The Bible Study Hour

Dr. James Boice: The Psalms appeal to us in part because of their honesty. One example is the way they acknowledge the success of the wicked. All too often, evil really does triumph over and boasts about its oppression of the weak, the helpless, and sometimes even the righteous.

Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour. A radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boyce, preparing you to think and act biblically. The problem is not that we serve an unjust God, but that his justice is sometimes delayed from our perspective. And men succumbed to thinking that the Lord isn't aware of the actions of the ungodly.

Dr. James Boice: Let's join Dr. Boyce as he shows us from Psalm 94 that it's okay for the righteous to call on the Lord to avenge their enemies, and that in the end, God's judgment and justice will prevail.

Dr. James Boice: The Psalms have always appealed to the people of God and for a variety of reasons, but one reason they appeal so much is that they're so honest. That is they tell things as they are, not always completely, of course, because we don't always see things completely ourselves. But they tell part of the truth and then that partial truth is often balanced with another that we also need to hear.

Dr. James Boice: Now, one of the things the Psalms speaks so honestly about is the triumph of the wicked. The psalmist look out at the world and they say in effect this is not a just world.

Dr. James Boice: The evil triumph, and not only that, they boast about it, and they do it in addition, sometimes, over the godly. Now that's never the entire truth, of course, as I said. It is true that they triumph, but it's only for a time. It is also true that judgment comes. But from any one point in history, and one individual's experience when we look out that is certainly the way it seems to be.

Dr. James Boice: Now, that's what Psalm 94 is all about. It's a psalm that is looking out at the evil of the world, particularly the triumph of evil people over those who are weak and godly, and it calls upon God to do something.

Dr. James Boice: Now, how are we to react to that? Well, one thing is that we shouldn't be surprised. C.H. Spurgeon has a great sermon on this Psalm, in which he says right at the beginning, the godly, the righteous, shouldn't be surprised at this because this is the way it's always been. The world persecutes those who are God's people. And then he gave examples that would be lively to the people of his day. He spoke about the Covenanters, that is the Scottish Covenanters that wanted to live, as they saw, by obedience to the word of God in a strict sense, and were literally hunted down because of their stand for godliness. And he says it's always been that way, you shouldn't expect it to be different.

Dr. James Boice: Well, that's true. We shouldn't be surprised when evil triumphs because it's been that way. And yet that isn't all we should do either. We shouldn't be satisfied to see it that way. And what we should do is call out to the Lord to intervene and give victory for those who are really trying to serve him. Now, as I said, that's what the Psalm is doing.

Dr. James Boice: I pointed out when we were talking about the last Psalm, and even the one before that, that we have entered a block of Psalms now, which seem to focus upon the role of God as king. It's characteristic of these Psalms that the words Yahweh Melek occur. Yahweh is the Hebrew name for God, the great Covenant name for God. And then Melek means king or reign. So they are either translated, Jehovah is king, or they are translated the Lord reigns. It's both the same idea.

Dr. James Boice: Now, this Psalm, 94, is thought to be an interruption in that, because the words don't actually occur here, and yet that's probably not the case. What this Psalm does do is describe God's function as a judge. And when we remember that in the ancient world, the rule of a king and the exercise of judgment was often the same thing. The highest court of appeal legally was the king, and the king also ruled, and his rule was supposed to be an expression of his justice. So, although the words don't occur, this is probably a Psalm that should be taken along with the block of Psalms that we are considering.

Dr. James Boice: Now, as far as the outline goes, it's very easy. Sometimes it's hard to find outlines in these Psalms, but this is not difficult. The new international version divides it up rightly. It's got six stanzas. The only question I would raise, and some of the commentators do also, is whether verse three really belongs with the first stanza, or whether it belongs with the stanza that follows. That is, whether verses one and two should stand alone as the call to God, and then verses three through seven talk about the wicked. Now, I think probably three should belong with the second stanza, but it doesn't make any real difference in the interpretation of the Psalm. All we need to do is simply take it a stanza at a time.

