Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Ascended King Who Gives Gifts to Men (Psalm 68) | Charles Spurgeon

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The Ascended King Who Gives Gifts to Men (Psalm 68) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome back. We are here for another session
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  of Reformed Thinking. It's good to be back.
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  It is wonderful to have you with us, the learner, as we open up
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  the treasury of David yet again. Yeah, today we are setting our
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  sights on something truly, well, massive.
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  We were looking at Psalm 68. It is good to be here, and you
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  are right to use the word massive.
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  This isn't a Psalm that you can just skim over during a quick
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  morning devotional and think you've grasped it.
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  It's dense. Oh, not at all.
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  It's heavy and it's, I would argue, one of the most energetic
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  pieces of poetry in the entire Psalter.
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  It just moves. It really does.
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  I was reading through the source materials, specifically Charles
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  Spurgeon's commentary, and he quotes a German critic who
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  called this Psalm a Titan. He said it's a Titan that is
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  very hard to master and that that feels like a challenge.
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  It certainly is, and Spurgeon himself, who was no lightweight
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  when it came to biblical exposition, he admits that his
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  scholarship felt slender when approaching this text.
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  He said it's darkness in some stanzas is utterly impenetrable.
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  So if the Prince of Preachers felt that way, we should
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  probably approach this with some humility.
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  But despite the difficulty, the mission of this deep dive is
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  clear. We want to analyze what Spurgeon
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  calls a soul stirring hymn. A soul stirring hymn.
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  I like that. Yeah, we're going to try to
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  trace the movement of the Ark of the Covenant, the March of
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  Jehovah through the wilderness, and ultimately the ascent of the
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  Lord Jesus to glory. And before we get into the text
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  itself, there is a bit of history here that I think really
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  sets the mood. Spurgeon mentions that the
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  opening verses of this Psalm, well, they were the battle song
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  of the Covenanters and the Ironsides.
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  That's right, these were the Protestant armies, the men who
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  fought for religious liberty and, you know, the purity of the
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  church back in the 17th century. When you read that first verse,
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  let God arise, let his enemies be scattered.
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  You can almost hear the thundering of hooves and the
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  marching of boots. It's a warrior song.
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  It really is. It's got a pulse to it from the
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  very first word. It does.
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  But for US, standing as we do in the tradition of the Westminster
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  Confession, viewing this through the lens of Reformed theology,
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  it's more than just history. It's a declaration of the
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  absolute sovereignty of God. OK, so let's unpack this.
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  Let's start right at the beginning.
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  Verses one through 3. The segment is titled The Ark
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  Arises. We're setting the scene here.
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  The context historically is David conducting the Ark from
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  the House of Obed Edom up to Mount Zion.
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  Correct. It's a procession, a huge
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  national event, and Spurgeon draws a parallel here to Moses.
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  He points out that when the cloud moved in the wilderness,
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  Moses would speak very similar words.
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  Rise up, Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered.
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  So there's a continuity here. This isn't a new idea David came
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  up with. Not at all.
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  He's consciously stepping into that stream of history.
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  But Spurgeon makes a vital theological point here.
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  He says the ark physically was just a box of wood and gold.
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  You know, beautiful, but just an object, right?
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  He says the ark would have been a poor leader if the Lord had
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  not been present with the symbol.
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  It wasn't the box that mattered. That is a crucial distinction.
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  It is not the object, it is the presence.
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  It's not magic. Precisely.
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  It's not a Talisman. The theological implication is
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  massive for the church today. The church cannot move, or at
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  least it shouldn't move until God leads the way.
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  It's a corrective to so much of our, well, our modern church
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  growth strategies. How so?
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  Well, we spend so much time planning, strategizing, making
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  our five year plans, and then we sort of ask God to bless what
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  we've already decided to do. Right.
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  Come along for the ride, yes? But the Psalm flips that.
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  It's about waiting. It's about looking for God to
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  make bear his arm, as Spurgeon puts it, and plead his own
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  cause. We are asking for him to be the
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  active agent, the one who initiates the movement.
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  And when he becomes that active agent, the reaction of his
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  enemies is. It's immediate and frankly,
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  quite terrifying. The text uses 2 very specific
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  analogies here, smoke and wax. Yes, and they are brilliant.
