What A Mighty God We Serve!
(Psalm 76)
1. Last week Sam brought me a package that had been mailed to my name at Ahavat Yeshua Messianic Congregation, where I sometimes speak.
2. It was a free book on an item from the high priest’s clothing. I gave it to Sam to read first, because that is his area of special interest.
3. With the book came a note, asking me to write a note to confirm that I had received it. I sent a thank you note.
4. As he read it, it was clear that the author was not of the evangelical persuasion. He brought in astrology and reincarnation and a bunch of stuff. He also told me about “endorsements.”
5. They were not endorsements, just letters thanking him for sending the book, something big ministries do typically as a courtesy. But he printed some of them in his book (from a previous edition), giving the idea that they endorsed the book. There was a letter from Joel Olsteen and even the Pope! [Sam & I attract the weird]
6. As an author myself, I know how much we want to get our books into the hands of others, but sometimes you have to be comfortable with a very limited amount of influence. God is God, and you are just you, an ordinary person.
7. Psalm 76 is the “after” of Psalm 75. In Psalm 75, God was about to deliver Judah; in Psalm 76, the psalmist thanks God for the deliverance after the fact.
8. This Psalm may have been written by a man named Asaph who was of the House of Asaph and a descendant of the earlier Asaph.
Isaiah 36:3, “ And there came out to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder.”
Main Idea: Our God is unlike the imaginary gods of the nations; He is Almighty and Sovereign.
I. We Serve a God of the Greater MOUNTAIN (1-4)
A. Mount ZION, on which the Temple was built (1-3)
1. Zooming in: Israel to Judah to SALEM (2a)
2. Mt. Zion: the one and only location for God’s TEMPLE (2b)
3. God delivered His people FROM Zion (3)
B. The mountain of PREY, Judah’s enemies (4)
1. The ASSYRIANS had laid siege to Jerusalem
2. They had captured, killed and deported about 200,000 Jews from JUDAH
Application: We can’t choose our own mountain! Must be Mt. Zion.
• God did not limit His presence to Mt. Zion, but dwelt there in a special way.
• The church — the assembly of God’s people — is a place where Jesus special dwells (wherever 2 or 3 gather). Whether the gathering, a loss of presence.
• Room for creativity when it comes to doing church, but not limitless room. The focus is to be God and His Word and His people, who make up His body.
• Like a child who only wans desserts, many Christians forsake a wholesome, balanced diet of the Word, prayer, praise, the ordinances, & fellowship.
II. We Serve A God Who Can INTERVENE (5-6)
A. Mystery and Unpredictability: God allowed much of Judah to be ATTACKED
1. God told Moses to take the people to Canaan; God told Abraham to leave his home town and the Lord would lead him when it was time; not the same.
2. God blessed Job & wife with 10 sons — but not until after first 10 were killed.
3. Sometimes God destroyed the enemy with no casualties and no fighting; sometimes He does so by enabling the Israelites to prevail with casualties.
4. Very Sad blog, “Today, I woke up and found a little note where my husband should have been. It said, "We've had some good times, hun, but it's time for me to move on." We've been married for 15 years, and have 3 children.”
B. The mighty enemy and their horses were PARALYZED (5-6)
C. The DESCRIPTION of what happened is found in Isaiah 37:33-38
[God is speaking through Isaiah] “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
• God is known among His people; others may know about Him, but they don’t know Him; they do not have a personal relationship with Him.
• We personally covenant with God; another sense in which we know Him by knowing His people, and seeing Him work among them.
Derek Kidner: “Not His ‘abode’ but His… ‘lair’ is the bold expression here, with its tacit comparison of the Lord it a lion…”
Application: God is doing a great thing in His Kingdom. The ancient cathedrals and palaces were built over centuries… the people who started them did not see them completed… we have lost this perspective… God’s plans are for long term.
III. We Serve A God Who Is To Be REVERENCED (7-12)
A. Fearing God means honoring and respecting Him more than ANYTHING
B. He acts decisively, sometimes motivated by ANGER (7-9a)
1. How God’s anger differs from our anger/long-suffering
2. Anger can be a good thing if properly directed
Psalm 4:4, “Be angry, and do not sin; ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent.”
Ephesians 4:26, “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger…”
A lot of the world’s greatest inventions have been motivated by anger; medicine — by anger at seeing how people suffer; by anger at inconvenience.
C. God’s genuine children are described as HUMBLE (9b)
D. Mankind shakes a fist at God, which is almost COMICAL (10)
• JFB "Man's wrath praises God by its futility before His power."
• Modern politicians mock God, mock respect for human life — dehumanizing life in the womb; they mock marriage and the sexuality God created…
• But the party won’t last and the intoxication will wear off; we all face God
E. One way we show reverence for God is by intentionally and in a focused way
HONORING Him (11-12)
1. Honoring Him needs to be a matter of faithful patterns…
2. But behind the faithful pattern must be a living faith, animated by the Holy Spirit, who delivers us from meaningless repetition and heartless words…
John 4:24, “God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