Dr. James Boice: Now, verses one and two are calling on God to rise up in judgment against the godless. And that's what we must do as well. As I say, we're not surprised when evil seems to triumph for a time, but we're not to be complacent either. We're to ask God to do something, and that is exactly what is taking place here. The cry that is raised is not the doubt that God is somehow unjust, or maybe the suspicion that he has taken up with those who do evil. It's not a question of that at all. The problem is that justice often seems so long delayed.

Dr. James Boice: And so that's what the psalmist is saying. He's saying, God, we know the evil's out there, and we know you don't have anything to do with that, but look, it's been going on a long, long time. And it's time that something happens, and so they call that way.

Dr. James Boice: Then it bothers some people about these first two verses is that they use the word vengeance, and these people don't like the idea of vengeance. Somehow that seems wrong. Look how they read, "O Lord, the God who avenges. O God, who avenges, shine forth, rise up, O Judge of the Earth, pay back to the proud what they deserve."

Dr. James Boice: Well, some people don't like that. They think it's unworthy of God. And yet it's not, and the psalmist knows that. The problem people like this have is that they mingle two ideas. They mix up the idea of vengeance, which properly belongs to the judge, and in this case, the king, who is God, and revenge, which is what you and I often fall into because of our own emotional involvement with the issues, but which is not a function of the judge and is improper.

Dr. James Boice: Samuel Johnson, the maker of the first great English dictionary, defined it properly. He said, "Revenge is an act of passion, vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged, crimes are avenged." Let me put it another way. Revenge is a response to personal injury, while vengeance is a function of legitimate judicial authority.

Dr. James Boice: Now, I'll give you a text from Paul's writings that shows how those two words should be used. Romans 12, verses 18 and 19, and that quotes Deuteronomy 32. Here's what Paul wrote, "As far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written, 'It is mine to avenge, I will repay,' says the Lord." Vengeance is a proper function of God as judge. It's a way of saying evil must be punished. Revenge is something that we ourselves should not do.

Dr. James Boice: Now, the psalmist is looking for God to do something, and not only is he looking for God to do something, as I've been suggesting here, you and I should be looking for God to do something too. That is quite a different thing from taking vengeance into our own hands.

Dr. James Boice: John Milton, the great poet on one occasion in his time, heard about the massacre of entire Protestant families in Piedmont, that's an area of Northern Italy in the Alps. The families were rooted out and women were violated, even the infants were killed and so forth. It was a great outrage. And he wrote a psalm about it based upon the Psalm. And Milton's verse began, "Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints whose bones lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold."

Dr. James Boice: Now, I'm suggesting that's a proper prayer. Proper request of one who really does desire righteousness. Now we sing it ourselves. We have a hymn that's based upon this Psalm, Psalm 94. And the first stanza of it goes, "O Lord, thou judge of all the earth, to whom all vengeance does belong. Arise and show thy glories forth, requite the proud, condemn the wrong."

Dr. James Boice: Now, when we sing a hymn like that, it's a way of confessing that we stand on the side of God. We're not taking these things into our own hands. It's God's business to dispense justice, but nevertheless, we stand on the side of justice. And so we look to God to do just that.

Dr. James Boice: Now, if verse three belongs with the second stanza, as I believe it does, then the problem that's disturbing the psalmist is the jubilant boasting of the arrogant who don't believe that God sees what they're doing. Just look at that Psalm. You see what they're saying.

Dr. James Boice: What the ungodly are doing is oppressing the weak, and it defines these specifically as the widow, the alien, and the fatherless. These are helpless people in an ancient society and sometimes also today. The widow has no husband to provide for her. The alien has limited rights in a foreign country. And of course, the orphan has no father. So they become the prey of the arrogant. And not only do the arrogant take advantage of the weak, according to this stanza, they're even proud to be able to do it. They boast about it.

