God's Righteous Judgment

Lord Jesus, as we are gathered this evening, especially to remember the cross on which you died for us. Would I pray that we would come to know something more of what it was that you suffered and what it was that you accomplished for us? Would I pray that you would help me? I pray that you would speak through me. I pray that your word would go forth with power, that your spirit would be here speaking to our hearts. And confirming your word, I ask this in Christ's name and for his glory, amen. Well, this evening, we will be considering the subject of the wrath of God. The the New King James editors provided a heading for this psalm entitlement Thanksgiving for God's righteous judgment, and I think that is a good and a fitting summary and A question, the first question I would like for us to be asking as we work through this psalm is, why should we thank God for his judgment and praise him for his wrath? We know that we are not to take delight in the death of the wicked, so why is it that we should do this? Let's look to this psalm. In verse one, the psalmist says, We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds. I think he's referring to all of God's great and mighty works through history. And he's giving God thanks for that. In verses two and three, God responds, calling attention to a particular wondrous work that is yet to come. He says that the set time that I appoint I will judge with equity when the earth totters and all its inhabitants. It is I who keeps steady its pillars. And God is is drawing attention to the reality and the truth that he will judge the earth. There will be a day when he will judge finally and absolutely. And there are times and seasons when it seems like the earth is tottering and there are the so-called great ones on the earth that that seem to be doing many things. And God is saying, I am the creator. I am the sustainer. It is I who keep steady the pillars of the earth. And it is I who will one day be the one to judge with equity, to set all things right. I will bring about the end. He goes on. In verses four and five, and he gives a warning to those who are wicked and boastful. He says, I say to the boastful, do not boast and to the wicked. Do not lift up your horn. Do not lift up your horn on high or speak with haughty neck. And in view of the fact that it is God who set up and sustains the pillars of the earth, that God is the one with all power. He's warning. the proud and the haughty that one day they will stand before him and they will be called to give account. And there are many things that we could say about pride. But but the thing that really stuck out to me is, you know, you really think about pride is making mockery of the power of God. All pride, it is mocking the power of God. Because whatever power we have, whatever gifts or abilities we have, they are gifts from God. And to boast in them as if they were our own is is utter folly. And God is saying, do not be deceived, I am not mocked. On that day, men will be called to give an account for every idle word spoken, for every claim and boast. And in that day, they will stand naked and open to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. The psalmist continues in verses six and seven. And basically, he says, God alone is the judge. He says, for not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up, but it is God who executes judgment. putting down one and lifting up another. God is the source of all power, and he alone is the one who can lift up and he is the one who will put down every proud look. And in verse eight, the psalmist speaks of the wrath of God being poured out, he says, for in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it And all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs." So God's wrath is likened to wine. Full strength, to speak of the full strength of the wrath of God. And it will be poured out and the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs, to the very last drop. It will be poured out and it will be drank down by the wicked. And then in verse nine, the psalmist praises God for his wrath. He says, but I will declare it forever. I will sing praises to God of Jacob. So looking forward, even with the wicked being judged and condemned, the psalmist says, but I will be praising God and singing his praises to the God of Jacob. And as I said before, we ask ourselves the question, what why is the psalmist praising God for this? Is he taking delight in the death of the wicked? And my answer is no, he's not. In fact, I believe he is taking delight in the love of God. And you may ask, how can that be? And the first answer is we have to understand that God's judgment is motivated by a love of righteousness. When the Bible says that God is love, at least part of what that means is absolutely everything God does is done in love. Everything, including judgment, is motivated by love. The Bible does not say that God is wrath. God is not wrath in the same sense that he is love. Rather, he hates because he loves. I could give an illustration if someone were if I were to ask you, you know, how do you feel about Jewish people? And you say, well, Ben, I love Jewish people. And then I said, well, how do you feel about the Holocaust? You know, are you going to say, well, I'm I'm pretty neutral. Clearly, if