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  Let's look at smoke first. Verse 2 says as smoke is driven
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  away, so drive them away. Now think about the nature of
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  smoke for a second. It can be thick, it can darken
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  the sky, it can sting your eyes. It seems substantial.
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  It can feel overwhelming, like you can't get away from it.
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  Exactly. It has a presence, but what
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  happens when the wind picks up? It's just gone.
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  It vanishes. It's gone.
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  It leaves no trace. Spigen applies this to what he
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  calls philosophic skepticism and malice.
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  The big, intimidating intellectual movements that seem
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  so solid, so permanent. That is reassuring actually,
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  because sometimes the opposition to the gospel feels very solid,
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  feels like a wall, not like smoke.
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  It does. It feels like a Granite
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  Mountain, but Spurgeon says it's as flimsy as smoke.
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  He prays that the Lord's breath, his spirit, would just make them
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  vanish. It reframes the entire spiritual
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  battle. We're not fighting against
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  something solid. We're standing in the wind of
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  God that disperses vapor. And then you have a second
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  analogy. Wax as wax melt us before the
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  fire. This one is about internal
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  structure. Wax is hard when it's cold.
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  You can knock it against a table.
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  It sounds solid, it has a shape, a form.
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  But bring it near the fire. It loses all integrity, just
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  becomes a puddle. It loses its form entirely, and
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  the application here is that the haughty hearts of the wicked are
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  like that cold wax. They seem hard and resistant.
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  They have their own internal logic, their own prideful
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  structure, but they melt at the presence of God.
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  So one image is about substance or the lack of it, and the other
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  is about structure. That's a great way to put it.
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  The enemies of God lack true substance, and their internal
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  structure cannot hold up under the heat of His presence.
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  And Spurgeon in his classic reform style, he does not pull
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  any punches here. He makes a direct reference to
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  Rome. He does.
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  He says Rome, like the candles on her altars, shall dissolve.
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  For him, this was a present reality.
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  He sees a day when infidelity and false religion will simply
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  lose their substance because they can't stand before the
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  reality of God. It raises a significant question
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  about the nature of hatred toward God.
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  Spurgeon calls it impotent. That's a strong word.
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  It is. It results in fleeing before a
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  blow is even struck. Think about that.
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  They don't fight and lose, they run because they cannot exist in
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  that presence. Their very nature is
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  antithetical to the nature of God.
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  So when God arises, their only option is to cease, to be, in a
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  sense, to scatter. But then you have the flip side,
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  a complete 180 in verse 3. But let the righteous be glad.
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  The contrast is sharp. It has to be the very same
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  presence that terrifies the wicked.
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  That fire that melts the wax is the delight of the godly.
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  The same wind that scatters the smoke is the refreshing breath
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  of the Spirit to the believer. The text exhorts us to
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  exceedingly rejoice, Spurgeon points out.
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  The Hebrew idea there is to dance with all your might.
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  It's not a quiet internal gladness.
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  No, this is an external, physical, exuberant joy.
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  It's the joy of liberation. It's the joy of seeing your king
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  take the field. It's not just, oh, that's nice.
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  It's an explosion of praise. Spurgeon mentions the mercy seat
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  here. Why does he bring that in?
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  He connects the ark, which is the physical object, to the
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  person of Emmanuel, Jesus Christ.
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  The lid of the ark was the mercy seat, the place of atonement.
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  So when God shines forth from the person of Christ, it is
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  propitious, it is favorable. It's not raw, untempered
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  judgement for those who are covered by the blood.
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  Oh, I see. So for those of us who are in
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  Christ, who hold to the doctrines of grace, the arising
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  of God is not a threat. It's the beginning of our
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  greatest joy. It's the answer to our deepest
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  prayers. So the ark is started moving.
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  The tone is set. Now we move into segment 2,
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  which covers verses 4 through 10.
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  This is the March through the wilderness, and right away we're
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  hit with a name extol him that righteth upon the heavens by his
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  name JH. JH It's a name we see in
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  Hallelujah, which means praise. JH It's powerful.
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  Spurgeon explains that this is an abbreviation of Jehovah, but
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  we must be very careful. It is not a diminution.
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  It's not making the name smaller in value.
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  Not at all, he says. It's an intensified word.
