The Bible Study Hour

Guest (Male): No matter what storms and trials enter our lives, we as Christians believe that sooner or later, things will be made right. In Psalm 75, the Psalmist no longer expresses fear and anxiety over Israel's future and the plight of God's people. Instead, he exhibits a quiet confidence that in God's perfect plan, things will be made right. Welcome to The Bible Study Hour, a radio and Internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically. God, your name is near. That phrase sums up the reason for the Psalmist's confidence. We serve a sovereign God who is totally in charge of his universe and yet walks with us in our daily lives. Turn to Psalm 75 and join Dr. Boice as he explores how Asaph can say with confidence, "I will sing praise to the God of Jacob because the horns of the righteous will be lifted up."

Host: Tonight, we're going to study Psalm 75, but I'd like to begin by reminding you of what we were finding when we studied Psalm 73. Remember that Psalm? It was the first of these great Psalms by Asaph, in which he began by expressing a problem. And the problem that he saw was this: the wicked prosper. They always seem to do better than the righteous.

Not only do they do better than the righteous, the righteous seem to suffer. What Asaph says in that Psalm is that when he looked at that and saw that it was so, he was envious of the wicked. And that's when his feet began to slip. It wasn't until he went into the temple of God and recognized the ultimate end of the wicked, that judgment certainly is going to come, that he regained his footing and was able to give the kind of testimony that we find in the Psalm.

Now, Psalm 75 is also a Psalm of faith in God's just rule and judgment. But it approaches the subject from an entirely different point of view. There's no questioning in this Psalm, no chafing, no struggle, no envy. The Psalmist is well aware that there are problems with God's actions in history, His justice. It does indeed seem that the wicked get away with it for an awful long time.

And sometimes the righteous don't seem to get what they're due. But you don't have any of that kind of unhappiness, worrying, chafing, envying with that problem that you find in Psalm 73. What you have in Psalm 75 is a quiet confidence that the righteous will indeed in time be lifted up, and that the wicked will be brought down.

The Psalmist doesn't know when that's going to be particularly. He doesn't even raise the question. Is it going to happen in this life? I don't know. Is it going to happen in the life to come? I don't know. But it's certainly going to happen. And the reason it's going to happen is that God reigns. In other words, God is sovereign. God rules in His creation. He's a moral God.

And therefore, the Psalmist is very confident that sooner or later, all these things are going to be sorted out. Now, in developing that theme, we have a parallel here to what we find in two other very well-known portions of the Word of God. One is the song of Hannah, when she presented her son Samuel to Eli at the temple. You recall that she sang a song on that occasion, a Psalm really, it's in 1 Samuel, it's the second chapter, it takes the first 10 verses.

I don't want to read it all, but let me give you a bit of a flavor of this woman's singing. She said, "Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance. For the Lord is a God who knows and by Him deeds are weighed. The Lord brings death and makes alive. He brings down to the grave and He raises up. The Lord sends poverty and wealth, He humbles and He exalts, for the foundations of the earth are the Lord's. Upon them He has set the world."

There are so many parallels in the language and phraseology between that song of Hannah and Psalm 75 that a number of scholars think that Asaph probably borrowed some of the language from Hannah's song. Maybe. The other very well-known parallel to Psalm 75 is Mary's great Magnificat that you find in Luke 1.

We're more familiar with that. I don't want to read it all, but again, Mary said in the context of that great hymn of praise to God, "He has performed mighty deeds with His arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things."

Now, the theme of both of those songs, as well as Psalm 75, is that God is a reigning God. He hasn't taken His hands off the universe. He's there, He knows what's going on, and He's in charge. Therefore, He does exalt the humble and He does abase the arrogant. Psalm 71, if we, 75, if we want to link it up with a Psalm that goes immediately before it, it's linked up something like this.

