PSALM 76 - Who Can Stand?
Summer Psalms 2023 • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 43:25
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· 15 viewsGod's power in judgment demands our reverence in worship.
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Introduction
Introduction
A few months ago I went to a (long-overdue) eye exam. And you know how those go; you sit there peering into the big scope while the doctor switches the settings and says “clearer or fuzzier”? over and over. And hopefully, the image gets clearer as you go. I mentioned this last week in relation to the psalms of Asaph, but it bears repeating again this morning, because the psalm we come to today represents the psalmist’s clearest “focus” of God’s power and authority yet. There is a progression from Psalm 73, where Asaph was in serious jeopardy of stumbling in his faith because God’s power seemed to be mocked and ignored by the prosperity of the wicked, to Psalm 74 where he stubbornly insisted that God was able to keep His covenant promises, to Psalm 75 where he was steadfastly praising God for His deliverance before it even happened.
So there is a progression here in these psalms of a growing understanding of God’s character—His power, His authority, His faithfulness. And the opening verse of Psalm 76 demonstrates that this psalm is the clearest vision yet of Who God is:
Psalm 76:1 (ESV)
1 In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel.
Now, there are some psalms that have a very-well established historical context—we know the specific occasion for which they were written (the introduction to Psalm 51, for instance, tells us that it was written by David after the prophet Nathan confronted him about his sin with Bathsheba). There is no title in Psalm 76 that gives us an historical context, but many scholars and commentators through the centuries have suggested that this psalm was written after God delivered Jerusalem from the Assyrian army in 2 Kings 18-19. The Assyrian general Sennacherib taunted King Hezekiah, saying
2 Kings 18:32–35 (ESV)
32 “…Do not listen to Hezekiah when he misleads you by saying, “YHWH will deliver us.” 33 Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 35 Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”
Sennacherib arrogantly dismissed the power of God to defend His people and His city, and he paid for it. In 2 Kings 19, the prophet Isaiah brings the word of the LORD to Hezekiah, saying
2 Kings 19:32–37 (ESV)
32 “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. 33 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. 34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” 35 And that night 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. 36 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went home and lived at Nineveh. 37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
As we will see, a great deal of the imagery of this psalm is very reminiscent of that account of God defending Jerusalem, His dwelling place. And so for that reason I think that it is fitting for us to understand this psalm as a call to see God’s power in judgment. The core statement of this psalm is found in verse 7—looking out over tens of thousands of warriors struck dead in the middle of the night, it is easy to imagine crying out these words:
Psalm 76:7 (ESV)
7 But you, you are to be feared! Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused?
And so this is what I aim to show you from God’s Word today, that
God’s POWER in JUDGMENT demands our REVERENCE in WORSHIP
God’s POWER in JUDGMENT demands our REVERENCE in WORSHIP
We need to be reminded of this; we need to have Psalm 76 fill our vision, because we live in a flippant, careless and shallow age. We live in a time and among a people who take nothing seriously. We live in an age when the most important question people ask themselves is, “Will this pursuit entertain me? Will I be personally fulfilled by this pastime? Will I have fun doing this?” We live in an age when the word “God” falls from the lips of people who want to express mild surprise or exasperation, a time when the very notion of God’s judgment is snickered at as a fairy tale, when even many Christians come into His presence as if He were lucky that they made time for Him; who look at the prospect of their own holiness before Him as a matter of indifference, as long as they’ve “prayed the prayer” or made some affirmation of believing in Jesus.
But Asaph won’t let us off so easily—this psalm is meant to shake us out of that complacent, casual attitude by taking us by the hand and leading us out to the wall of Jerusalem and pointing down to the plain filled with dead enemy soldiers, saying, “That is Who God is!”
We need to understand what Psalm 76 is showing us about God, and how that knowledge will change the way we come into His presence. In verses 1-3 we are faced with God’s power in judgment as He accomplishes
I. His DELIVERANCE of His PEOPLE (Psalm76:1-3)
I. His DELIVERANCE of His PEOPLE (Psalm76:1-3)
Psalm 76:1–3 (ESV)
1 In Judah God is known; his name is great in Israel. 2 His abode has been established in Salem, his dwelling place in Zion. 3 There he broke the flashing arrows, the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war. Selah
When Sennacherib threatened to destroy Jerusalem, he was not just threatening to kill the inhabitants of the city; he was threatening to attack God’s own abode. God delivers His people as
He GRACIOUSLY makes His DWELLING with them (vv. 1-2; cp. Isaiah 66:1-2)
He GRACIOUSLY makes His DWELLING with them (vv. 1-2; cp. Isaiah 66:1-2)
God told Hezekiah,
2 Kings 19:34 (ESV)
34 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
The Old Testament makes it clear that God does not “dwell” in Jerusalem in the sense that He is confined there. It is not as though He needs a “home”. As He spoke through the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 66--
Isaiah 66:1–2 (ESV)
1 Thus says the Lord: “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? 2 All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.