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  It concentrates the essence of the August title.
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  It's like taking a full Symphony and finding the one chord that
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  contains all its power. Like a concentrated extract.
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  That's it. It speaks to the self existent
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  nature of God, the I am. All of that is packed into this
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  one syllable and the picture is of the self existent God riding
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  upon the heavens, or some translations say the deserts.
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  So he's not just sitting in a holy place, he's on the move.
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  He is on the move through the waste places, the wilderness.
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  He's not afraid of the desert. He rules over it.
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  He rides upon it. And what I love about this
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  section is how it immediately describes God's character while
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  he's on this March. You expect a warrior all fire
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  and power, and you get that, but you also get something
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  incredibly tender. Verse 5.
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  A father of the Fatherless and a judge of widows.
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  It's a beautiful paradox, isn't it?
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  The text calls the Tabernacle or the Ark his holy habitation.
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  Spurgeon calls that habitation the Palace of Justice.
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  Even while God is marching in strength, His seat is a place
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  where the needies are protected. This is not a tyrant marching to
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  crush the weak. Absolutely not.
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  This is a sovereign marching to protect those who have no
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  protector. The orphan has no father to
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  plead his case. The widow has no husband to
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  defend her rights. God says I will take that role,
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  I will be their father, I will be their judge.
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  And Spurgeon, as he often does, notes that this lays a duty on
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  the church. It does.
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  It's not just a nice theological point about God's character.
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  If this is who God is, the guardian of the defenseless,
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  then the church is obligated to cherish those who are Jehovah's
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  special charge. We can't claim to be following
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  the God of Psalm 68 if we are indifferent to the orphan and
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  the widow in our own communities.
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  Our practice must reflect our theology.
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  Moving on to verse 6, we have this phrase, God setteth the
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  solitarian families. What is that about?
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  This touches on the condition of Israel.
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  In Egypt. They were slaves.
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  And what does slavery do? It shatters families.
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  It atomizes people. It makes them solitary units of
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  Labor. Their affections, their bonds
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  were crushed. So they were alone even when
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  they were surrounded by people. Precisely.
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  They were solitary. The Exodus, then, was not just a
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  political liberation. It was a relational restoration.
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  It was God bringing them into family ties again, into tribes,
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  into a nation. And there's a spiritual
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  application here too, isn't there, for the individual
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  believer? Oh, absolutely.
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  There is the solitary heart. The Sinner who is convicted of
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  their sin feels utterly alone in the universe.
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  It's a profound spiritual isolation.
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  And what does God do? He brings that person into a
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  home. Spurgeon says they find a home
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  in the family of the first born, which is the church.
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  We are adopted. We are no longer solitary.
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  But notice the warning that follows immediately.
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  But the rebellious dwell in a dry land.
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  Yes, another sharp contrast. And Spurgeon had a biting
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  comment on that. He says you can dwell in a dry
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  land even while you were living in Canaan.
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  Wow. That's a sobering thought.
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  It is You can be under a sustaining ministry.
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  You can be surrounded by the means of grace.
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  You can be in the promised land, literally flowing with milk and
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  honey, but if you are kicking against God's rule, if you are
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  rebellious in your heart, you are in a desert.
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  So it's not the geography that makes it dry.
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  It's the condition of the heart the rebellion creates, the
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  drought. The grace is flowing all around
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  you, but you refuse to drink. Then the Psalm describes the
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  physical reaction of nature to this God.
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  On the March verse 8, the earth shook.
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  The heavens also dropped at the presence of God.
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  This takes us right back to Sinai.
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  It's a direct reference. When God came down on the
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  mountain, the mountain quaked. The physical world cannot remain
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  neutral. When the Creator draws near, it
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  responds in awe and terror. But then look at the very next
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  verse, verse 9. We have a plentiful rain.
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  This seems like a shift in tone again, from shaking mountains to
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  gentle rain. It is, and Spurgeon calls this a
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  rain of freenesses. A rain of freenesses.
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  What does he mean by that? That is the Reformed doctrine of
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  grace, right there in 2 words. It's not a rain of merit.
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  It's not a rain of wages that you've earned.
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  It's a rain of freeness. It is free grace.
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  He references the manna and the quail.
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  Which Israel did not earn. Not even close.
