The NXR Podcast - THE SERMON - HOLY BATTLE： Christians Remember & Remind

00:00:00.000 Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform.

00:00:03.940 I get it.

00:00:04.620 It's annoying.

00:00:05.380 Everybody asks, but I'm going to tell you why.

00:00:07.660 When you give us a positive review, what that does is it triggers the algorithm so that

00:00:12.440 our podcast shows up on more people's news feeds.

00:00:16.280 You and I both know that this ministry is willing to talk about things that most ministries

00:00:20.820 aren't.

00:00:21.860 We need this content for the glory of God to reach more people's ears.

00:00:26.980 You're doing a great job.

00:00:28.160 We've got several hundred reviews so far, but we'd like to reach a thousand reviews by

00:00:33.220 the end of this year, the year of our Lord, 2024.

00:00:36.900 If you haven't left a review yet, take a moment and help us achieve our goal.

00:00:41.760 So if you'll stand with me for the reading of God's word, please, we will read Psalm

00:00:46.080 chapter nine.

00:00:48.360 After I'm done reading it, I will say, this is the word of the Lord, at which point, please

00:00:52.940 reply by saying, thanks be to God.

00:00:55.880 Once again, our scripture text for this morning is Psalm chapter 9.

00:01:01.240 It says,

00:01:25.280 have sat on the throne giving righteous judgment. You have rebuked the nations. You have made the

00:01:30.460 wicked perish. You have blotted out their name forever and ever. The enemy came to an end in

00:01:36.680 everlasting ruins. Their cities you rooted out. The very memory of them has perished. But the Lord

00:01:43.740 sits enthroned forever. He has established his throne for justice. He judges the world with

00:01:50.500 righteousness. He judges the peoples with uprightness. The Lord is a stronghold for

00:01:55.540 the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know your name put their trust in

00:02:02.280 you. For you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. Sing praises to the Lord who sits

00:02:09.140 enthroned in Zion. Tell among the peoples his deeds. For he who avenges blood is mindful of

00:02:15.520 them. He does not forget the cry of the afflicted. Be gracious to me, O Lord. See my affliction from

00:02:22.860 those who hate me. O you who lift me up from the gates of death, that I may recount all your

00:02:29.480 praises, that in the gates of the daughter of Zion I may rejoice in your salvation. The nations

00:02:34.840 have sunk in the pit that they made, in the pit that they made, in the net that they hid, their

00:02:40.260 own foot has been caught. The Lord has made himself known. He has executed judgment. The wicked are

00:02:45.860 snared in the work of their own hands. The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that 0.99

00:02:53.840 forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not

00:02:59.060 perish forever. Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail. Let the nations be judged before you. Put in them

00:03:07.000 Fear, O Lord, let the nations know that they are but men.

00:03:11.620 Selah.

00:03:12.840 This is the word of the Lord.

00:03:15.480 You may be seated.

00:03:21.860 Well, with Thanksgiving right around the corner, I decided to study a psalm of Thanksgiving.

00:03:28.340 I'd never really worked through Psalm 9, and it called my attention for some reason.

00:03:33.460 The call in Psalm 9 is for us to carry out the discipline of thanksgiving by remembering.

00:03:42.820 The call is for us to remember.

00:03:45.660 And I was thinking a little bit about memory and remembering.

00:03:48.680 Memory and nostalgia can produce some of the most powerful emotions in us.

00:03:53.760 You know, you hear a song that was important to you at a certain time of life,

00:03:58.540 and it triggers a memory, or you smell something.

00:04:01.020 smell can be one of the strongest triggers of memory. I've heard that pregnant women, when they 0.77

00:04:05.420 smell certain smells, even years after they gave birth to their child, that smell can still

00:04:11.840 trigger a very strong memory in them. One of the things about nostalgia is that it often comes

00:04:18.740 with a sense of poignancy, right? A sense of regret or sadness. Now, I was thinking about this this

00:04:25.500 week, this is predominantly the kind of memory that our culture capitalizes on. There's an

00:04:32.700 assumption for many people that life, wherever they're at, is all downhill, that the good days

00:04:38.180 are gone, that to remember the past is to remember something that cannot be captured again,

00:04:43.840 and that moving forward will inevitably be worse. We're often told that to remember is traumatic.

00:04:51.140 this is the way people think they they in order to avoid remembering they self-medicate

00:04:58.460 right on entertainment on drugs on alcohol all to avoid remembering and certainly it's true

00:05:06.820 memory can be painful there are things that i remember even now and cringe every time even

00:05:12.360 though they're long past or sins that are forgiven but memory in christianity is not

00:05:19.300 a negative thing. God calls us to remember what he has done over and over. And even he calls us

00:05:26.680 to remember what we have done. But here's the thing, brothers and sisters, remembering and

00:05:32.940 memory in the Christian mindset is different. Every single call to remember what the Lord has

00:05:41.060 done in the past is also a call not just to look backwards, but to look forwards in faith

00:05:47.440 because of what he has done in the past,

00:05:49.940 it affects how we live now

00:05:51.440 and it affects how we hope and believe for the future.

00:05:56.460 In the Christian view, memory is powerful

00:05:59.600 because in it we see our failures,

00:06:01.940 but we see a constant, faithful God

00:06:04.400 who will not change.

00:06:05.700 He's the same yesterday, today, and forever.

00:06:09.520 The argument of this psalm, Psalm 9, and of this sermon 0.61

00:06:13.260 is that Christians are called to engage in a holy battle

00:06:17.220 by remembering and by reminding.

00:06:22.420 By remembering what God has done and reminding people of who God is.

00:06:29.080 What's going on in this psalm?

00:06:30.520 In this psalm, David is writing.

00:06:32.620 It's probably later in his life after he has become king.

00:06:36.120 He's fought a lot of the battles in his life already.

00:06:39.340 God has given him victory.

00:06:40.660 We know this because the opening phrase says to the choir master.

00:06:44.340 so already he's writing a psalm that would be sung by the choir that has been established.

00:06:49.720 This is not when he's a shepherd or when he's still fleeing from Saul.

00:06:53.960 He's the king. Israel has been established, the kingdom.

00:06:57.040 There's the choir master, and David is writing a psalm for the choir master

00:07:01.400 to sing with the choir for the people.

00:07:05.240 David has conquered the lands around him to some degree,

00:07:07.940 although it's obvious that there are still battles going on.