Jerusalem wasn’t His dwelling place because He needs shelter or protection; Jerusalem was His dwelling place for the sake of His people, so that they could be with Him! God is defending His dwelling for His own sake—not because He is physically threatened by their attacks, but for the sake of His honor. And He says He will graciously defend Jerusalem for David’s sake. God is faithful to His covenant promises to King David and his descendants.
There is an aspect of this imagery—God’s people dwelling in His presence—that is a bit obscured in our English translations. The word translated “abode” in verse 2 is actually more closely translated as “lair” or “den” (the same word is used to describe a “den of lions” in Psalm 104:22). The sense here in these verses is that God is like a lion, crouching in His lair on Mount Zion, waiting to pounce on His enemies, while His people dwell safely with Him. His enemies were gathered around the city where He dwelt with His people—and in verse 3
He POWERFULLY makes them SECURE in Him (v. 3)
He POWERFULLY makes them SECURE in Him (v. 3)
God promised Hezekiah that Sennacherib “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.” (2 Kings 19:32). And sure enough, the psalmist says in verse 3:
Psalm 76:3 (ESV)
3 There he broke the flashing arrows, the shield, the sword, and the weapons of war.
God promised Hezekiah that not one of those tens of thousands of soldiers would even let fly a random arrow at the walls—not a single arrow shot, not a single javelin thrown, not a single sword thrust, not a single spadeful of earth thrown against the walls for a seige mound. You’ll notice that verse 3 ends with the word Selah, which most likely means a musical pause or interlude. The psalmist is deliberately pausing the song here, inviting us to stop and consider God’s powerful protection of His city and His people: “This is the power of the God that you serve—do not disregard Him!”
Psalm 76 is a description of God’s power in judgment—we see His power in His deliverance of His people, and we see His power in judgment displayed in
II. His DEFEAT of His ADVERSARIES (Psalm 76:4-9)
II. His DEFEAT of His ADVERSARIES (Psalm 76:4-9)
Starting in verse 4 and continuing through verse 10, the psalmist shifts from speaking to us, the readers, and turns to addressing God Himself. And the imagery of the next three verses continues to fit the account of the death of the Assyrian army in 2 Kings:
Psalm 76:4–6 (ESV)
4 Glorious are you, more majestic than the mountains full of prey. 5 The stouthearted were stripped of their spoil; they sank into sleep; all the men of war were unable to use their hands. 6 At your rebuke, O God of Jacob, both rider and horse lay stunned.
The psalmist is pointing out again the power of God in judgment on His enemies—
His REBUKE is UNSTOPPABLE (vv. 4-6)
His REBUKE is UNSTOPPABLE (vv. 4-6)
An army 185 thousand strong, arrayed against Jerusalem with chariots and horses, spears and bows—the same army that had conquered Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, Telassar, Hamath, Arpad, Sepharavim, Hena, Ivvah (2 Kings 19:12-13)—these battle-hardened warriors looked at Jerusalem as simply another vulnerable city that would fall just as all the others did. But as they lay down to sleep in preparation for their attack the next day, they had no idea that they would never wake up again. God did not have to send an army against the Assyrians; He didn’t have to use a natural disaster or violent catastrophe the way He did when He threw the Egyptian army with all its chariots and horses into the sea in Exodus; with a mere rebuke from His lips, His enemies simply stopped living. With nothing more than His word, He simply ended them.
When God utters His rebuke, there is no one that can stand before Him:
Psalm 76:7 (ESV)
7 But you, you are to be feared! Who can stand before you when once your anger is roused?
His rebuke is unstoppable, and
His REACH is UNLIMITED (vv. 7-9)
His REACH is UNLIMITED (vv. 7-9)
Psalm 76:8–9 (ESV)
8 From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still, 9 when God arose to establish judgment, to save all the humble of the earth.