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  They often complained right before it fell.
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  But God, of his own bounty, of his own free will, shook out
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  blessings upon them from the clouds.
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  The rain is a picture of unmerited, super abundant
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  provision. This leads right into the Doctor
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  of Perseverance. The text says, Thou, O God, did
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  send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm that
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  inheritance when it was weary. That is the key, the
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  inheritance. The people got weary, we get
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  weary, the journey is long, our strength fails.
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  But God confirmed them, He established.
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  Them he didn't abandoned them when they got tired.
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  No, He sustained them. Spurgeon points out that for 40
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  years in the wilderness, the Scripture says their foot did
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  not swell. That is supernatural sustenance.
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  It's a small detail with huge implications.
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  It teaches us that God keeps his people when we are exhausted.
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  He is not. He confirms us.
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  He establishes us. We do not persist because of our
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  own stamina. We persevere because he
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  sustains. And the congregation rules in
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  this Spurgeon uses this beautiful image of the flock
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  resting within a wall of fire and the circle of free grace.
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  What a picture of security, a wall of fire to keep enemies
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  out, and a circle of free grace to live within.
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  That's the Church protected and provided.
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  For it really is. So we have the ark moving.
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  We have the March through the wilderness.
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  Now in segment 3, things heat up.
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  The battle is joined. Verses 11 through 14.
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  The Lord gave the word. And here we see the method of
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  God's victory. It starts.
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  It's with the Word. Before any sword is drawn, the
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  Lord speaks, and then what happens?
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  There is a great army of those who publish it.
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  The messengers. The Messengers Spurgeon analyzes
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  this army of preachers, but there is a detail here that is
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  often missed in English translations, or at least it's
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  glossed over. The Hebrew is feminine.
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  The source mentions 10,000 maids of Israel.
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  So is the women. Yes, the text implies a great
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  company of women who ran to publish the news of the victory.
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  They were the first heralds, and Spurgeon immediately links this
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  to the resurrection announcements, who were the
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  first to publish the news that the Lord had risen from the
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  dead. It was the women.
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  It's a beautiful link across the testaments, showing this pattern
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  of God using well those whom the world might not expect to be the
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  primary bearers of the greatest news.
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  And the result of this word being published is the immediate
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  flight of kings. Verse 12.
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  Kings of armies did flee apace. The description of the route is
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  just so vivid, Spurgeon says. It is helter, skelter, pall
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  Mell. It's chaotic.
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  They're tripping over themselves to get away.
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  The Word of God creates panic in the enemy camp.
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  And then notice who divides the spoil.
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  She that tarried at home divided the prey.
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  This is such a comforting doctrine.
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  The non combatants get the reward.
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  Explain that. Well, the men went to war, but
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  the women who stayed at home, they get to divide up the
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  plunder. The theological point is that
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  the feeblest Saints share in the victory of Christ.
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  You might not be on the front lines of the theological battle.
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  You might feel weak in faith. You might feel like you're just
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  tearing it home. But you're part of the family.
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  You're part of the family, so you get the spoil.
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  You share in the benefits of Christ's conquest.
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  His victory is your victory. Now we go to verse 13, and I
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  have to be honest, I was confused by this until I read
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  the source. Though ye have lien among the
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  pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove covered with
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  silver, and her feathers with yellow gold.
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  You are not alone in your confusion.
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  Spurgeon calls this a hard passage, and I love this phrase.
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  A nut for the learned to crack. It is difficult Hebrew, but the
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  imagery when you unpack it seems to be a contrast a.
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  Before and after picture. Exactly.
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  Lying among the pots most likely refers to the grime of the
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  Egyptian brick kilns, the soot, the smoke of slavery.
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  It's the state of humiliation, of being stained by the world.
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  And the dove? The dove is the luster of
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  freedom. Think of a rock dove.
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  In the sunlight, when it flies, its wings flash with iridescent
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  colors, silver and gold. So the picture is the church,
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  Israel, the believer, rising from the soot of humiliation
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  into the glory of liberty. It's a change from war to peace,
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  from slavery to sonship. From grime to glory.
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  That's it. From grime to glory, it's the
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  gospel in a single verse. And then immediately we have
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  another another very different visual in verse 14, when the
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  Almighty scattered kings in it, it was white as snow and salmon.