00:07:10.340 he's also writing about nations that god has defeated and the phrase there at the end is a

00:07:19.240 difficult phrase it says according to muth laben this is a really interesting phrase and to be

00:07:24.400 honest there's not enough information here to make a definitive judgment but i think it

00:07:29.500 clarifies what's going on in this psalm a little bit a lot of commentators say that this is a

00:07:37.020 musical term, a mode, or maybe a chord progression, or maybe kind of, is it minor or major? What kind

00:07:45.220 of song is this, or was it to a tune that already existed? Either way, we know that there's something

00:07:51.320 going on here along the theme of death. That phrase, mutlaben, means upon the death of the sun,

00:07:59.300 most likely. We're not 100% sure, but that last word, the last phrase, ben, is the Hebrew word for

00:08:06.080 son. And it has led some to conclude that David wrote this psalm upon the death of his son,

00:08:13.200 Absalom. We know that David grieved greatly for Absalom. In 2 Samuel 18, 33, it says this,

00:08:19.660 and the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and he wept.

00:08:24.880 And as he wept, he said, oh, my son, Absalom, my son, my son, Absalom, would that I had died

00:08:31.040 instead of you. Oh Absalom, my son, my son. Augustine took the view that that phrase was

00:08:38.940 talking about the death of a son, but he found a silver lining in there. He said that yes,

00:08:46.160 probably it was Absalom, but also upon the death of the son is looking forward to the death of the

00:08:52.380 ultimate, most precious son, the son of God, Jesus Christ. And that the death of God's son,

00:08:58.960 eventually, this psalm is saying, would be the thing that God would use to destroy his enemies

00:09:04.520 and take victory over the nations. Like I said, we're not sure, but I think it colors the psalm

00:09:12.180 a little bit. I think it kind of is an interesting contrast. It's a psalm of thanksgiving, perhaps in

00:09:20.040 a minor key. The beauty is that because God does not change and because he keeps his promises,

00:09:27.660 as we look back, even as David looked back on the death of his son, he also looked back on God's

00:09:32.700 victory. And that gives us hope to look forward. And so that's why we remember. What are Christians

00:09:39.760 supposed to remember? There are five things, and we'll move through these somewhat quickly. 0.92

00:09:45.360 Look through the psalm with me. First of all, we are to remember this. We are to remember the Lord.

00:09:50.000 We are specifically, we are to remember to bless the Lord. Psalm 1 says, I will give thanks to the

00:09:56.300 Lord, with my whole heart. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to remember God, to actually

00:10:03.880 remember to bless him. We get busy and we forget, or we sin. Sin distracts us, or even worse, we sin

00:10:12.680 and we hide ourselves from God. The psalm opens with a declaration that David himself commands

00:10:19.180 himself. It's a resolve, and the people around him. The first word here is I. He resolves to

00:10:25.940 give thanks to the lord there are other psalms where david beckons the people around him let us

00:10:30.780 give thanks to the lord but here he says i now remember this is interesting this is going to be

00:10:35.240 a corporate song to the choir master and yet he is saying i we as the choirs the congregation would

00:10:42.520 sing they would remind themselves i will give thanks to the lord it's interesting when we look

00:10:51.440 in Romans chapter one, the chief complaint that God has against humanity and the wicked in

00:10:58.340 particular. It goes through that, that passage where it says that they repressed the knowledge

00:11:05.540 of God in unrighteousness, that though it was clear that what could be known about God was

00:11:10.280 obvious to them, it says that they did not acknowledge him as God or thank him. This is

00:11:17.160 the primary complaint that God has against the wicked. You do not acknowledge me as God

00:11:22.280 and you do not thank me. And then from there in Romans 1, every other sin flows out of that

00:11:28.520 forgetfulness. Charles Spurgeon said that forgetfulness is one of the greatest sins

00:11:36.080 that we don't think about. One of the greatest sins that we don't think about. Over and over

00:11:42.500 in the old testament the wicked are said to be those who forget god they do not acknowledge

00:11:48.800 their position in order and in the order of creation psalm 8 has just instructed us on what

00:11:53.900 that position is it says you created man a little lower than the angels and the heavenly beings

00:11:59.480 and yet you crowned him with glory and honor the position of mankind is exalted in dominion over

00:12:04.940 the earth but not above god we are creatures and so david remembers god and he blesses him

00:12:12.340 He says, I will give thanks to the Lord. He does four things, and I'm just going to mention them

00:12:16.860 briefly, but they would bear thinking about for your family, your own personal spiritual

00:12:22.160 disciplines, four ways that he blesses the Lord in verses one and two. First of all, he thanks God,

00:12:27.900 and he thanks him with a full heart. Secondly, he tells of his works. He recounts the works of God.

00:12:35.320 third he delights in god and fourth he sings praise to the name of god to the name of god

00:12:45.120 notice that david's focus is on the name of god this is very interesting and an important concept

00:12:51.520 in this psalm and it's so important that i made it point number two we are to bless the lord we

00:12:57.240 are to remember to bless the lord remember we have smartphones set reminders right set a timer

00:13:05.860 Build it into your day.

00:13:06.880 Build it into your family calendar.

00:13:09.260 Remember to bless the Lord.

00:13:10.720 But secondly, we are to remember God's character.

00:13:14.600 What do you mean character?

00:13:15.760 It doesn't say his character in there.

00:13:17.080 Well, it says he will praise the name of the Lord.

00:13:20.920 To remember God's name is to remember his character.

00:13:24.420 This is why all over the Old Testament, especially,

00:13:26.540 God identifies himself by various names.

00:13:30.240 One that we probably have heard before,

00:13:32.600 God is called Jehovah Jireh, the provider.

00:13:35.300 So to invoke or to remember that name of God is to remember the character of God,

00:13:40.100 that he is the kind of God who will provide.

00:13:44.340 What is the name that David chooses to focus on here in Psalm 9?

00:13:50.120 In this psalm, David uses the word Yahweh, or the Lord, lowercase capital letters, nine times.

00:13:57.800 In other words, as David is dealing with enemies in an onslaught,

00:14:00.900 he is choosing to remember about the character of God, that God is sovereign, that he is the ruler

00:14:06.620 and the Lord of all. No matter what enemies have come against David in the past, or are coming

00:14:14.080 against him right then as he's writing, or will come against him in the future, David remembers

00:14:19.840 that God is sovereign over himself and over those enemies.

00:14:23.920 the idea of a name is really interesting in this psalm and i want to take a little rabbit trail

00:14:32.440 notice the progression in verse 2 in verse 2 it says that david remembers god's name

00:14:38.860 i will sing praise to your name i will remember who you are lord and he believes it he exhorts

00:14:46.180 himself to believe in who god is he is the sovereign lord but notice in verse 5 we are

00:14:52.680 commanded to remember the name of the Lord. But there's a terrifying thing that happens with names

00:14:58.840 in verse 5, where it says that God will cause the name of the wicked to be forgotten. So the way

00:15:07.460 this works is our focus and our emphasis and our call is to remember God. It matters if we remember

00:15:16.780 God. And he is the one who causes all men to be remembered or not to be remembered based on

00:15:22.820 whether they are righteous or wicked. And then verse 10, it returns to the idea of holding onto

00:15:28.960 the memory of the name of the Lord. It says that the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed and

00:15:33.840 those who know God's name put their trust in him. If you know God's name, David says, you will put

00:15:41.500 your trust in him, because to know God's name is to know God's character.