Dr. James Boice: And as far as God is concerned, they say, well, God apparently doesn't see because when I do these things, nothing ever happens to me. And so they think that God really doesn't care. Notice, "The Lord does not see, the God of Jacob pays no heed." And the point is that it's true often at least in the short run. Evil do get away with things like that. And it doesn't seem as if God sees and does anything. Do you ever feel like that? Do you ever see situations like that? Of course you do. It's an unjust, evil world. And so the psalmist recognizes that, but at the same time, he appeals to God.

Dr. James Boice: How about the third stanza? In the third stanza, he begins to warn these arrogant oppressors of the world. And he calls them fools for thinking the way they do. The way he warns them is by a series of rhetorical questions that make us think of how Amos, the minor prophet, did exactly the same thing in his prophecy. He was arguing there for cause and effect. And Amos raises questions like this, "Do two walk together unless they have agreed to do so? Does a lion roar in the thicket when he sees no prey? When disaster comes to a city, is not the Lord caused it?" You get the way the questions are used.

Dr. James Boice: And that's exactly what the psalmist does here. Notice, "Does he who implanted the ear not hear? Does he who formed the eye not see? Does he who disciplines nations not punish? Does he who teaches man lack knowledge?" You see, the bottom line of this series of rhetorical questions is what you find in verse 11. "The Lord knows the thoughts of man." In other words, the Lord is omniscient. He knows everything. He knows the thoughts of our minds, and he knows the thoughts of others as well. He has to know all things and be omniscient if he's going to be God.

Dr. James Boice: So anyone who thinks that he's getting away with something is exactly what the psalmist calls him. He is a fool, and perhaps the greatest of all fools to think that he can hide something from the omniscient God or escape the judgment of him who is all powerful. "Shall not the Judge of all the Earth do right?" The answer is yes, and he will at the proper time.

Dr. James Boice: Now, according to verse 11, not only does God know the thoughts of man, he also knows that they're futile. Now, that's not an argument against reason, because the questions that he just raised are meant to stimulate rational, spiritual thinking in the minds of the arrogant. In other words, I want you to think about this. Think about what God is like, and ask yourself the question, if there is a God, and if he's omniscient, as he must be, if he is God, do you really think you can get away with that? He's trying to stimulate real thinking. So when he says that their thoughts are futile, he doesn't mean that reason is futile. What he means is acting like this is futile. Acting as if you can get away with it is the most foolish of all things.

Dr. James Boice: Paul quotes this verse in 1 Corinthians 3:20 to prove that the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. Here's what one of the commentators says, "There has perhaps never been a more devastating demonstration of the foolish thinking which men occasionally become guilty of when they imagine that the Lord is not aware of what they are doing."

Dr. James Boice: Well, he's right, he's profoundly right. But we're often guilty of exactly that kind of thinking. You know, the rabbis had a way of talking about evil and avoiding it, and they said there are three great safeguards to avoiding evil doing or sin. Number one, to know that there is an ear which hears everything. And number two, that there is an eye which sees everything. And number three, that there's a hand that writes it all down in a book that's going to be opened at the last day. That's pretty good, and certainly that's the sort of thing the psalmist would say.

Dr. James Boice: Well, let's go to the next stanza and ask this question. In the meantime, while we're waiting for God's judgment, and it is delayed, what are the righteous to think? The psalmist has asked God to rise up and execute justice. He's described the crimes of the arrogant, which he's asking God to avenge. He's warned them. But now, what about those who are the oppressed? What about the righteous? How are they to conduct themselves?

Dr. James Boice: At this point, beginning with verse 12, the Psalm takes on a quieter tone as the writer begins to address these people. And what he does is assure them that the evils they endure are, hard as it may seem, for their benefit, discipline is what he uses in the school of faith, and that the righteous judgment will certainly be provided by God in the end.

Dr. James Boice: Now, verse 12 sets the tone because it uses that word discipline. This is not discipline which is a punishment for sin. There's that kind of discipline too. A child gets out of line and you punish the child in order to let it know that there are standards and there are penalties when the right standards are not upheld. This is not talking about that. This is talking about the hardships of life that develop character, like Paul does in Romans 5, suffering produces patience, and patience character and so forth. That's what he's talking about.