we love, we will hate. One necessitates the other. That's why scripture often links love and hatred together. For example, in Psalm 97, it says, let those who love the Lord hate evil. In Romans 12, verse nine, it says, love must be sincere. Hate what is evil. Cling to what is good. And so like the psalmist, when he's praising God for his righteous judgment, We should do the same because we should realize that God's wrath is an expression of the fact that he loves righteousness and praise God for that. Praise God that his wrath burns against evil. That he is not a God who looks upon the atrocities of the world and is neutral toward them. We should be so thankful that God loves what is good and right, and he hates what is evil, what would corrupt it. But secondly, and most importantly tonight, as we reflect on this psalm and these words, we have a unique and a different and a better perspective than the psalmist did at the time he wrote these words. We are able, from our perspective, to appreciate even more how much God really does love righteousness and how and not only that, but how much he loves us because of these words. And as we do that, I want to meditate for a minute on the cross and just what it was that Christ did for us at Calvary. Many emphasize with regards to the cross, all the suffering that men inflicted on Christ. And I don't think any of us can can even wrap our minds around the degree of the suffering that he he endured, the being beaten, being mocked, abandoned by his disciples, betrayed, being nailed to a cross that the physical pain of the cross is something that none of us can relate to. None of us could know. And yet. If we look through the history of the Christian church, we would find that there have been countless men and women who have been martyred for their faith in Christ, suffering the very worst suffering that men are capable of inflicting. And yet many of them have gone to their graves with peaceful hearts, singing the praises of God. It's remarkable and it's supernatural. And yet we read, as we read earlier tonight, Christ in the garden in preparation for this sweat, great drops of blood. Are we to conclude that these martyrs for Christ had more courage than Christ himself? What what was the difference? And one of the things that Psalm 75 reveals to us is that the cross was not merely something inflicted by men, but far more deeply and far more significantly, the cross was about a punishment inflicted by God. When Jesus was in the garden, sweating these great drops of blood, you remember what he was praying. He said, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. What is in the cup? Psalm 75 tells us, verse eight, for in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. The cup represents the wrath of God. It was the wrath of God in the cup, it was the wrath of God that caused Jesus to sweat great drops of blood. I don't think that the threat of what Romans were going to do to him really bothered him that much. He's tough. but the threat of what his own father would do. That is what inspired great sweating of drops of blood. And as I prepared for this message, one of the things that I wrestled with and I thought about is what does it mean to bear the wrath of God? I've heard this emphasized in so many messages, and I There is a mysterious element to it. There is something about really pinning down what does this mean that I don't think I've ever heard done and I don't think I will be able to do tonight. But I want to to attempt to bring something more to. Flesh this out so we can understand more of what our Lord suffered for us. Think simply. To bear God's wrath means to bear his holy hatred and righteous indignation. The first biblical analogy for what it is like to experience wrath is wrath is likened to a fire. Many times in scripture, you know, God, he tells Moses, let me alone that my wrath may burn hot against them. And perhaps if you're like me, many of us, you've experienced something of what it is like to be hated. There's been someone in your life who has hated you, has been outraged against you. And it really does feel like standing before a fire, a furnace. You can just feel the wrath, the anger, the burning indignation and to experience that is bad enough when it is unrighteous anger or hatred. But how much worse when it is righteous indignation? Perhaps you've experienced a few times in your life when you have. Done something wrong and you knew it was wrong, and then you had to confront. A very unhappy person. about it and how much worse it is when that anger and that wrath is not unjustified, but is the result of something you really did do. It has a way of, you know, we feel this guilt that burns within us and we can kind of lay it aside and pretend it's not there. But when that person is facing you. It's like putting a finger on a pressure point, it's like shining a laser beam of heat and light and it burns the terrible thing. And imagine for a moment what it's like when it is. You know, I think every example of even somewhat righteous anger we've endured has been with a great deal of mercy and forgiveness because it's coming from a person who has experienced that and is showing us grace and mercy. But the wrath of God is without mercy. It is demanding payment for something you cannot pay. It is something that