00:15:48.080 To know his name is to trust him, and to trust him happens because we know his name. Remember,

00:15:54.580 the idea of knowing God has to do with his character. This is why, by the way, as a side

00:15:59.820 note, Proverbs speaks of a good name being desired more than silver and gold, because to have a good

00:16:06.500 name is to be known as a man of good character. Do you know who God is? Do you know his character?

00:16:13.920 Do you trust him? Notice in that verse, verse 10, that this is a point of attack from the enemy.

00:16:21.000 David is talking about enemies in this passage. It could be spiritual enemies, the devil. It could

00:16:25.880 be wicked men. It could be nations that attack us. We face many enemies, but one of the points

00:16:32.760 of attack from the enemy is trusting God. We may know God, but at the end of verse 10,

00:16:41.000 David says, those for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. There's a knowing

00:16:49.080 about God and there's a knowing God personally that causes us to what? To seek him, to believe

00:16:57.460 in him, to know his character, to know his name, means that when trials and enemies arise against

00:17:03.120 us, what will we do? We will seek the Lord. We will seek the Lord.

00:17:13.220 Verse 10 says that those who know God's name put their trust in him, and he does not forsake those

00:17:19.120 who seek him. Difficult trials will make us forget, will make us feel that God has forsaken us.

00:17:25.660 Difficult trials from enemies when they mount their attacks against us

00:17:30.180 will make us feel like we are exposed and out in the open,

00:17:34.060 standing in a field as an army of archers is launching their arrows at us

00:17:39.380 and we're standing there completely defenseless and all alone.

00:17:44.960 When we have sinned and are under the weight of our guilt,

00:17:47.520 or there's a great crisis, or our prayers seem to go unanswered,

00:17:51.520 the temptation is not to seek god

00:17:56.260 we may know god but in addition the life of faith is to seek him daily if i can quote

00:18:05.480 the great philosopher the christian rock band the newsboys

00:18:10.100 they've got a really profound line they said we have found him and still are looking for him

00:18:17.500 We know God, and yet we seek to know him more and more and more.

00:18:25.520 David says that God does not forsake those who seek him.

00:18:28.580 Brothers and sisters, in your trials, when the enemy is attacking you,

00:18:32.880 seek to know the Lord more.

00:18:36.040 This is how we will grow in our faith.

00:18:38.080 God will allow us even to be assailed by enemies,

00:18:41.780 whether men or systems or evil temptations, whatever it is.

00:18:46.940 and those who know God's name will put their trust in him and will run to him.

00:18:51.880 How is your faith? Is it weak? We would probably all say it's weaker than I would like. Seek to

00:18:59.140 know the Lord. Seek to know the Lord. F.B. Meyer said this about our faith. He said,

00:19:06.180 men complain of their little faith. I like to complain. Oh, I wish I had more faith. 1.00

00:19:12.220 He said, the remedy is in their own hands.

00:19:14.920 Let them set themselves to know God.

00:19:17.960 But for all this, you must make time.

00:19:19.780 You cannot know a friend from hurried interviews, much less God.

00:19:23.180 So steep yourself in deep and long thoughts of his nearness and his love.

00:19:27.520 Know the character of God.

00:19:29.860 To know God's name is to trust him, and to know his name is to know his character.

00:19:34.020 this is why david compels himself to remember god's character he has to hold the character of

00:19:44.780 god ever before him as he's facing attacks from his enemies this is a daily discipline

00:19:51.080 this is a family discipline this is a church-wide discipline we remind ourselves of the character

00:19:56.540 of god we speak it to each other number three we remember god's righteous strength

00:20:03.920 in verse 3 David looks back at the victories that God has given him over his enemies and he

00:20:10.880 remembers that it was not his own strength or his own sword that actually defeated the enemies yes

00:20:16.640 his sword swiped through the neck of Goliath and yes the army of Israel chased after the Philistines

00:20:23.220 but David says that it was the presence of the Lord going with them that knocked over the enemies

00:20:28.640 that caused them to be defeated.

00:20:31.440 Verse 9, David says that God is a stronghold for the oppressed.

00:20:36.980 So not only is God strength to fight our battles,

00:20:39.940 he is also strength to defend us from the enemy.

00:20:43.480 Remember God's righteous strength.

00:20:45.180 He will fight your battles and he will defend you.

00:20:49.080 Verse 13 shows that though the wicked think that they have killed God's people,

00:20:54.160 it says they are descending to the gates of death.

00:20:56.780 The fact is that God is strong.

00:20:59.740 He has strength to lift up his people from those gates of death.

00:21:03.880 When the hour is darkest and when it is most dire,

00:21:07.100 when it seems like there is no hope,

00:21:08.880 when the enemy seems like it's coming over the walls of the gate,

00:21:11.780 whether that's your faith or your family,

00:21:14.940 something at work, a national disgrace,

00:21:18.540 God is strong to lift his people from the gates of death.

00:21:22.780 We must remind ourselves often of God's strength

00:21:26.220 and in contrast of our own weakness.

00:21:30.660 Brothers and sisters, I don't know about for you,

00:21:32.500 but for me, I don't like to admit that I have these needs,

00:21:36.160 that I'm not self-sufficient.

00:21:37.600 There's a sense where we are to be self-sufficient,

00:21:39.880 especially men.

00:21:40.880 You are to be capable and competent, and that's good.

00:21:44.880 But that sometimes spills over,

00:21:46.720 and I don't want to admit to God,

00:21:48.100 yes, Lord, I do need you.

00:21:51.640 But it's not humiliating for a child

00:21:54.160 who can't lift the giant watermelon out of the back of the car yet

00:21:57.680 to ask his father for help.

00:21:59.860 And it doesn't demean the father to reach around the child

00:22:03.060 and help him pick up the watermelon and carry it inside.

00:22:06.300 It's actually quite beautiful.

00:22:08.180 And so when we as God's children admit our weakness

00:22:11.180 and God says, that's okay, I'm very strong.

00:22:14.840 That's a beautiful picture, not a demeaning one.

00:22:17.220 and so god your david remembers god's strength but that one's pretty normal for us we we were

00:22:29.020 we we talk about this a lot christians are pretty good at saying yeah god is strong when we are weak

00:22:34.220 and that's true but david interestingly focuses on a fourth thing to remember he focuses on god's

00:22:41.980 pattern of judging the wicked and the righteous. Number four then is that we are to remember God's

00:22:49.680 just judgment, not just God himself and to bless him, not just God's character, not just God's

00:22:56.240 strength, but David remembers God's judgment as a great encouragement. Look again with me in verse

00:23:04.500 four. It says that God has rebuked the nations. David remembers this. We are to remember that God

00:23:12.640 judges the wicked. Through David, God had utterly destroyed some of these nations around Israel.