If we read this psalm in the context of 1 Kings 18-19, there is a stark contrast here between the power of YHWH to deliver judgment and the other so-called “gods” of the nations. In 1 Kings 18, Sennacherib taunts Hezekiah that his army defeats gods:
2 Kings 18:33–35 (ESV)
33 Has any of the gods of the nations ever delivered his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? 34 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? 35 Who among all the gods of the lands have delivered their lands out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”
But when the sun rose the next morning, that so-called “god-defeating army” lay lifeless on the plains outside Jerusalem:
2 Kings 19:35 (ESV)
35 And that night 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.
So Sennacherib goes home to Nineveh, and goes to his god Nisroch’s temple to worship—and YHWH struck him down there!
2 Kings 19:37 (ESV)
37 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword and escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
Not only was Sennacherib powerless against the unstoppable rebuke of God, but his own god Nisroch was powerless to protect him from YHWH even in his own temple! Notice that the psalmist ends this section of Psalm 76 with another selah, as a reminder that there is no one who can stand against our God when He arises to protect His people from His adversaries!
Psalm 76:8–9 (ESV)
8 From the heavens you uttered judgment; the earth feared and was still, 9 when God arose to establish judgment, to save all the humble of the earth. Selah
God’s power in judgment is magnified in His deliverance of His people and in the defeat of His adversaries. And in the concluding verses of the psalm, the psalmist calls us to consider God’s power for judgment as seen in
III. His REIGN over the NATIONS (Psalm 76:10-12)
III. His REIGN over the NATIONS (Psalm 76:10-12)
In verses 10-12 we read
Psalm 76:10–12 (ESV)
10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise you; the remnant of wrath you will put on like a belt. 11 Make your vows to the Lord your God and perform them; let all around him bring gifts to him who is to be feared, 12 who cuts off the spirit of princes, who is to be feared by the kings of the earth.
Verse 10 sounds puzzling at first glance—how can wrathful men be praising God? But then consider the way Psalm 2 describes the rage and wrath of the nations:
Psalm 2:1–4 (ESV)
1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed, saying, 3 “Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.” 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision.
In the context of the power of God for judgment here in Psalm 76, the same idea comes across regarding the rage of the nations:
Their WRATH is IMPOTENT (v. 10; cp. Psalm 2)
Their WRATH is IMPOTENT (v. 10; cp. Psalm 2)
The angrier they get over God’s reign over them, the more He is glorified—the harder they fight Him the more powerful He is seen to be. The bigger the army they send against His people, the more humiliating their defeat when He utters His unstoppable word of rebuke that lays them low. And whatever wrath is left over, He “wears like a belt”—either a reference to His wearing the remains of their wrath like a trophy, or (as the King James translates it), that He “restrains” whatever wrath does not suit His purposes of glorifying Himself. Their defeats are His victories; their hatred heightens His glory. Their desire to tear Him down only results in His majesty and splendor increasing on the earth.
God’s power in judgment is seen in His reign over the nations—His unstoppable power and authority and ability to execute judgment unopposed means that their wrath is impotent—and in verse 11 we are exhorted that God’s power in judgment means that
Your VOWS are IMPORTANT (v. 11)
Your VOWS are IMPORTANT (v. 11)
Psalm 76:11 (ESV)
11 Make your vows to the Lord your God and perform them; let all around him bring gifts to him who is to be feared,
Only here in this verse is the covenant name of God YHWH used—a call to His covenant people to remember their covenant with God. If this psalm was written in the context of the reign of Hezekiah, then it was certainly composed as a way of calling the Kingdom of Judah back to repentance. Hezekiah himself was a faithful king, but his own brother had been burned alive as a sacrifice to Molech by his father Ahaz, and his own grandson met the same fate, burned alive by his son Manasseh, who would go on to lead Judah into greater and more shocking acts of rebellion against YHWH than even the northern Kingdom had done when the Assyrians destroyed them (2 Kings 21:9).
So in this psalm, the psalmist is forcing his own people of Judah to look at the power of God to judge His adversaries. He brings them to the parapet of Jerusalem and points down to the mountains of dead Assyrian corpses says to them, in effect: “This is what YHWH does to His enemies—185 thousand soldiers dead in their sleep!. This is His unstoppable power, this is His unlimited reach; this is what happens when His anger is aroused—no one can stand before Him! Do you really want to break your covenant vows to this God??”