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  This is just sheer visual poetry.
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  Mount Salmon was known as a dark, shady mountain.
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  The name actually relates to shade or darkness, possibly
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  because of dark forests that covered it.
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  It was a gloomy place. OK, so you have this dark
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  backdrop. You have a dark backdrop, and
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  the metaphor is that when the Almighty scatters the kings, the
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  landscape changes from that somber dark shade to gleaming
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  whiteness. Like a Blizzard of victory.
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  Or perhaps the bones of the enemy bleaching on the hillside.
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  Or maybe the flashing armor of the victors.
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  The point is the complete changing of the situation.
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  By omnipotence alone, God's action transforms the very
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  landscape from threat to peace, from dark to white.
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  And He does it. This brings us to segment 4, and
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  this is really the heart of the Psalm, verses 15 through 19.
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  We're at the Hill of God in the Ascension, and we start with a
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  contest of mountains. We do.
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  On one side, you have Bashan. You need to understand what
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  Bashan represents. It's the high hill of the world.
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  It was the Kingdom of Ogg, a land of giants.
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  Physically, these mountains were imposing high peaks.
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  They represent natural loftiness, human pride, the
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  kingdoms of this world. The impressive things that
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  everyone looks at and says, wow. Exactly.
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  The Ivy League schools, the Fortune 500 companies, the great
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  military powers. That's Bashan and on the other
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  side. You have Zion, the little hill.
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  The little hill wasn't physically impressive at all,
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  but this is where the doctrine of election just shines through.
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  The text taunts the big mountains.
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  Why leap Yee Yee high hills? Why look he enviously?
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  God passed by the proud peaks of Beshan to choose the despised
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  little hill of Zion. Spurgeon has a great line here.
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  God's election is a patent of nobility.
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  That's it. That's the whole doctrine in a
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  sentence. The value of Zion doesn't come
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  from its geology, it comes from God's choice.
• 18:17
  Divine sovereignty ignores the pretentious claims of the world
• 18:20
  and sets its love on the lowly. It's First Corinthians one all
• 18:23
  over again. God chooses the weak things to
• 18:25
  shame the strong. And once God chooses Zion, he
• 18:29
  fills it #17 mentions the Chariots of God.
• 18:33
  The Chariots of God are 20,000 even thousands of angels.
• 18:37
  The army of heaven. There's a translation note here
• 18:39
  in our source. The King James Version says
• 18:42
  angels, which is an inference from the Hebrew, but Spurgeon
• 18:45
  says it's theologically sound. The idea is that the presence of
• 18:48
  God make Zion just as holy as Sinai was.
• 18:50
  But a different kind of holy. A very different kind.
• 18:53
  Sinai was the place of law and terror.
• 18:55
  Zion is the place of grace, but God is just as present, just as
• 18:59
  powerful, just as majestic. The holiness is the same, but
• 19:03
  the mode of revelation is different.
• 19:05
  And now verse 18, Spurgeon calls this the core of the Psalm.
• 19:09
  Thou has descended on high. Thou has LED captivity captive.
• 19:12
  Here we move from the type to the anti type.
• 19:15
  This is the pivot of the whole hymn.
• 19:17
  The type was the Ark of the Covenant being physically
• 19:19
  carried up the hill to Zion, a local historical event.
• 19:22
  But the anti type, the reality it was always pointing to, is
• 19:25
  the Lord Jesus Christ ascending to glory after his resurrection.
• 19:28
  Leading captivity captive. That is a phrase we hear often,
• 19:31
  but what does it actually mean in this context?
• 19:34
  It's a military term. It means Christ has conquered
• 19:37
  the things that conquered us. He led sin, death and Hell as
• 19:42
  willing captives in his triumphal procession.
• 19:45
  They are disarmed. They are displayed publicly as
• 19:48
  defeated foes. It's the ultimate victory lap.
• 19:51
  So he didn't just escape them, he mastered them.
• 19:54
  He mastered them and now leads them on a leash, so to speak.
• 19:58
  And then the verse continues, He received gifts for men.
• 20:01
  Now this is where it gets really interesting theologically
• 20:04
  because the apostle Paul quotes this in Ephesians 4.8, but he
• 20:08
  changes it slightly. Paul says he gave gifts.