00:23:20.560 They were defeated. They were done. They had come at David and God's presence had knocked them over.

00:23:27.960 But then in verse five, we see how God had ruled against them. How had God done this?

00:23:34.500 He had blotted out their name.

00:23:38.020 This is actually a stunningly graphic image here.

00:23:43.380 Imagine you've got a piece of paper that you've written on with blue ink.

00:23:47.100 Maybe it's very important.

00:23:48.200 Maybe it was something you were supposed to do,

00:23:50.080 and you accidentally send that paper through the wash.

00:23:53.340 You put the pants on, and there's the paper in your pocket.

00:23:56.320 You open it up.

00:23:57.780 There's no ink there anymore.

00:23:59.140 At best, there's just a faint blue smudge on the paper where that ink was.

00:24:04.500 right? The name of the wicked has been wiped out at best. The best that they are

00:24:11.320 is a hagy smudge in history. They're gone. God has judged his enemies, and David takes great 1.00

00:24:19.320 comfort in this. David says, not only did that happen then, back when I was fighting Goliath

00:24:25.360 with the Philistines, but David speaks in the present tense also. He said, God is continuing

00:24:30.580 to do that now. It was not just in the past, but even now God sits on his throne and judges. And

00:24:37.440 brothers and sisters, this is the same in our day. It's not just we read the Bible and God defeated

00:24:42.160 these wicked nations in the Old Testament. God still sits on his throne now and judges the

00:24:47.980 wicked. Right now, right now, he's doing this. He has done it. He's doing it now, and he will do it.

00:24:54.520 in verse seven and eight we remember that he continues to judge the wicked and notice what

00:25:03.060 it says i love in verse seven the very end it says the lord sits in throne forever he has

00:25:09.040 established his throne for what for sitting on and lounging no god established his throne his

00:25:17.260 eternal throne for justice that's what it's for it's not primarily just a place to gather people

00:25:24.320 around him to worship, although they do. God displays his majesty and his glory when he

00:25:31.040 executes justice, when he renders verdicts and decisions, when he evaluates the behaviors of

00:25:37.120 mankind and says, that was wicked, that was righteous. And from there, David says that God

00:25:45.300 sees every injustice.

00:25:50.140 God sees it all. He's not like some

00:25:53.420 floodlight. You think of a movie scene or a cartoon scene where a criminal has

00:25:57.340 escaped from jail in the middle of the night and they've got that one spotlight that's

00:26:01.780 kind of peering around. It's trying to find the criminal. That's just a dog. That's just a fence.

00:26:05.800 Oh, there he is. Oh, he jumps out of it. Oh, they're chasing him around. That's not

00:26:09.520 how God views the world. He's not just a single

00:26:13.460 beam that can only focus on one or two things. God is the sun and the moon and sees everything

00:26:19.320 that happens, even, here's the key, even if he does not choose to brightly illuminate an aspect

00:26:26.900 of mankind's wickedness at a particular moment. He sees when the nations shake their fists at him.

00:26:34.080 He sees when wicked men murder and plot against the godly. He sees the godless plotting against

00:26:42.480 God's people. He sees how the great enemy of our souls accuses us and seeks to devour us. He sees

00:26:50.660 it all from his throne, and every time he sees it, he's judging. He knows whether it's right or

00:26:56.080 whether it's wrong. And when we remember that God sees all of these things, David reminds us

00:27:03.400 that this God who sees is also a God who protects and a God who avenges.

00:27:12.480 On the one hand, God protects.

00:27:14.900 Verse 9 calls him a stronghold.

00:27:17.540 But then verse 12.

00:27:20.260 Verse 12 says,

00:27:21.620 He who avenges blood is mindful of them.

00:27:25.240 God avenges the blood of the poor and the oppressed.

00:27:28.180 Not one injustice happens that God does not note and promise to punish.

00:27:36.300 He will punish either on the body of Christ himself on the cross 0.76

00:27:41.020 if those sins were committed by the elect or forever in hell.

00:27:46.980 Brothers and sisters, David took great comfort

00:27:50.140 knowing that the wicked do not get away with their wickedness,

00:27:54.900 that God punishes and avenges.

00:28:01.960 I want to make a note here that we need to be very careful of.

00:28:06.240 God is not some genie that we summon to do our bidding.

00:28:09.880 I'm in trouble, and so God is going to defend me.

00:28:13.600 This is what the New Testament speaks about when it says,

00:28:16.340 don't suffer for being evil.

00:28:18.400 If you suffer for being good, it's a virtue.

00:28:21.000 God is not like in the Indiana Jones movie where they crack open the Ark of the Covenant

00:28:24.940 and the Spirit of God now has to come out and destroy their enemies.

00:28:28.920 No.

00:28:30.840 He's not some supernatural force that just gets us out of every bad situation that we're in.

00:28:37.460 The battles that God wins are the battles when we are on God's side.

00:28:43.140 The battles that God wins for us are the battles where we are standing on his side,

00:28:48.340 like David and Goliath, on David's side of the brook, Goliath and the Philistines on the other. 0.63

00:28:54.960 This brings me to the fifth thing that we must remember.

00:29:00.440 Because God is strong, he is also just.

00:29:03.240 And so number five, we remember that God has and still does defend us.

00:29:08.740 How does God defend us?

00:29:15.020 When we are on God's side, the side of truth and righteousness,

00:29:17.940 we can expect God to uphold and vindicate us as well.

00:29:22.260 One of the things for you to teach your children is how to evaluate

00:29:26.020 if something that they feel strongly about,

00:29:29.140 or maybe something they're getting pushed back from or being mistreated at school or by other

00:29:34.480 friends, how to evaluate whether or not that's something that they're on God's side or not.

00:29:41.040 One of the principles that we have to understand about this idea of God defending us

00:29:44.860 is that God defends those who make their cause God's cause. Spurgeon said, if we seek to maintain

00:29:51.980 the cause and honor of our Lord, we may suffer reproach and misrepresentation,

00:29:57.120 but it is a rich comfort to remember that he who sits on the throne knows our hearts and will not

00:30:02.400 leave us to the judgment or will not leave us to the ignorant and ungenerous. And brothers and

00:30:07.460 sisters, we have to remind ourselves that sometimes we see God defend us now, and sometimes it will be

00:30:13.600 in eternity. Matthew Henry says this, he says, we are sure that the judgment of God is according to

00:30:20.320 truth and that with him there is no unrighteousness, far be it from God, that he should pervert

00:30:25.900 justice. If there seems to be, to us, to be some irregularity in the present decisions of

00:30:31.840 providence, yet these, instead of shaking our belief in God's justice, may serve to strengthen

00:30:37.800 our belief of the judgment to come, which will set all to rights. This is why it's so important,

00:30:45.700 especially when we go through attacks, that we constantly evaluate ourselves, to make sure that

00:30:51.960 we are on God's side, to make sure that we have not made our own preferences equal with God's will.