The Kingdom of Judah did not heed this warning; they did not remember their vows. And decades later, the Chaldean army swept over Jerusalem and destroyed it—not because God was no longer able to defend His city, but because He was judging that city for breaking their covenant vows to Him. They were His covenant people, but when they broke their covenant vows to Him they suffered the consequences.
Christian—you are a member of the New Covenant people of God. You have a covenant bond far more perfect in the shed blood of Jesus Christ than any blood of bulls or goats. The Kingdom to which you belong is far superior to the earthly Kingdom of Judah, the City that holds your citizenship is far more glorious and unshakeable than the City of Jerusalem where God dwelt with His people, the dwelling of God is not with you, Christian—it is in you by His Holy Spirit.
This is everything that we read earlier in our worship from Hebrews 12--
Hebrews 12:22–24 (ESV)
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, 23 and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, 24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
But do not let that assurance of a better covenant, a better city, a better dwelling lead you to believe that somehow you have a lesser responsibility to fear God!
Hebrews 12:25 (ESV)
25 See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.
Christian, the fact that you belong to the New Covenant people of God, purchased by the blood of Christ who has delivered you from the wrath of God against your sin and sealed your membership in His promises does not make your vows before Him less significant—you have been given a greater kingdom, a greater covenant, a greater promise:
Hebrews 12:28–29 (ESV)
28 Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, 29 for our God is a consuming fire.
Christian, when you see the power of God in judgment in this psalm—when the psalmist points out over the fields of dead Assyrians who dared to oppose YHWH in His dwelling place and says to you, this is the work of the God you have made your vows to—how in the world can you be careless or inattentive when you come to worship Him? He is the God who litters the ground with the bodies of His enemies; He is the God Who reaches into the strongholds of His rivals and slaughters their kings while they worship their powerless gods; why do we think that we can come into His presence carelessly and thoughtlessly in worship?
Why does our culture treat this hour like some kind of entertainment, some kind of “feel-good” session where we expect to have our egos stroked and our desires rubber-stamped? How did worship come to mean anything other than being ushered into the presence of the God who commands life and death at a word, the God who sets up and removes empires at a glance, the God who sees and knows every last motion of corruption and sin that lurks in the deepest recesses of our hearts? Where is the reverence and awe for such a God?
This Asaph-psalmist has gone to great lengths in this song to remind us that this is a God to worship with reverent fear! Christian—this is the God Who sends enemy armies down on His own people’s heads for breaking a covenant sealed with animal blood—why do you think you can break your vows to Him made in the Name of Jesus Christ and He will look the other way?
When you vow before God to honor your husband, honor your wife, and be faithful to him, faithful to her, for as long as you both shall live—you are making a vow that He will bind you to. When you affirm the Membership Covenant here, you are affirming a covenant “in the presence of God, angels and this assembly...” You are making a pledge before Him regarding your relationship with this church body that He will hold you to. When you stand in the waters of baptism and affirm that you have repented of your sin and are trusting in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ alone for your salvation, you are publicly affirming in His presence that you belong to Him. And He is a God Who expects your faithfulness.
Over and over in the New Testament—not just in Hebrews—we are exhorted to walk in a manner worthy of our calling:
Ephesians 4:1–3 (ESV)
1 I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.
And in our study of 1 and 2 Thessalonians earlier this year:
1 Thessalonians 2:12 (ESV)
12 we exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.
2 Thessalonians 1:11 (ESV)
11 To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power,
And the beauty of this calling to faithfulness, this exhortation to walk worthy of the God Who has called you is that God Himself has given you the ability to keep your promises to Him! He is the One who, through the blood of Jesus Christ “equips you with everything good that you may do His will!” (Heb 13:21) In Christ, God Himself is at work in you “both to will and to work His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13) so that you will carry out all that you have pledged to Him, that the blood of the eternal covenant sealed by Christ will equip you for faithfulness, and that in all that you do and say and desire for Him will honor Him with reverence and holy fear. Christian, because you have flown for refuge to Jesus Christ that you are able to worship the God of Psalm 76 with reverence, fulfilling all your vows to Him and “bringing gifts to him who is to be feared.” (Ps. 76:11)
But for those who can read this psalm and not heed its call for reverence and holy fear for God, who will say, like Sennacherib, “God? What God? I don’t care what you say God wants—you go ahead and cower and kowtow to your God; I’ll be over here living my own life.” For the government leaders who say, “The opinions of any religion about the will of God plays no role in this Congress”, the princes of commerce who say “We can make a lot of money with this new over the counter abortion pill, who cares what the religious right thinks”, the kings of mass media who entertain themselves by mocking and blaspheming the Name of God for laughs, the psalmist ends this psalm with a warning that YHWH is the God
Psalm 76:12 (ESV)
12 who cuts off the spirit of princes, who is to be feared by the kings of the earth.