In Psalm 74, Asaph asks God to rise up and defend His cause and not ignore the arrogance of His adversaries. And now here in Psalm 75, the Psalmist assures us that God not only does that, but He will. Now, what about the outline? The outlines are often very helpful in getting us into the Psalm. I want to suggest, although it's handled in different ways by different commentators, that there's no better outline than the one you have according to the stanza divisions of the New International Version.

It's got four stanzas. You notice that? Verse 1 is a stanza all by itself, and you have 2 through 5. Third stanza is 4 through 8, and finally 9 and 10. Now, you'll be helped to remember that if you look at it this way, recognizing that in each of these stanzas, you have a different person or group of persons speaking.

Stanza 1, verse 1, is a stanza in which the congregation speaks. You notice the plural, "It's we give thanks to You, we give thanks," and so on. So here's the congregation joining in giving thanks to God. And the second stanza, God speaks. Now, it's introduced by the words "You say," so there's a sense in which the Psalmist is actually writing here, but what he does at that point is quote God.

So the "you" is God, and then the quotation begins, "I choose the appointed time. It's I who judge," and so forth. So in the second stanza, God is speaking. In the third stanza, verses 6 through 8, it's not quite as clear who's speaking, but actually it's the Psalmist, or as we might want to say, the priest or the preacher. So here he's commenting upon the revelation that God has given in the second stanza.

And then finally, you get to the last stanza, verses 9 and 10, and what you have there is the testimony of the individual worshiper. So at this point, you see the "we" that you have in stanza 1 becomes "I." You find it three times, twice in verse 9 and a final time in verse 10. "As for me," says the individual, "I will declare this forever. I will sing praise to the God of Jacob."

Now, that's how we want to look at it. We want to look at each of those four stanzas. Now, how about stanza 1? Here is the congregation giving thanks to God. Now, it's natural for God's people to give Him thanks, and the reason for that, of course, is that there are many, many things that we need to give God thanks for. Sometimes in our prayers we do that. We list a whole long list of things that we're thankful for.

But here in this particular Psalm, the Psalmist is not making a whole long list of things that he wants to thank God for. There's only one thing that he really mentions, and that is what he says in the, in the middle line there. "We give thanks because," that's the meaning of the word "for," "because your name is near." Now, the name stands for God Himself.

So what the phrase "your name is near" really means is this, "You are near." In other words, God is near. And that's what they're thanking Him for. Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to say that God is near? Well, that has a variety of meanings. One thing it could mean is that God is everywhere. God's omnipresent. He is in every corner of His universe.

He knows everything that's going on, and if that's what it means, well, then that phrase is a warning to the ungodly, about which the Psalm is going to speak. A way of telling the wicked, "Don't think that you're going to get away with it because God sees it. He's everywhere, He's always near at hand." The second thing it could mean is that the Lord is always near to the righteous when they need Him, just around the corner, as it were.

You never have to look very far from God, He's right there. And if that's the case, well, then this is a word of encouragement. "We're praising You, God, because You're always near at hand. Whenever we need You, You're right there." Well, that may be very well what the Psalmist is saying, but I think in the context, because this is going on to talk about the judgment of God, I think in the context, what "near" probably means is that God is in charge of His universe.

That is, He hasn't turned His back on it. He's right here and He's working, so that what happens in the universe is a result of what we call most commonly the sovereignty of God. He's in control. The reason I think that is not only because it goes on to speak about the judgment and justice of God, but because of the line that follows immediately after the words, "Your name is near."

It says, "Men tell of your wonderful deeds." Well, that's a way of saying, isn't it, that God hasn't simply set the universe in motion, but God is actually active in the universe and active in history. And so we can talk about what He is doing all the time. We sing a hymn that expresses that pretty well, and I think we know it, although we don't know the author.

His name is Maltbie Babcock. He wrote the hymn in 1901. But it's this particular hymn: "This is my Father's world, oh, let me never forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. This is my Father's world, the battle is not done. Jesus, who died, shall be satisfied, and heaven and earth be one."