00:30:58.860 God only promises to uphold us when we stand on his side. Guys, God defeated Goliath not to prove

00:31:07.840 that David's choice of weapon of stones was better than spears, right? It wasn't like he was going to

00:31:13.960 say, yeah, David, I'm with you. Stones, that's the way to go. Military technology, I'll defend that

00:31:18.740 cause. No. God defended David and defeated Goliath to show that David and Israel were on God's side

00:31:26.220 and that Goliath and the Philistines were not. And because of that, even a stone could defeat a spear. 0.82

00:31:34.820 This is why David cries out in Psalm 139. He says, do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I

00:31:41.840 not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with complete hatred. I count them my enemies. 0.82

00:31:46.600 it's good to have god's enemies as our enemies it's good to hate what god hates but immediately

00:31:52.160 almost without drawing a breath david says this in verse 23 of psalm 139 search me oh god and know

00:31:59.360 my heart try me and know my thoughts and see if there's any grievous way in me and lead me in the

00:32:04.840 way everlasting god is the one who gives righteous judgment and if we are not careful we can make

00:32:11.140 our causes God's rather than making God's causes ours. We need to be very careful in our time

00:32:20.620 to make sure that we are on God's side. And I want to say a note about this also. Right now,

00:32:26.980 it seems that some of our enemies are brothers in Christ. God absolutely cares about this. He

00:32:33.740 will vindicate the righteous even in disagreements between brothers either in this life or the next

00:32:41.760 but i want to encourage us that they are not god's enemies in the way that this psalm is talking

00:32:48.000 about if they know christ if they are truly born of god they are not the kind of enemy that that

00:32:54.240 god is that david is praying that god would utterly destroy and wipe from the face of the earth

00:32:59.320 We don't view our contests with our brothers the same as we view our contest with the true enemies of God.

00:33:08.800 So we are to remember these things about God.

00:33:11.760 We are to remember God.

00:33:13.100 We are to remember his character, his strength, and his judgment.

00:33:16.860 And when we do, this drives away our doubts.

00:33:19.600 It wipes away our fears.

00:33:21.640 It strengthens our faith.

00:33:22.980 and when you go through trials remind yourself remember who god is ask people to help you

00:33:31.540 remember who god is but it's not enough just to remember these things in our minds

00:33:37.940 pastor joel has at this point thankfully beaten it into our heads that we are not pietists

00:33:45.360 we want piety we want holiness but we don't want pietism we don't want a life of introspection

00:33:53.500 And so the second thing that we do to wage holy warfare is not just remember in our minds,

00:33:58.020 but we move outward, outside of ourselves, and we remind people of who God is.

00:34:05.520 And this is where the Christian life pushes outward.

00:34:09.220 With our minds remembering who God is, our mouths now begin to speak about who God is. 0.80

00:34:16.220 Who are we to remind, and what are we to remind them of?

00:34:19.220 The psalm here really pushes us into some unexpected places.

00:34:22.700 number one and i've alluded to this a little bit already we are to remind ourselves

00:34:27.700 go back to verse one remember i will give thanks what do we remind ourselves of we remind ourselves

00:34:35.560 come on self remember to thank god we are to remind ourselves to honor god with our whole heart

00:34:42.920 it's so easy for us to offer half-hearted thanks to god challenge yourself motivate yourself in

00:34:50.040 your heart to offer full gratitude to God. David reminds himself also of an eternal perspective.

00:34:58.340 Look at verse 7. He says, the Lord sits enthroned forever. He has established his throne for

00:35:05.180 justice. Do you see that? The Lord sits on his throne forever. And this is one of those words

00:35:13.980 that, you know, when you really examine it, it means just what it says. The Lord sits enthroned

00:35:20.360 forever. He, David, is sure of this. As he faces the death of a son, possibly, or the invasion of

00:35:26.780 some enemy, or some assault of temptation to doubt, he remembers, he reminds himself of eternity.

00:35:36.440 Brothers and sisters, nothing, nothing, not a global war or the murder of 60 million babies

00:35:44.100 or some tragedy in your family can even slightly rattle God. There is no clamor or ruckus that any

00:35:53.500 man or nation or empire can lift up to heaven that causes God to have to react. He does not react.

00:36:02.140 He does not react.

00:36:03.200 He wills and ordains all things that come about.

00:36:06.780 His throne is forever.

00:36:10.560 God is not a slave to the tyrannies of men.

00:36:13.440 He does not have to consider his move

00:36:15.500 and then, like a chess player,

00:36:17.720 wait for his opponent to make a move

00:36:19.320 and then reconsider what he should do.

00:36:22.380 He sits on his throne with perfect judgment now and at all times.

00:36:26.500 He knows the end from the beginning.

00:36:28.520 He knows the way of the righteous.

00:36:30.020 Forever he knows the way of the righteous.

00:36:32.260 And he has decreed forever that the way of the wicked will perish.

00:36:37.920 This is simply how it is.

00:36:41.020 He is not working to try and make the way of the wicked perish.

00:36:45.160 It's already written as an immutable law of the universe.

00:36:48.640 The Lord knows the way of the righteous.

00:36:50.880 The way of the wicked will perish.

00:36:54.840 David reminds himself of eternity.

00:36:57.000 that god is working all things perfectly according to plan god rules all of these things

00:37:05.060 all of the enemies that launch themselves against you god rules forever he's established his throne

00:37:11.460 for justice there's never a time when he is not judging rightly and this is why david reminds

00:37:16.960 himself to worship and honor god and we must do this too we must remind ourselves trust in god

00:37:23.220 soul trust in god come on worship him in the middle of the battle number two

00:37:31.160 strangely we don't just remind ourselves we also remind god

00:37:38.320 god does not forget he does not change he's never wondering where we went oh shoot i misplaced

00:37:47.060 covenant bible church are they under you know no that's not what's going on here

00:37:51.220 there but there is a pattern in the bible of christians reminding god of the things that he

00:37:59.100 has said and done god david here reminds god of all that god has done as a way to praise him he

00:38:04.120 said you defeated my enemies you made them flee you destroyed them you defended me he says god

00:38:10.040 you did this he speaks to god second person you did this for me he reminds god of what god has

00:38:16.520 done as a way to praise God, as a way to confess his faith in God. But he also reminds God of other

00:38:25.160 things. In verses 13 through 14, David speaks to God again. He reminds him of his trials, the trials

00:38:32.200 that he's undergoing right now. And he asks for God to have mercy on him. He says, lift me from the

00:38:38.180 gates of death that I may tell all of your praises from the gates of death and the gates of the

00:38:43.560 daughter of Zion. This is amazing, the repetition here. He says, right now I'm in the gates of death. 0.86

00:38:50.640 I pray, Lord, that's where I am. Please lift me to the gates of the daughter of Zion. 0.88

00:38:56.520 Why does David remind God of his plight? Not because God forgot. This is so important.