• 20:10
  The Psalm says he received gifts.
• 20:12
  This is a classic theological puzzle.
• 20:14
  Critics of the Bible love to point to this as a
• 20:17
  contradiction, but the reconciliation is beautiful, and
• 20:20
  it's central to our understanding of Pentecost and
• 20:22
  the church. OK, so how do we square that
• 20:24
  circle? Christ in His ascension received
• 20:27
  the gifts, specifically the Holy Spirit and the ministry gifts
• 20:30
  that flow from Him, from the Father.
• 20:32
  This was His reward, His vindication for His perfect life
• 20:35
  and atoning death. Why did He receive them?
• 20:38
  He received them in order to give them to men.
• 20:40
  So he's the mediator, the conduit.
• 20:43
  He's the conduit. Exactly.
• 20:45
  He claims the reward of his victory so that he can
• 20:48
  distribute the spoils to his people.
• 20:50
  He receives from the Father and gives to the Church.
• 20:53
  Both statements are true, they just described two different
• 20:56
  aspects of the same transaction. And who are the recipients of
• 20:59
  these gifts? The text is shocking here, Says
• 21:01
  Yay for the rebellious also. That's the most touching part.
• 21:04
  That's the gospel right there. These gifts aren't just for the
• 21:07
  loyal soldiers who never wavered.
• 21:09
  They are for the rebellious. That includes us.
• 21:12
  We were foes. We were part of the captured
• 21:14
  army, but the grace of the ascension is that Christ
• 21:17
  conquers rebels and turns them into recipients of grace.
• 21:21
  And why? What's the purpose of these
• 21:22
  gifts? The verse gives the reason that
• 21:25
  the Lord God might dwell among them.
• 21:27
  The goal is communion. The goal is presence.
• 21:30
  The Spirit dwelling in the Church, a community of former
• 21:33
  rebels, is the direct result of the ascension of Jesus Christ.
• 21:37
  So the ascension secures the presence of God with us.
• 21:40
  That leads us right into segment 5, verses 19 through 23.
• 21:44
  This section is titled Salvation and Judgement.
• 21:46
  It starts with a burst of praise.
• 21:48
  It's like the psalmist can't contain himself after meditating
• 21:51
  on the ascension. Blessed be the Lord who daily
• 21:54
  loadeth us with benefits. I like the alternate readings
• 21:57
  Purgin mentions for that phrase. He says it can also be read.
• 22:01
  He daily bears our burden. And both are true, aren't they?
• 22:04
  He loads us with good things and he carries a load of our cares.
• 22:07
  One is provision, the other is support.
• 22:09
  We get both daily and verse 20 reinforces this.
• 22:13
  He that is our God is the God of salvation, and to him belong the
• 22:17
  issues from death. That means the escape routes
• 22:19
  from death. Yes, God holds the keys to the
• 22:22
  gates of the grave. The escape from death belongs to
• 22:25
  Him alone. If we are to be delivered from
• 22:28
  physical death or spiritual death, it must be through Him.
• 22:31
  There is no other exit. But, and here's the Reformed
• 22:34
  thinking balance we see so often, the God who saves is also
• 22:38
  the God who judges. Verse 21 is stark.
• 22:41
  But God shall wound the head of his enemies, and the hairy scalp
• 22:44
  of such, and one as goeth on still in his trespasses.
• 22:47
  It's the other side of the coin. His salvation is precious
• 22:50
  precisely because the alternative is so dire and the
• 22:52
  language is very specific. The hairy scalp.
• 22:56
  That is a very specific, almost visceral image.
• 22:59
  It is. Spurgeon links it to Absalom,
• 23:01
  whose long hair was his pride and eventually his undoing.
• 23:05
  But the hairy scalp is generally a symbol of virility, of pride,
• 23:09
  of the old man who refuses to submit, who goeth on still in
• 23:13
  his trespasses. It's the head held high in
• 23:16
  defiance. And God promises to wound that
• 23:18
  head. There's a connection to Genesis
• 23:19
  3.15 here, isn't there? The proto Evangelium, the first
• 23:23
  Gospel promise, the promise that the seed of the woman would
• 23:26
  crush the serpent's head. Here we see God wounding the
• 23:29
  head of his enemies. It's the fulfillment of that
• 23:32
  ancient promise playing out through history.