Now, that's what the first stanza is saying. We know that. We know that God's in charge. I wonder if you know that. You really know that God's in charge, that He's near at hand, that He's not abandoned the universe, and that He's not abandoned you. You see, if you know that, if you really have a personal awareness of the presence and sovereignty of God, it's going to change the way you look at everything.

And so instead of worrying about what's coming tomorrow, you'll be trusting God. Instead of chafing under the present circumstances, you'll say, "Well, these things have been sent to me by God, they're for a purpose. He knows what He's doing." And instead of trying to get out of every situation you find yourself in, you'll be trying to say, "What can I do in this situation that would actually glorify God?"

If you know that God is near you, you'll be thanking Him for it and you'll be living that way day by day. Now, the second stanza, as I say, contains the words of God. It's not entirely clear from the Hebrew where the words that should be attributed to God start and where they break off. But I think the New International Version has done the best job that could be done, as well as anybody.

You see, they begin the quotation mark in verse 2, and they ended it at the end of verse 5. These four verses themselves actually fall into two parts, because in the first part, God is speaking to the righteous, and these words concern the nature of His judgments, the fact that they come at an appointed time. And then in the next two verses, verses 4 and 5, He addresses the wicked, and what God does there is warn them about their evil actions.

Now, let's look at them. First of all, His assurance to the upright. As I said, there's nothing in this Psalm that betrays turmoil on behalf of the Psalmist. He's not unhappy and chafing because he sees wickedness go on, wickedness go on unchecked. But even though that is true, the question nevertheless is in his mind, "What what is God doing and why does evil seem to go on for such a long time?

Haven't you often asked that? You see terrible situations in the world, and you say, 'Why does God permit that?'" Well, that's the question that he's asking here. The important answer that God gives is that He Himself chooses the appointed time in which to judge. Now you say, "Is that an answer?" The answer is, "Yes, that is an answer."

And it's a very good answer, because what that really means is that it's in the hand of God. If if it weren't in the hand of God, whose hand would it be in after all? Would you have it in your hands? If you and I had the matter of executing judgment in our hands, I'm afraid we'd make an awful mess of it. We would tolerate all the wrong things, and then we would see something that particularly offends us, and bam, we'd let go with a wrath of God.

We'd we'd knock them down, but it would be all the wrong things, you see. I recall two people in Britain who were talking years ago, it's a true story, at the time when Hitler was sending over the bombs on London, and one man was so upset at what Hitler was doing, he said, "Oh, I I wish I could be God for just 10 minutes." And the other man said to him, he was a Christian, he said, "If you were God for 10 minutes, I wouldn't want to be in your universe for 10 seconds."

Because you see, we would get it all out of whack. But here is God speaking, and God says, "No, judgment is coming. I'm the judge, and I'm a righteous judge, but I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it in My own time." Well, that raises another question, doesn't it? If God's going to do it in His own time, that time isn't yet, He's delaying it, why is He delaying it?

Now you see, you can ask that in an arrogant way, that you don't have any right to ask it, challenging the wisdom of Almighty God. That's not the way to ask the question, but you can also ask it in a right way. You can say, "God, I don't understand. I mean, evil is really bad. People are really hurt. If you care, and I know you care, why is it that you let it go on so long?"

Well, the Bible gives us answers to that. It gives us two answers to that, actually. One of them is that God allows the wicked to continue for a long, long time in order to give them an opportunity to repent. You know, Paul says that in the in the book of Romans, he's very clear about it. "Do you think that you will escape God's judgment?" he asks in the second chapter, verse 4.

"Or do you show contempt for the riches of His kindness, tolerance, and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" Now you see, if you haven't yet come to Jesus Christ, you better be very very thankful that the appointed time is not yet come. The time for the final judgment. It will come, but in the meantime, God extends mercy so that people have an opportunity to repent and come to Jesus.