00:39:04.120 What is his goal here? His goal is not even that he would be redeemed or saved from this

00:39:11.560 trial and tribulation. He certainly wants to be saved. But on the other side of God saving him

00:39:17.260 is this. It is so that God, David, could praise God more fully. The final goal of our prayer to

00:39:24.920 God, our reminding God of our plight, of our situation. God, I'm in a trial. I'm in an attack.

00:39:30.680 The final goal of our reminder to God

00:39:33.500 is that we would better be able to praise God.

00:39:40.460 This is like Psalm 143, 11, where David says this,

00:39:43.440 For your name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life.

00:39:47.180 In your righteousness, bring my soul out of trouble.

00:39:51.840 Notice verse 14 again.

00:39:53.380 David reminds God of his difficult trials and asks God to save him

00:39:57.040 so that David may rejoice in God.

00:39:59.580 when god saves us from an enemy and from a trial from the devil the purpose is so that we might

00:40:07.420 recount all of god's praises and rejoice in his salvation in many ways this is one of the

00:40:14.640 strongest evangelistic tools that we have our joy when god gives us victory we're not arguing about

00:40:21.200 whether god exists or not we're assuming that and we're praising god for what he has done to save us

00:40:26.540 it's easy to minimize it's easy to forget to praise it's easy to be downcast all the time

00:40:36.780 it's easy to black pill again parents there is no more powerful testimony to your children

00:40:44.460 than that you rejoice in god's great and small deliverances don't minimize them don't talk them

00:40:50.960 up to chance or just happenstance. Be vocal with your children. God saved us. We swerved out of

00:40:58.920 the way and we didn't run into the tree. That's a big deal. Your children need to know that it

00:41:04.280 was God who saved them in that moment. We're to rejoice in God's salvation, not just, oh,

00:41:09.900 look at that. Neat. Move on. No. Wow. God saved us. That's incredible. He's so good.

00:41:15.340 there's a quote here from Spurgeon and it's interesting about Spurgeon because Spurgeon

00:41:23.960 himself went through long and deep periods of melancholy and doubt and discouragement and

00:41:30.520 depression and yet he says this in commenting on Psalm 9 he says it is a good thing for the 0.67

00:41:37.780 melancholy to become a Christian it is an unfortunate thing for the Christian to become

00:41:43.300 melancholy. If there is any man in the world that has a right to have a bright, clear face and a 0.84

00:41:51.680 flashing eye, it is the man whose sins are forgiven and who is saved with God's salvation.

00:41:58.740 So we remind God of our plight so that we might praise him when he redeems us from it.

00:42:06.720 The third group that we are to remind is we remind fellow Christians

00:42:11.800 and just as we saw right now sometimes our fellow christians the people around us are rejoicing in

00:42:19.020 god and when they're rejoicing we are to remind them remember this psalm was written to the

00:42:25.380 choir master it's going to be sung publicly to the congregation of israel we are to remind each other

00:42:33.180 brothers and sisters of god's faithfulness we just saw that david longed for deliverance

00:42:40.060 so that he could recount all of God's salvation to the people around him.

00:42:45.380 It's almost like he's saying, okay, I'm really in a mess now.

00:42:47.700 This is going to be a fantastic way and opportunity for me

00:42:51.200 to encourage the people around me with God's salvation.

00:42:55.660 He wants to recount all of God's praises at the gates of the daughter of Zion

00:43:00.060 in fellowship with other Christians.

00:43:03.960 I don't know if this has happened to you, but it's happened to me.

00:43:06.880 sometimes when we're singing together as a body and I hear your joyful singing, your proclamation

00:43:13.260 of the truths about God and what he has done. I hear you singing those things and I believe them

00:43:20.260 more. I rejoice in them more because you're singing them with me. It's for good reason that

00:43:28.860 we are to encourage each other and teach each other with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

00:43:33.180 This is a collective reminder.

00:43:35.480 We build each other up as we recount and remember who God is.

00:43:39.560 We remind each other.

00:43:41.660 I think there's also a special application here on the Lord's Day.

00:43:45.340 When we come together, we ought to remind each other of who the Lord is and what he has done.

00:43:50.860 That should especially happen on the Lord's Day.

00:43:56.000 Not only do we remind Christians who are doing well and rejoicing in the Lord,

00:43:59.480 but we remind those who are suffering and being attacked over and over again

00:44:04.720 david reminds the congregation of israel that god is a refuge for the oppressed

00:44:09.420 even this is a form of evangelism the cities of refuge in the old testament

00:44:15.400 where where someone who was being chased to be killed could run to and be saved

00:44:20.480 in the same way the gospel is a city of refuge for us and we remind ourselves

00:44:27.940 Run to God in trials.

00:44:29.780 You're down, you're discouraged, you feel beaten.

00:44:32.840 Run to God.

00:44:35.240 God is our defense and safe harbor under the gospel.

00:44:38.080 And when we remind each other that God is our hope,

00:44:40.640 this testifies to the world that God is the kind of God who rescues his people.

00:44:49.180 To take refuge in God, to run to God, to flee to God,

00:44:52.380 means to hold fast to his promise to judge rightly.

00:44:55.700 you put your situation whatever it is i'm being attacked i'm being persecuted i'm a christian and

00:45:01.740 my boss is making me he's he's penalizing me for not using pronouns you you take your situation

00:45:07.320 whatever it is and you hold it up to god and you say lord i will run to you and i will let you

00:45:13.600 vindicate me there's a perspective here that is very important the wicked and the nations want

00:45:23.000 us to believe that whoever is currently winning is currently prosperous whose platform is currently

00:45:30.640 advancing is the one who is right they say see we and they in our time maybe they wouldn't

00:45:36.620 acknowledge god but they would say see we're right and you're wrong we're winning we have

00:45:40.860 the cultural power we have the success we have the businesses we have the media we're vindicated

00:45:45.960 you know we hold ourselves up to god and to his judgment

00:45:50.300 we remind each other that god is the one who avenges blood in verse 12 god is the one who

00:45:58.820 takes up the cause of his people we remind each other even when when our brothers and sisters

00:46:03.220 are under attack we remind them that god is mindful he's aware of the trial that they're

00:46:07.520 going through verse 18 in particular shows us that when we are being attacked either by the devil

00:46:13.120 by wicked men or by adversaries the temptation is to believe that god has forgotten us and so

00:46:18.720 brothers and sisters, we have to remind each other. Don't just assume. Don't just assume,

00:46:23.620 yeah, I'm sure he knows these things. I'm sure she knows these things. Encourage one another.