• 23:34
  But the imagery gets even been more violent in verse 23, that
• 23:37
  thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies and the
• 23:40
  tongue of thy dogs in the same. That's hard to read.
• 23:44
  We can't sanitize this. It sounds harsh to the modern
• 23:47
  ear. We like a domesticated God, a
• 23:48
  tame lion. But Spurgeon comments that this
• 23:50
  expresses A stern joy. A stern joy.
• 23:53
  Yes. It's the joy of the definitive
• 23:56
  defeat of evil. It's the joy of justice finally
• 23:59
  being done. It's the justice of the Christ
• 24:01
  of God. He references Revelation 19,
• 24:04
  where Christ returns with the robe dipped in blood.
• 24:07
  This is the final, absolute crushing of everything that
• 24:10
  opposes the good, the true, and the holy.
• 24:13
  If we love the good, we must at some level desire the final
• 24:17
  destruction of evil. And the text says God will bring
• 24:20
  them back from Beshen and the depths of the sea to face this
• 24:23
  judgement. There's nowhere to hide.
• 24:25
  There is no escape. You can claim the highest
• 24:27
  mountain of human achievement, like Bashan, or you can hide in
• 24:30
  the deepest ocean of obscurity. God's justice has a long reach.
• 24:34
  He will bring his enemies to account.
• 24:36
  Moving to our final section of the Psalm, segment 6, the tone
• 24:39
  changes again. We're back to the procession.
• 24:41
  Verses 24 through 35 we see the order of worship.
• 24:44
  Yes, the battle is won, the judgement is pronounced, and now
• 24:47
  the praise begins in earnest. They have seen thy goings, O
• 24:50
  God, and we get the order. The singers went before the
• 24:53
  players on instruments, followed after.
• 24:55
  Spurgeon finds a principle in that.
• 24:57
  He does song leads the music. The human voice, the intelligent
• 25:01
  praise of the heart takes precedence over the mechanical
• 25:05
  instruments. It speaks to the simplicity and
• 25:07
  spirituality of the gospel. It's about the words, the truth
• 25:10
  being sung. And we see the unity of the
• 25:12
  tribes again. All of Israel is here.
• 25:15
  Benjamin is there with their ruler.
• 25:17
  And that's significant. Benjamin was the little tribe.
• 25:19
  Remember? They were almost wiped out in
• 25:21
  the book of Judges. They were the smallest, and yet
• 25:24
  they are there in a place of honor.
• 25:26
  Spurgeon connects this to Saul, the first king, who was a
• 25:29
  Benjamite, but also prophetically to Paul the
• 25:32
  Apostle, the great ruler in the church, who is of the tribe of
• 25:35
  Benjamin. Then you have Judah, the royal
• 25:37
  tribe, the strong tribe, and Zebulon and Naftali.
• 25:41
  The remote tribes from the north, from Galilee, it's a
• 25:44
  picture of the catholicity, the universality of the Church.
• 25:47
  All believers are one around the Ark.
• 25:49
  There is no schism in this triumphant procession.
• 25:52
  The remote tribes and the central tribes, the royal tribes
• 25:54
  and the decimated tribes, they're all there, one people.
• 25:57
  Verse 28 is a prayer that seems to rise up from this unified
• 26:00
  people. Strengthen, O God, that which
• 26:03
  Thou has brought for us. This is pure Reformed doctrine.
• 26:06
  It's a prayer of dependence. God must maintain what he
• 26:09
  begins. We don't start in the Spirit and
• 26:11
  then try to finish in the flesh. We expect God to bless his own
• 26:15
  work. If he wrought it, He must
• 26:17
  strengthen it. Our security rests and his
• 26:20
  faithfulness to his own work in us.
• 26:22
  Then we have this strange zoo of animals in verse 30.
• 26:26
  Rebuke the company as Spearman, or, as the margin says, the
• 26:29
  beasts of the reeds. The beasts of the reeds likely
• 26:32
  refers to the crocodile or the hippopotamus, powerful animals
• 26:35
  from the Nile and therefore symbols of Egypt of Pharaoh.
• 26:38
  It's a prayer for God to rebuke the might of the world empires.