If you're not in Christ, now's the time to do it. Don't wait because judgment will come eventually. The second reason for God's judgments is a little harder to talk about because it's so far from the way we think. We don't have any trouble with the idea that God suspends His judgments to give us a chance. That we take almost as our due, although of course, we don't deserve anything.

But the second answer is this. God delays His judgments so that evil might come to full fruition or work itself out to the full. Now, the reason I say that's an answer is because it's very clear in Scripture. You may recall God's words to Abraham way back in the book of Genesis, where He gives a prophecy of what is going to come in future years.

He says, "Your own people are going to multiply, they're going to be a large nation, they're going to be in a foreign land, Egypt is referred to, and there they're going to be in prison for 400 years and after that they're going to come into the land that I promised you back here." And then God gives the explanation for the 400 years, "because," God said, "the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure."

In other words, they're not ready for judgment yet. Judgment's going to come, but I'm allowing the sin to work itself out until in My own time, I'm going to judge it when it comes to full measure. There's a parallel to that in what God did with Pharaoh. Remember how God said of Pharaoh, "For this very cause I raised you up in order that I might show My justice and My power in the earth."

As I say, that's harder for us to understand. We've got a great cosmic drama going on here in which the world in its sin is rushing to destruction, and God is allowing it to go. And while that is happening, God is calling out a people to Himself and establishing them in His way. And you say to yourself, "Why does God allow all that wickedness to go on unchecked?"

And the answer is because God wants to show the full nature of wickedness and why it fully deserves the judgment that will come. You see, when we start on a path, we don't think that it's particularly bad, but sin is bad. It hurts people. And so God says, "That is why the appointed time has not come yet." Now, in the second two verses of this section, verses 4 and 5, he gives his warning to the arrogant.

And it's that they might repent. In other words, the thing I just said a moment ago. Here the arrogant are warned against boasting. "Boast no more," it says. And the wicked are warned not to lift up their horns against heaven or speak with outstretched necks. Now, the horn is what an animal had, and it suggested naturally the center of its power, its strength.

A bull, you think of the strength being in the horn. And so that became a biblical image for strength or power. So it says, "Don't lift up your strength against God." Our equivalent of that particular image would be shaking your fist in God's face. It says, "You're just a puny little man. Stop shaking your fist in God's face." And as far as this matter of outstretched neck is concerned, well, that's self-explanatory.

Somebody the the veins in the neck are protruding, and the neck is putting forward, and he is angry against God. And God is saying, "What what is more ridiculous than that, you being angry against Me? Where's that going to get you?" You see, what you need to do is repent of your sin. So that's the second stanza.

Now, you would think that God's assurances to the righteous and His warnings to the wicked would be sufficient in themselves, and perhaps they are. But what we find here in this third stanza is something that I've often noticed in church circles, and that is that for some reason, preachers always want to have the last word. Even with God. I sometimes notice when I have been preaching in certain kinds of churches that when I get to the end of what I thought was a very well-delivered sermon, building to a climax, reaching an emotional appeal, calling for a decision, I close in prayer, I sit down, and the host preacher stands up and he wants to add a few words.

Which I always think aren't as good as the words that the people have just heard. I think it always takes off the edge, but for some reason, preachers have a tendency to do that, and that's the sort of thing that we have here, it seems to me. Here is Asaph, the Psalmist, whoever this particular Asaph may be. God has just spoken, but now with a preacher's true knack for getting in the last word, he wants to apply what God has said.

And he does it in two ways. He he's pointing out, particularly to the righteous, that whenever a person is lifted up or brought down, it's God who does it. And so he wants to make sure we understand that. And then he also assures the wicked that God means what He says. If God says there's an appointed time for judgment, and it's folly to lift up your head against Him, well, you better listen to that because judgment is certainly going to come.