Dr. James Boice: And so what he does here is not talk about the wrong that the godly may have done, but rather he's encouraging them by four promises. Four things are promised in these verses. Number one, relief from days of trouble in verse 13. The upright do have trouble, as the Psalm has been pointing out, but this trouble is never utterly unmitigated or unrelieved. God provides relief from trouble in his time. And in any case, we have the promise that he's always with us when we're going through it. Jesus said at the very end of the best known version of the Great Commission, "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age." So there's a great promise there.

Dr. James Boice: Secondly, he promises great and eventual punishment for the wicked, also in verse 13. So not only is God going to provide for the righteous and keep them through difficult times, he's also going to punish the wicked in due time. In other words, it says, "A pit is dug for them and they're surely going to fall into it." Now, elsewhere in the Psalms, it's said that the wicked dig pits. They dig them for other people, traps to try and catch the godly, but it also says at other places in the Psalms, they dig a pit, but they fall into it themselves. And that's what the psalmist is saying here.

Dr. James Boice: The third thing is the steadfast faithfulness of God through all of this. And that's what's mentioned in verse 14. "God will not reject his people or forsake his inheritance." He may seem to do it at times when deliverance is delayed, but his people are never abandoned in actuality. Paul had that in mind when he wrote to the Romans, Romans 8:28, "We know that in all things God works for the good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose." It may not seem good. It may not be the good that we desire. What comes into our lives, governed by a faithful God is for our strengthening.

Dr. James Boice: And then finally, the fourth thing, and that is the final triumph of righteousness. This may refer to times of moral and social renewal in Israel, it probably does, or even in some other nation like ours. We would pray for that. We pray constantly for times of moral renewal, but in the ultimate sense, it has to refer to the day of the return of Jesus Christ in judgment. This will be when God Almighty makes the nations his inheritance, the ends of the Earth his possession. It will be, to quote from Philippians, "When at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow in things in Heaven and on Earth and under the Earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

Dr. James Boice: Now, here are four great promises. We ought to ask a question of this stanza, and the question is this, where do the righteous learn about these things? We're looking out at a wicked world. We learn about that in every hand. We pick up a newspaper. It's very easy to learn about the evil of the world. Where do you learn about the promises of God, which seem to stand so counter to what we witness in the world? Well, there's only one answer to that, and that's in the Bible.

Dr. James Boice: In other words, we learn those things by studying the Bible, and that is what the psalmist is talking about in verse 12 when he mentions God's law. In other words, we're sustained by life's troubles, in life's troubles, by the Bible. And so that's where we're to go when things become difficult for us.

Dr. James Boice: And we ask the question at that point, is that indeed what we do? Is that what you do? The author of Psalm 119 wrote, "Though princes sit together and slander me, your servant will meditate on your decrees. Your statutes are my delight, they are my counselors." What he's saying there is that God will provide wonderful counsel for us and strength if we desire it and study the Bible.

Dr. James Boice: Now, having assured the righteous of the things that God is going to do for them, the psalmist adds a word of personal testimony, which is the next stanza, verses 16 through 19. These words recall the major theme of Psalm 73. Remember the psalmist in that Psalm, Asaph, spoke about his foot slipping when he contemplated the wicked. The psalmist here is saying almost the same thing. "When I said, 'My foot is slipping,' your love, O Lord, supported me. When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul."

Dr. James Boice: What's really interesting about that stanza is that the psalmist says that God was the only one who did this. It's not that there should not have been others. One of the privileges of being a Christian is that there are other Christians who are there to encourage us, hold us up. And that's the way it's supposed to work. There are many things that are said about that mutual support in the Bible. But the truth is, often it doesn't happen. And you look around for the kind of help you need and the person you need really isn't there. Now, that's what the psalmist says. When he went through this particular difficult time of his life, he looked around, there was nobody, but there was God. God was always there.