Are you afraid that the government is going to come after you, Christian? Are you afraid that they are going to make your life miserable? He is the God that will make the unrepentant kings of the earth eternally miserable. Don’t fear them—fear FOR them. They are the ones in trouble. We call them to repent; to kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and they perish in the way.
And friend, if you are here with that same kind of heart that has no time for the fear of the Lord, if you are more bored than awed by being in His presence, if you think nothing of disregarding the promises you have made in His Name or to His people—won’t you look again at what this psalmist has sought so diligently to set before you? That this God with whom you have to do is a God Who will not overlook rebellion against Him. This is the God who reached into the temple of Nisroch to cut down Sennacherib for his mockery—do you really believe there is anywhere you can go that will protect you from His hand to strike you? This is the God Who simply removed the life of 185 thousand warriors with a word—do you really not understand that your life is under His sovereign control in exactly the same way? Why would you mock such a God with your disdain and carelessness regarding your life? Why would you turn your back on His power as if He did not have the authority to cast you at any moment into eternal separation from Him?
Do you think I am playing on fear right now? Do you think I am trying to “scare” you? Well, maybe I am—because the Scripture says that you SHOULD be scared of a God like this. He is to be feared—do you think you can stand before Him once His anger is roused? If He should mark your iniquity, if He should repay you as your sins deserve, do you really think you will walk away from that encounter?
Here is the Good News—there is One Who did stand before Him when His wrath against your sin was roused, and He took the brunt of that anger and absorbed it for you. And He offers you your one and only way to stand before this God—that you come in repentance for all your sin, all your lawlessness, all your scorn and disregard and carelessness towards Him, and you cry out to Him for forgiveness so that He will become your “abode in Salem”—your dwelling in peace—peace with God as you are justified by faith in your Savior, Jesus Christ!
BENEDICTION
Hebrews 13:20–21 (ESV)
20 Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, 21 equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION:
Take some time to read through Psalm 73, 74, 75 and 76 in one sitting. How do you see Asaph’s understanding of God’s character progress through these psalms? Which of those psalms best captures your own understanding of God and His power?
Take some time to read through Psalm 73, 74, 75 and 76 in one sitting. How do you see Asaph’s understanding of God’s character progress through these psalms? Which of those psalms best captures your own understanding of God and His power?
What historical event is often associated with the writing of Psalm 76? How does understanding that historical context help you better understand Asaph’s purpose for writing this psalm?
What historical event is often associated with the writing of Psalm 76? How does understanding that historical context help you better understand Asaph’s purpose for writing this psalm?
How did Sennacherib dismiss the power of God in 2 Kings 18:33–35? In what ways are these similar to how the world around you dismisses God’s authority today?
How did Sennacherib dismiss the power of God in 2 Kings 18:33–35? In what ways are these similar to how the world around you dismisses God’s authority today?
In what ways does this psalm challenge the notions of what church worship should be like? How does this psalm help you understand why it is inappropriate to conduct worship in a way that is irreverent or casual in the way we conduct ourselves?
In what ways does this psalm challenge the notions of what church worship should be like? How does this psalm help you understand why it is inappropriate to conduct worship in a way that is irreverent or casual in the way we conduct ourselves?
Why does the psalmist conclude this psalm of God’s power in judgment by urging us to “make our vows to the LORD our God and perform them?” What is the significance of the name LORD in this verse? How does this psalm challenge the way you relate to the promises you have made to God, or to others in His presence?
Why does the psalmist conclude this psalm of God’s power in judgment by urging us to “make our vows to the LORD our God and perform them?” What is the significance of the name LORD in this verse? How does this psalm challenge the way you relate to the promises you have made to God, or to others in His presence?