As I say, this first point seems mostly to do with the righteous. That is, that when a person is lifted up or brought down, it's God who does it. It's a way of saying that you should not, if you're a Christian, look to the world for your advancement. You see, some people spend a whole lifetime trying to cozy up to the people that they think are important, because they think, "Well, if if I can make friends with somebody who's really important, well, then that person will kind of bring me along, you see, and and I I'll get into a good position because I'm in their favor."

People who have done that and have tried to make a career of it know how really devastating that can be because most people simply care about themselves. They'll use people, but then when they get where they want to be, they'll cast them off and go right ahead with somebody else. What the Psalmist is saying is, "Don't do that. Don't look to human beings for your advancement. Look to God. Trust God."

You see, God will advance you as high as you dare be advanced. A lot of us would be far more important or in far more important positions if God could trust us in those positions. The reason He doesn't do it is that we'd mess it all up if we were there. He gets it's as useful as we can be. But what the Psalmist is saying here is, "Stop looking at other human beings, look and live for God alone."

And then this second point of application, where he's speaking to the wicked, he does that very well because he's applying what he has to say here by a powerful poetic image. "In the hand of the Lord is a cup full of foaming wine mixed with spices. He pours it out and all the wicked of the earth drink it down to its very dregs."

This is not the only place in the Bible that this particular image is used, the wrath of God being a cup of foaming wine. You find it several times in Isaiah, especially in chapter 51, and in Jeremiah, chapters 25, 49 and 51, and even in the book of Revelation, at the very end of the Bible, Revelation 18. Now, we know that idea best, not because of those Bible passages, but because of the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

That's one of those great national pieces that I love to sing. When we used to drive along in the car with the children, I always sang it at full volume, and I think they know all the words, but it's got that great line in it, "He has trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored." You remember that? And of course, the motion of the song involves all the trampling out of the vintage.

The wrath of God is moving on. That's what it's all about. That's where Steinbeck, of course, got the title for his book, "The Grapes of Wrath." You know, it spoke of the mistreatment of the migrant workers in the earlier part of this century. Well, that's the image that we have here. This foaming cup of the wrath of God that all of the wicked are going to have to drink down to the very dregs.

Now, it's not hard to think of examples of God doing that in history, at least with people who have been noteworthy for their wickedness. There's a Scotsman whose name is Murdoch Campbell, and he's written a book of meditations on the Psalms that are short, but sometimes very helpful. And on this particular Psalm, he just calls our attention to the way God dealt with Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar, Herod, and then more recently, and for him it was very recent, Adolf Hitler.

Here's what he wrote: "Pharaoh reacted to God's command to let his people go by saying, 'Who is God that I should obey him?' Nebuchadnezzar endeavored to set his throne and kingdom above him whose throne and kingdom are forever and ever. Herod listened to the adulations of his degenerate admirers, who said, 'It is the voice of a god and not a man.'"

"Or if you come nearer to our own time, it was his time," he speaks of Adolf Hitler, "who we are told, gazed at a picture of himself riding proudly on a horse, and it had the title underneath it, 'In the beginning was the Word.' And Hitler, of course, very proud of that, deliberately mocked Jesus Christ by saying, 'I am Providence.'"

Well, that's the exaltation of the wicked. Here's the way it ended. Campbell points out that Pharaoh and his hosts were swept to destruction. Nebuchadnezzar went insane and became a companion with the beasts of the field. Herod was devoured by worms, and Hitler became a suicide. Now, how about some Bible verses?

"Those that walk in pride, God is able to abase. He shall cut off the spirit of princes. He is terrible to the kings of the earth. All the horns of the wicked will I cut off." Or from Psalm 2, "The one enthroned in heaven laughs. He will terrify the wicked in His wrath." And so the preacher has applied the text.

Now, of course, every good sermon, perhaps every good Psalm, ends with a personal response, and here in the very last stanza, you have it. It's the response of the individual worshiper. I pointed out earlier, you have the word "I" three times. He begins, "As for me," and then it says, "I, I" twice in that verse, and then a final time.