• 26:42
  And then it mentions bulls and calves.
• 26:43
  The strong foes and the baser sort, the leaders and the
• 26:46
  followers, the prayers for God to subdue them all until they
• 26:49
  pay tribute, until they submit. Symbolized by bringing pieces of
• 26:53
  silver. And this leads surprisingly to
• 26:55
  the hope of the calling of the Gentiles.
• 26:57
  Verse 31 Princess shall come out of Egypt.
• 27:00
  Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.
• 27:02
  It's a stunning missional. Hope Spurgeon looks at this and
• 27:06
  sees the promise of the conversion of Africa and the
• 27:08
  nations, the very nations that were beasts of the Reeds.
• 27:11
  The enemies become worshippers. Ethiopia stretching out her
• 27:15
  hands is a beautiful gesture of prayer and submission.
• 27:18
  The enemy is transformed into a supplicant.
• 27:20
  Finally, the Psalm concludes with this massive cosmic
• 27:23
  description of might. Singh praises to him that rideth
• 27:26
  upon the heavens of heavens which were of old.
• 27:29
  He rides the ancient heavens. He's not a new God.
• 27:31
  He is from eternity. His voice is mighty, spurs and
• 27:34
  says this is the Thunder of the law, but it is also the power of
• 27:37
  the gospel. And the summary in verse 35 is
• 27:40
  just majestic. O God, thou art terrible out of
• 27:44
  thy holy places. Terrible in the old sense of the
• 27:46
  word, inspiring awe and terror. Yes, he is awe inspiring, but
• 27:50
  catch the last phrase, the final word of the song to the people
• 27:53
  of God, The God of Israel is he that giveth strength and power
• 27:56
  into His people. He is terrible to the foes, but
• 27:58
  He is the source of strength to his own.
• 28:00
  The terror is turned outward, the strength is given inward.
• 28:03
  What a path we have followed. It feels like a journey.
• 28:07
  We have gone from the ark arising in procession through
• 28:10
  the wilderness March into the heat of battle up the hill of
• 28:12
  Zion. We've witnessed the ascension of
• 28:14
  Christ, looked unblinkingly at the judgement, and ended with
• 28:18
  the conversion of the nations and the strengthening of the
• 28:20
  Church. It really is a Titan of a Psalm.
• 28:23
  It spans from Sinai to the Final Judgement.
• 28:26
  It holds together the warrior God and the tender Father in a
• 28:29
  way that few other places in Scripture do.
• 28:32
  So as we wrap up this deep dive, we always like to leave the
• 28:35
  learner with a final provocative thought.
• 28:38
  Something to chew on this week. I think it's found in that
• 28:41
  combination. We kept seeing that paradox at
• 28:43
  the heart of God's character as it's revealed here.
• 28:45
  We see a God who dips his foot in blood and scatters kings like
• 28:49
  snow. Infinite terrifying might that
• 28:52
  this same God is defined as the Father of the fatherless and the
• 28:56
  one who daily bears our burden. It is paradox.
• 28:59
  The God of the cosmos is the God of the orphan.
• 29:02
  It is. And the question for you, the
• 29:04
  listener, is this. How does this specific
• 29:07
  combination define your own walk with God?
• 29:10
  Do you lean too heavily on the Father aspect and forget the
• 29:13
  terrible majesty leading to a flippant or overly familiar
• 29:16
  faith? Or do you fear the majesty and
• 29:19
  forget the judge of widows leading to a cold, distant,
• 29:22
  fearful religion? It's a question of balance.
• 29:24
  It's a question of holding the whole truth.
• 29:27
  The Reformed faith, and indeed the biblical faith, demands we
• 29:29
  hold both intention. The God who rides the ancient
• 29:32
  heavens is the same God who sets the solitarian families.
• 29:36
  If he is big enough to scatter the kings, he is big enough to
• 29:39
  handle your daily burden. But if he is tender enough to
• 29:42
  care for the orphan, he demands A reverence that melts our pride
• 29:45
  like wax. How do you live in the light of
• 29:47
  both truths at once? That is a powerful place to
• 29:49
  land. Thank you, Lerner, for joining
• 29:51
  us on this exploration of Song 68.
• 29:53
  It's been a pleasure. This has been reformed thinking.
• 29:56
  Until next time.