00:46:27.920 Remind each other. God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble. In fact, very often,

00:46:36.160 God allows the enemies to assail us. We must remind each other that God will not always

00:46:42.600 let the proud exalt themselves we must remind each other that god who in the past judged and

00:46:51.400 destroyed and protected and defended is the god who's currently doing that

00:46:55.520 fourth we remind ourselves we remind god we remind our fellow brothers and sisters

00:47:05.000 We remind the nations and the wicked.

00:47:08.900 Look what David says to the nations and to the wicked all throughout the psalm.

00:47:15.560 He reminds the nations that God has already destroyed some of them. 0.62

00:47:21.520 Guys, I don't know if you've forgotten, but back then when Saul was in charge, we beat those nations. 0.70

00:47:28.660 We destroyed them.

00:47:29.720 he rejoices in the fact that god has removed their names even from history

00:47:35.660 which was the greatest harm really that could be done to a people

00:47:40.200 remove their names from history god tells the nations around him that all

00:47:45.920 their efforts now to currently continue to oppose god

00:47:49.080 and his people are going to come not just to ruin

00:47:51.920 but he says to everlasting ruin david is hinting not just that their 0.94

00:47:57.200 nation and their name will be wiped from history, but that they will be destroyed and ruined forever

00:48:03.120 in hell. On top of that, David reminds them that they are not the final arbiters of truth.

00:48:10.880 He reminds them that God is currently judging them. Just because God judged some of the nations

00:48:15.560 in the past and is leaving them alone seemingly right now, these other nations, does not mean

00:48:20.060 that they have escaped judgment. David is saying God is still judging, evaluating, looking at you, 0.62

00:48:26.120 preparing his wrath. And God, David even goes so far as to taunt the enemies. He taunts them.

00:48:39.200 He's mocking them. He's saying to them, he's saying, look, remember those nations that in

00:48:43.960 the past rose up against God that are now a smear in history? Now their cities are utterly destroyed.

00:48:49.740 It's like he's saying, wait, is that? Nope, that's just a pile of rocks. Is that the civilization?

00:48:54.940 No, that's just a forest. What was that one king? What's his name? Oh man, I just, I don't remember.

00:49:00.680 God, David is mocking these people who have been destroyed and utterly white from history

00:49:05.520 in hopes that taunting them would call then other nations around him to sober judgment. 0.68

00:49:13.220 Again, Spurgeon says, here the psalmist exults over the fallen foe. He bends, as it were, over

00:49:18.460 his prostrate form and insults his once vaunted strength. He plucks, I love this, he plucks the

00:49:25.240 boaster's song out of his mouth and sings it back for him in derision. After this fashion does our

00:49:33.860 glorious redeemer ask of death, where is thy sting? And of the grave, where is thy victory?

00:49:38.580 The spoiler is spoiled, and he who made captive is led into captivity himself. Let the daughters 0.55

00:49:45.600 of Jerusalem go forth and meet their king with praise and timbrel and harp. We preach warnings 0.90

00:49:52.700 to the wicked, yes, but we also exult over the defeated foes of God. It's true that God takes

00:49:59.660 no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but it's also true that he who sits in the heavens laughs

00:50:04.920 at the wicked. And so when God defeats something that actually is truly wicked,

00:50:11.860 we ought to have some time to exult

00:50:15.380 remember there's a time for everything there is

00:50:18.680 there's a time for laughter and for celebration and there's a time for that

00:50:22.640 to come to an end but even the fact that christians are

00:50:26.840 called to exult over the death and destruction of the wicked

00:50:30.080 is a testimony there are many evangelicals and evangelical leaders

00:50:36.140 right now who are grieving the loss of trans rights in

00:50:40.740 America. They're grieving the fact that America hates women. No, no, no, no, no. Christians, 0.99

00:50:48.620 if the trans ideology truly is being destroyed, we are to exult in that. Do you know what happens 1.00

00:50:55.920 if we don't exult in that? If we grieve the loss of it, what we're saying is that was actually good.

00:51:01.660 Why did God take it from us? If it's actually evil and God has removed it and destroyed it

00:51:07.960 and crushed it and ground it into dust, we should say, hooray. That's fantastic.

00:51:17.340 Even God has a holy mockery in this passage. Notice that God says, this is actually hilarious

00:51:24.640 to me. He says that the Lord has executed his judgments. How? The Lord has executed his

00:51:31.480 judgments by causing the nations to fall into their own snare. I loved how Connor pointed out

00:51:39.860 in Psalm 119 today in the liturgy, the wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your

00:51:46.200 precepts. The reason why a snare is a problem for Christians, it's not like it's out in the field 0.97

00:51:52.340 somewhere. The wicked put the snare in the path that we must walk on to follow God, like with

00:51:58.420 Daniel. They put that snare right in front of him. So the only choice was walk into it or deny your

00:52:05.300 faith in God. The wicked put their snares in the way of obedience and righteousness.

00:52:13.600 And yet, how does the Lord execute his judgment? He does it by causing the nations to fall

00:52:18.540 into their own traps. It's almost like something right out of a cartoon, right? You remember the

00:52:24.060 the Looney, or I don't know if it was Looney Tunes, but Roadrunner and Coyote cartoons,

00:52:28.640 right? The Coyote always setting up these elaborate traps. He's going to blow up

00:52:33.760 the Roadrunner, which if he did that, he would have no dinner. I don't know what his plan was,

00:52:38.360 but he's going to make the Roadrunner fall into a pit or the rock is going to smash the Roadrunner.

00:52:44.160 And always at the end of every one of these bits, that exact trap is what the Coyote himself falls

00:52:50.260 into. And kids, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can ask your parents for some good old

00:52:56.920 fashioned mockery of the foolish. Roadrunner and coyote. Look at what David says. He says that 1.00

00:53:04.420 the wicked afflict the weak. They build up in vanity. They lay elaborate traps for the righteous.

00:53:09.940 But what is the result of all of that? They fall into their own traps. It's hilarious, actually,

00:53:15.760 when you think about it. This is why God laughs. It's not just laughing at their foolishness and

00:53:22.500 folly, that's true, but he's also laughing as they set this trap, and he just reroutes them

00:53:26.600 right back into it, and he's laughing at them. Now, God is known by how he executes his judgment,

00:53:36.880 and the way that he executes his judgment is by humiliating the wicked. And then verse 17,

00:53:42.940 God says that the end result of the wicked is that they return to Sheol. Why does it say here

00:53:50.180 that they return? Spurgeon says that God's hands are like magnets, pushing and pulling. He said

00:53:57.020 God has two hands of mercy and of justice. With one, he will draw the godly to heaven. With the

00:54:03.460 other, he will thrust the sinner to hell. And oh, how dreadful is that place. It is called a fiery

00:54:08.620 lake, a lake to denote the plenty of torments in hell, a fiery lake to show the fierceness of them.

00:54:14.720 Fire is the most torturing element. And Thomas Watson adds an even more terrifying commentary

00:54:20.180 about this. He says, what does it mean that they return to Sheol, that they return to death?