What he says is that he's going to declare this. He's going to sing praises because this is really what God's like. Let me point out that there's a puzzle about how verse 10 should be taken. Generally, the commentators take it in two ways. It could be, number one, an additional oracle from God. He's spoken earlier, now at the end he speaks again.

"I will cut off the horns of the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up." That's what he said earlier. So it could be that. Or secondly, and probably the majority of the commentators say this, "This is the individual worshiper saying that he in his experience is going to do what God has said he would do." In other words, he says, "I'm going to be on God's side, and so as much as I have an opportunity, I'm going to see that the wicked are brought down and the humble are lifted up."

I don't think that's the answer. Let me suggest, in my opinion, that what is happening is this: what you have in verse 10 is the content of the declaration or testimony that the individual worshiper is going to do. In other words, he's going to say to others what God has said to him. If we were going to do this in an English or American way of writing, what we would do is put a colon after the end of the ninth verse and quotation marks around the end.

So it would go something like this, "As for me, this is what I'm going to declare forever." In fact, I'm also going to sing about it. Colon, quote, "I will cut off the horns of all the wicked, but the horns of the righteous will be lifted up." Doesn't that make sense? That's what he's going to say. That's the message of the Psalm. And he's saying it, the Psalmist is saying it.

And that's what you and I have to say too if we know the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is not a patsy, not a sentimental daddy up there in heaven. The God of the Bible is the righteous judge. It is true, He is also a loving God, but He's a righteous judge who will judge wickedness, and we have the responsibility of saying that Jesus Christ is returning, and when He returns, He's going to return in judgment.

We have this to say as well. It is true, judgment is coming. It is true, Jesus is the judge. It is true, but our job is to warn people of the coming judgment, but that's not all we have to say, we also have a gospel. And our gospel is this, it is not necessary for anyone, as sinful as he or she may be, to actually drink the cup of the wrath of Almighty God.

And the reason why you and I don't have to drink it is because Jesus Christ drank it for us. Remember in the garden, how He wrestled over that? He prayed that God would take this cup of wrath from Him. He said finally, "Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" And so He drank it down to the very bottom. He took all of the wrath of God against the sin of those who trust Him in their place.

And so what we have to do, and what we challenge people to do, and what I challenge you to do if you haven't done it yet, is to recognize that Jesus has done that, if you will have it, and instead of drinking the cup of the wrath of God, drink the cup of salvation. That's what the Psalmist says in another place. We're going to come to it eventually, but Psalm 116 verse 13.

"I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord." That is the privilege that we have in this day. May every one of us do it, that we might not face God's wrath in that final day. Let's pray. Our Father, we're thankful for this Psalm, this short Psalm, speaking on a serious subject, portraying You as the righteous judge that's not abandoned Your universe.

Who has appointed a day for judgment in which all wickedness will be judged, but who until that time, holds out the offer of salvation through the work of Jesus Christ. And so we pray our Father, that that message might be clearly heard, and that you might choose and be pleased to honor it to the saving of some who very much need to believe on Jesus Christ.

We pray in His name. Amen.

Guest (Male): 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. To learn more about the Alliance, visit Alliancenet.org.

And while you're there, visit our online store, Reformed Resources, where you can find messages and books from Dr. Boice and other outstanding teachers and theologians. Or, ask for a free Reformed Resources catalog by calling 1-800-488-1888. Please take the time to write to us and share how The Bible Study Hour has impacted you. We'd love to hear from you and pray for you.

Our address is 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17601. Please consider giving financially to help keep The Bible Study Hour impacting people for decades to come. You can do so at our website, Alliancenet.org, over the phone at 1-800-488-1888, or send a check to 600 Eden Road, Lancaster, Pennsylvania 17601. For Canadian gifts, mail those to 237 Rouge Hills Drive, Scarborough, Ontario M1C 2Y9. Thanks for your continued prayer and support, and for listening to The Bible Study Hour, preparing you to think and act biblically.