Dr. James Boice: When Paul was in his last imprisonment, remember what he said? He wrote that everyone had deserted him. All those in Asia, 2 Timothy 1:15, and Demas, remember because he loved this present world, 2 Timothy 4:10. 16th verse, he says, "Indeed at my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me." And yet, what was his testimony? Verse 17, the very next verse says, "The Lord stood at my side and gave me strength."

Dr. James Boice: God will do exactly the same thing for you if you feel abandoned by him. Well, we come to the very last stanza. And here we get back to where we started because this picks up the theme of judgment and refers to God as the Judge of all the Earth once again, verses 20 to 23.

Dr. James Boice: "Corrupt judgment, thrones of this Earth cannot be allied with the upright throne of Heaven." And so the psalmist looks for the day when the Judge of the Earth will rise to destroy the wicked for their sins against the righteous. And so we say, in the meantime, what shall the righteous do? Here we are living in a wicked world. What are we to do? And the answer is, the righteous have to live by their faith in God. That's what he is talking about when he says again in a word of testimony, verse 22, "The Lord has become my fortress, and my God, the rock in whom I take refuge." He runs to God and he trusts God.

Dr. James Boice: It's hard to come to this point of the Psalm without thinking of another one of the minor prophets, not Amos, but rather Habakkuk. Habakkuk is the prophet who gives us the text which became such an important text to Martin Luther, and which I've referred to indirectly when I said, what shall the righteous do? They should live by faith. Habakkuk said, "The just shall live by faith." Second chapter, verse 4.

Dr. James Boice: The situation is this, Habakkuk was living in a time of moral decline, and he was praying for revival. Probably in his youth he had witnessed the great revival under Josiah. And so he wanted to see something like that happen again. And so he prayed and said to God in effect, "God, won't you do something?" And God answered and said, "Yes, I'm going to do something. What I'm going to do is send the Babylonians to overthrow the nation because I'm going to judge my people." And Habakkuk said, "Just a minute, that isn't exactly what I was asking for. I was asking for a revival, not judgment." Nevertheless, said God, "Judgment's going to come." And as he began to explain it, what was coming, Habakkuk grew so frightened that he describes it saying, "My heart pounded, my lips quivered, decay kept into my bones, and my legs trembled." Because it was no light matter to have your nation overthrown by another, everybody carried off in slavery, all the judgment, all the tragedy, all the misery, all the death.

Dr. James Boice: And he understood that when God said judgment was coming, it was serious and he was frightened. But what did he do? Well, he did what God told him to do. He said, "What shall I do?" God said, "In the meantime," there's a whole chapter saying, "he's going to judge the Babylonians too." But in the meantime, he said to Habakkuk, "The righteous man shall live by faith." And so Habakkuk did, and he began to explain at the end exactly the way that faith expressed itself in his life. You know that great verse in which he ends, he says, "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no fruit, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior." That's what it is to live by faith in evil times. The wicked rejoice in their sin, saying, "The Lord does not see me." But the righteous rejoice in God who does see, and who will both punish the sin and in his own time reward the righteous.

Dr. James Boice: Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for this Psalm that deals in such an honest way, as many of the Psalms do, with the sin and evil in this world. We're not always as alert to it as we should be. Sometimes we participate in it. We find ourselves doing what is wrong. But nevertheless, the evil is there. And as your people, we desire that righteousness might prevail. And so we pray, as the psalmist does, "Rise up in righteousness to bring judgment and reward those who do right."

Dr. James Boice: And we also pray in the meantime, help us to live as we should. We are just weak people, and we find ourselves oftentimes just as Habakkuk did with our knees knocking together and our lips quivering, and our heart sometimes failing us for fear and discouragement. But then we turn to you and we find that you are the rock in whom we can take refuge. And we do. And so we go on. For the praise of the glory of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.

Dr. James Boice: Thank you for listening to this message from The Bible Study Hour. A listener-supported ministry of the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals. The Alliance is a coalition of pastors, scholars, and churchmen who hold to the historic creeds and confessions of the Reformed faith, and who proclaim biblical doctrine in order to foster a Reformed awakening in today's church.

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