there is no forgiveness. And I think for a moment of what it would have been like for Christ to have to go and stand before the wrath of his own father with our sin. Our sin really was counted as his. He really was treated as if he had committed our sin and he had to stand before the wrath of Almighty God, the infinite hatred and indignation against sin. Secondly. The Bible likens wrath to a winepress revelation, it speaks of the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. If we were to think about what it is like to be hated, to feel the weight of that anger and that righteous and ending nation against us, it is heavy. It. Presses in around us in Proverbs, chapter 27, it says a stone is heavy and sand is weighty, but a fool's wrath is heavier than both of them. And in Psalm 88, the psalmist writes. You speaking to the Lord, you have laid me in the lowest pit in darkness, in the depths. Your wrath lies heavy upon me. And then he goes on, he says, I have been afflicted and ready to die for my youth. I suffer your terrors. I am in despair. You know, sometimes we speak of the crushing weight of despair. The wrath of God brings despair. It is like a wine press that squeezes down and crushes out every ounce of hope and joy and life and peace. If there's anything that brings despair in our lives, it is the loss of relationships. The loss of loved ones is perhaps the most painful thing that we face. But far worse than a relationship loss is one broken. You know, imagine for a moment that the person you love most. And if somehow you you did something against them. That, you know, if you're a spouse, you commit adultery. You murder your own child with your own blood and you have to stand and look your spouse in the eye. I mean, can you imagine? what that would be like. And Christ had to stand before his father. The one for whom he did everything that his. He always did what was pleasing for his father, and yet he had to stand before him with our sin, the blood of our sin on his own hands. It was a relationship not merely lost, but broken. We said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It wasn't not merely silence, but rejection. It was a rejection because he had our sin on his hands. Isaiah, as it is written in Isaiah 53, all we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. He was led as a lamb to the slaughter and as a sheep before it sure is silent. So he opened not his mouth and they made his grave with the wicked, but with the rich at his death because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. You listen to this. Yes, it pleased the Lord to crush him. God has put him to grief. crushed in the winepress, the fierceness and the wrath of Almighty God. Now, in light of what Christ bore on the cross, what does this teach us about the love of God? First, it teaches us how much God loves righteousness and hates sin. As much as the father loves his son, when our sin was counted to him, it pleased the father to crush him. Jesus prayed if it was possible, let this cup pass from me, but when he bore our sin, even he could not be, it could not be overlooked. The price had to be paid. He couldn't bear it without dying. How much does God love righteousness? How much less will God overlook sin in us? Secondly. It teaches us how deep God's love is for us. Because Christ knew what he would face, he knew what he had to suffer and willingly he went to the cross for us. For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross. For us. He willingly bore that because he loves us. Finally, verse 10, the the authors of the editors of the ESV have interpreted this as being the words of the psalmist, other editors interpret this or translators interpret this as being A summary provided by God himself, I tend to side with that interpretation, and so we'll read it as such. The Lord summarizing, saying all the horns of the wicked, I will cut off. But the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up. And as this song teaches that judgment will come at the appointed time and God's wrath will be poured out. And the message of the gospel is either you will drink it or Christ has drank it for you. We're called to believe. The glory of the gospel is by faith. The wrath is satisfied, Christ really did pay it all. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. It really is finished. So if you do not believe, I pray that you would believe that you would receive this gift. And we who do believe, let us rejoice because the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up. On that day, when Christ returns to judge the earth, we will stand before him, counted righteous in him. And not only that, but on that day, we will actually be made righteous in him as well, because you will have a new body. And what a glorious thing it will be to be lifted up by the Lord who has loved us and has given himself for us. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we praise you for the cross. We praise you that you are a God who loves righteousness, and at the same time, you are a God who loves us. We praise you that you have made a way, that you bore the wrath You drank the cup of the wrath of God to the very dregs. We praise you that you have freed us from all condemnation and all fear. We pray that you would be greatly glorified in and through us. Amen.