00:54:28.080 He says, behold the deplorable condition of all ungodly ones in the other world, in death.

00:54:34.960 they shall have a life that always dies and a death that always lives may not this affright

00:54:43.360 send man may that may not this affright men out of their sins and make them become godly

00:54:50.160 unless they are resolved to try and find how hot the hellfire is as i said god takes no pleasure

00:54:57.800 in the death of the wicked this is why david does not only exult over the defeat of the nations

00:55:04.800 He doesn't just rub their noses in it.

00:55:07.500 The last thing I want to point out is what we see in verse 11.

00:55:10.700 He says, sing praises to the Lord who sits enthroned in Zion.

00:55:14.320 Tell among the people his deeds.

00:55:18.860 David is saying, even when God destroys the enemies, the call of God's people,

00:55:24.280 who do we remind?

00:55:25.500 We remind the wicked.

00:55:27.020 We tell of God's deeds and praises among the peoples.

00:55:30.580 when we remember and recount God's deeds and righteous judgment to the nations and to the

00:55:36.880 wicked around us, this is a call to them to repent. This is evangelism. It is not done merely out of

00:55:46.100 spite. It is done in a call that they would humble themselves. Guys, you saw what just happened to

00:55:52.860 that nation. Humble yourself. Don't go that way. It's like Paul and Silas in the jail in Philippi.

00:56:02.840 When our enemy seeks to destroy us and God rescues us, and when we reply with praise,

00:56:09.180 this indicts the enemy and it calls him to repent and to know this God. David's desire,

00:56:16.820 and ours as well, really, is that the nations not come to know God's hammer, but God's hand of

00:56:24.860 kindness. Now, at that time, it was unlikely that nations would convert en masse, but David had that

00:56:34.020 heart. And brothers and sisters, we live in the gospel age, and we know from the great commission

00:56:38.580 that the job of the church is to disciple the nations. And so we can pray with a great hope

00:56:43.300 and a great fear that God would cause the nations to humble themselves.

00:56:50.260 This is why David closes his psalm with these two verses.

00:56:53.940 Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail.

00:56:57.120 Let the nations be judged before you. 0.73

00:56:59.880 Put them in fear, O Lord.

00:57:01.640 Let the nations know that they are but men.

00:57:05.960 Put them in fear, O Lord.

00:57:08.800 This is a good and legitimate prayer that we should pray often

00:57:12.180 for the nations and for our nation. God, put them in fear of you.

00:57:18.660 We see the plan of God being worked out here through the prayers of David, through the prayers

00:57:23.920 of his people, through our prayers. God, would you put the nation in fear? Would you remind

00:57:28.960 the nations that they are but men? The hope is that as God stands up, kind of like in a movie

00:57:36.860 where a big, strong guy comes on scene

00:57:38.920 and the camera slowly pans up, pans up,

00:57:41.960 and he's just bigger and more massive

00:57:43.800 the more the camera moves up.

00:57:45.800 The hope is that as God stands now,

00:57:47.800 remember, he sits on his throne and renders judgment,

00:57:50.660 but he is going to arise to execute that judgment.

00:57:54.440 And David's hope is that as God arises,

00:57:57.020 the nations will see his strength

00:57:59.280 and they will humble themselves.

00:58:03.800 Remember, over and over in this psalm,

00:58:06.220 David has said that God hears and sees and is mindful of who?

00:58:10.840 Of the humble.

00:58:12.800 This is God's prayer.

00:58:14.120 This is David's prayer in verse 20.

00:58:16.360 Oh God, put the fear of the nations and in the wicked and let them know that they are but men.

00:58:22.940 This is always our prayer for the nations.

00:58:25.120 This is always our prayer for our nation.

00:58:28.940 I have one more quote here from G. Campbell Morgan,

00:58:31.880 who was a very well-known theologian in the late 1800s, early 1900s.

00:58:37.460 He was the preacher at Westminster Chapel in London that preceded Martin Lloyd-Jones.

00:58:43.920 And interestingly enough, he was a dispensationalist for most of his life.

00:58:47.140 But as he continued to study the scripture, he became convinced of covenant theology.

00:58:52.640 This is what he said about Psalm 9, verse 20.

00:58:56.520 He says,

00:58:57.100 what prayer then can we pray which is of more vital importance than that the nations may know

00:59:03.220 themselves to be but men? Such knowledge must drive them to dependence upon God, and such

00:59:10.960 dependence is the secret of national strength and of national prosperity and permanence. Brothers

00:59:17.280 and sisters, our prayer for America, we have many of them, but at the heart of all of them is God,

00:59:22.540 would you make a country fear you and know that they are but men

00:59:25.900 when i sent nathan my notes i had a third point but as i was working through it i realized it

00:59:34.340 was going to be too much so let me let me close with these words

00:59:37.480 i was i was going to say something like this we have to work to remember god we have to work at

00:59:46.880 it that's the whole point of this song we remind each other we work at it we don't forget

00:59:51.800 we have to work at it even though it's the most obvious and immediate thing

00:59:56.220 in every moment of our life and yet when we face battles when we face enemies enemies of

01:00:02.820 temptation of guilt of evil men of nations that rise up against god even of brothers

01:00:09.480 when we face these enemies

01:00:14.380 we have to work to remember god's character we have to remind ourselves and each other

01:00:22.780 what god has done and what kind of god he is we brothers and sisters think about this

01:00:28.760 we are the ones of all the people in the world we the christians know god's name

01:00:34.640 and we run to him over and over but god knows us as well it's not just that we know god but

01:00:42.240 that he knows us and the names of his children are written in the lamb's book of life we are the

01:00:49.300 ones who praise him we exult we exult in the god of our salvation and in doing so we call the world

01:00:55.760 the wicked world around us to repent so i pray that as you celebrate a special time of thanksgiving

01:01:03.580 of remembrance of what has god has done over the the next couple of weeks thanksgiving and

01:01:08.900 Christmas holidays, I pray that you will make a special effort to remind yourself and those around

01:01:15.220 you of this God who reigns upon his throne and is totally and eternally faithful. Let's pray.

01:01:26.820 Father, we're painfully aware that it is only by your grace that we know your name.

01:01:32.960 it's only by your mercy that your hands pulled us to heaven rather than pushed us down

01:01:40.000 into judgment and hell father we confess that we forget easily lord we should be full of praise at

01:01:48.100 all times and yet at best we remember to to thank and praise you once or twice a day or at meal

01:01:54.140 times lord forgive us for that help us to remember you and to remind people of you in a way that

01:02:00.760 It draws people to yourself and draws glory to your name.

01:02:04.420 We pray this in Jesus' name.

01:02:05.660 Amen.

The NXR Podcast - November 17, 2024

THE SERMON - HOLY BATTLE： Christians Remember & Remind

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript