jerusalem were encouraged by the thought that

God is dwelling with them, we ought to be encouraged by the thought

that Jesus is with us even today.

Hebrews 13.

God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.

So I say with confidence, the Lord is my helper.

I will not be afraid.

What can man do to me?

And we know that God is able to help us.

Look at the scene on the hills around Jerusalem.

He broke the flashing arrows, the shields and the swords and the

weapons of war.

And then we have that strange word, selah, that appears in the

Psalms.

It's hard to know just what it means, but it's generally felt that

it's a musical term which means pause.

So if you were singing those first three verses, or if you're

reading those first three verses, pause, think about what they're

saying.

Meditate on them.

Give them proper thought.

Don't just read and rush on.

Those verses are significant.

And then verses 4 to 6 remind us that in view of all that God has

done on behalf of the people, God is resplendent, he is majestic.

He is glorious.

As you pause after those three verses, you come to this conclusion.

How great is our God?

The greatest army in the world cannot stand against him.

And perhaps more importantly for you and for me, our greatest

enemy, Satan, cannot stand against him.

Of course, there'll be times when we'll be wounded by enemies.

There'll be times when the trials of life will almost overwhelm

us.

But here's the truth of the matter.

Our God is glorious.

Our God is great.

Our God is majestic, and he will never be defeated.

I remember many years ago reading a little book, your God Is

Too small, written by J.B. phillips.

Hence my question at the very beginning.

Is your God too small?

And in that book, J.B. phillips takes the first half of

the book to explain how people have different ideas about God.

And all of them are inadequate.

All of them are far too small.

And then in the second half of the book, he points out who God really

is.

He's the one who came to dwell among us in His Son, the Lord Jesus

Christ.

I wonder if your view of God is too small.

Do you think God's inadequate?

Do you think you need to help him in some way?

Do you think there are parts of your life that he is not able

to help with, that there are parts of your life that he has got

to stay out of?

Do you think that there are things that only you can do?

And as a last resort, perhaps you'll Go and ask God about it.

If that's the case, your God is too small.

Because this psalm reminds us that this is a great God who can

do all things.

And we see in the next verses, in verses 7 to 9, that God will judge

the wicked and therefore should be feared.

The Bible has much to say about the judgment of God.

The words here are emphatic.

It literally says, you are terrible, you are.

You may have heard people saying something like, it's going

to rain tomorrow, so it is.

Or, I went to Newcastle yesterday, so it did.

Those are very often just words that are said without any thought.

But here God is repeating that for are terrible, you are.

Or as it's translated in the modern versions, you yourself are

to be feared.

But there's something else about judgment that we often overlook

when we think of it.

It's not just about the condemnation of the wicked, but it's

also about his defense of his people.

Because there's another significant phrase at the end of

verse nine, when you, O God, rose up to judge, to save all the

afflicted of the land.

God uses his might to judge the ungodly, but in doing so, he

delivers the oppressed.

He cares about the poor and the needy.

And every wrong will be set right or recompensed when God stands

in judgment.

This section of the psalm celebrates both aspects of God's

judgment, His judgment against the world and his vindication of

his people.

And then finally, we come to that last part, and verse 10 is actually

difficult to translate.

And I want to take issue with the NIV here, because I think it's

got it wrong.

What we read in the NIV is, surely your wrath against men brings

you praise.

God's wrath brings him praise.

But that's not what it says.

It says, surely the wrath of man shall praise you.

Now, how does the wrath of man praise God?

Well, he's sovereign, and he allows certain things to happen,

including people being angry, filled with wrath against him, because

human wrath ends up praising God.

In the story of Sennacherib, his wrath against God was turned

around and it brought praise to God.

Or think of the story of Joseph and his amazing coat of many

colors.

And his brothers were so jealous, were so filled with wrath

that they sold him as a slave to Egypt and went home and told their

father that he was dead.

Can you imagine anything worse?

But God was with Joseph, and he rose in Egypt to become second

only to Pharaoh.

And years later, when his brothers went down to Egypt during

the famine to look for food, and they met the prime minister.

They didn't know who he was until Joseph revealed himself to

them.

And then he said, those famous you, what you did to me, you meant

it for evil, but God meant it for good.

And even the very wrath of those brothers brought praise to

God.

But there's one more supreme example of how man's wrath ends up

praising God.

Salem, as we have seen, was the old name for Jerusalem.

It means peace.

Where Melchizedek met with Abraham and blessed him.

It's the city where God chose to dwell.

The city of peace.

But Salem's deepest promise of peace was not met for 300 years.

One day, a man rode into Jerusalem on a donkey.

And when they looked down on the city, he wept because he knew

that the people were not pursuing the peace that God offered.

Jesus had pleaded with them, but the people rejected him.

And now he's to face not only their rejection, he's to face their

very wrath.

And in that wrath, the chief priests led the campaign to have

him put to death.

The Romans cooperated and the people cried out, crucify him.

He's about to face the white hot wrath of the people.

And as Jesus is put to death and as his lifeblood drains from

his body, all hell rejoiced.

And Satan rejoiced because the Son of God is dead.

God is disgraced and defeated.

But at that very moment, as Jesus cried out, it is finished.

God was glorified in ways that he has never been glorified.

To prove that he had won, God raised Jesus from the dead.

Satan was defeated.

And death, Satan's greatest weapon of fear against you and me,

was defeated too.

And the apostle Paul cried, o death, where is your victory?

O death, where is your sting?

Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus

Christ.

The cross, the very thing the world despises, becomes the very

thing that displays God's glory.

And at the end, we're told that we must commit ourselves to

God.

Make your vows to the Lord and fulfill them.

We're to enter into that intimate relationship with God.

We're to bind ourselves to him so that we can say, I know God.

He's my Father.

He's my friend, he's my Savior.

And we've got to devote ourselves because only then does

life have any true meaning.

And the invitation today is simple and clear.

We need to come to the Lord Jesus in humility to confess our

sins.

We need to commit ourselves to him in repentance and in faith.

We need to give him an undivided heart.

We need to make our vow to follow him and then to fulfill the

vows that we have made in the past.

And this is our great God?

Or let me ask you the question one last time.

Is your God too small?

Let us pray.

Our great and mighty God, you are the one whose name is great in

all the earth.

And yet you draw near to us with mercy and with steadfast love.

As we go from this place, help us to remember your greatness.

May we not worship a small God.

Make us people who walk in reverent confidence knowing that

you alone are to be feared and that you alone are our refuge and

that you alone will rescue us.

And so as we lift our voices in our closing hymn shape our longing

to match these words.

High King of Heaven, be our vision when our way is dim Be our

wisdom when there are choices to be made.

Set our minds on Christ, our path and our prize that in all things

he would be first for it's in his name we pray.

Amen.