Latest / Reformed Thinking / Sing, Declare, Ascribe: Global Reign of Yahweh (Psalm 96)

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Sing, Declare, Ascribe: Global Reign of Yahweh (Psalm 96) · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome back to Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm looking at the stack of papers on the desk today and I
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  have to admit I had a moment of hesitation before we started
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  recording. Hesitation.
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  That's not like you. Usually you're ready to just
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  tear into the research. What gave you pause?
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  Well, it's the topic we are looking at, Psalm 96.
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  And I think there is a tendency, at least in my own head and
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  probably for a lot of people listening to see the word Psalm
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  and immediately just downshift. You think poetry, you think
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  comfort. You might think of a nice, you
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  know, cross stitched verse on a grandmother's wall.
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  You don't necessarily think high stakes.
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  That is a very, very common reaction.
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  We have, in a sense, domesticated the Psalms.
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  We treat them like spiritual Tylenol, something you take when
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  you're having a bad day to feel a little bit better.
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  Right. But then I started reading the
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  commentary notes you sent over, and the language in here is,
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  well, it's aggressive. It's actually quite jarring.
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  Aggressive is exactly the right word.
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  One of the sources calls this text a liturgical constitution.
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  Another one calls it a militant summons.
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  Now that doesn't sound like a campfire song.
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  That sounds much more like a declaration of war.
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  That is precisely what it is, and if we do our job right in
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  this deep dive, I don't think you or anyone listening will
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  ever be able to read Psalm 96. It's just nice poetry.
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  Again, this is a text with teeth.
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  So help us reset our expectations here.
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  If this isn't just a song about having a happy heart, what are
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  we actually looking at? Because the context seems to be
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  everything. Context is king.
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  It always is. You simply cannot understand
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  Psalm 96 unless you understand the moment it was first sung.
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  For that you have to go back to First Chronicle 16.
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  OK, set the scene for us. What's happening in First
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  Chronicle 16? Well, imagine the nation of
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  Israel. For years the Ark of the
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  Covenant has been absent. It's been neglected, captured,
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  moved around. Now the Ark isn't just some gold
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  box in the Old Testament economy.
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  That is the literal footstool of God.
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  It is the hot spot of his presence on earth.
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  It's the throne room. And it had been missing in
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  action, so to speak. Right.
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  But now King David is bringing it back to Zion.
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  He is bringing the manifest presence of God back to the
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  center of the nation's life. This is a coronation ceremony.
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  It was an enthronement. The King is taking his.
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  So the atmosphere isn't quiet time.
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  It's a parade. It's trumpets and celebration.
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  It's the highest possible political tension and cosmic
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  celebration all combined. When we read Psalm 96, we are
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  reading the lyrics to the coronation of the Cosmic King,
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  and the central thesis we're going to explore today is that
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  worship in this biblical context is not a mood.
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  Which is how we almost always talk about it.
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  I wasn't in the mood for worship today.
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  Or the worship leader really set a great mood.
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  We treated it as entirely subjective.
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  Did I get goosebumps? Did I cry?
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  Did I feel connected? But the argument of this Psalm
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  is that worship is enthronement. It is an objective reality.
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  You aren't there to manufacture a feeling.
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  You were there to acknowledge a king who is already on the
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  throne. That is a massive shift in
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  perspective. It moves the center of gravity
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  from me, my feelings, my weak, my struggles, to him, his
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  reality. Spot on and because we are
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  looking at this through a reformed lens, you know it are
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  hearing to the Westminster confession.
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  We have to treat this as what scholars call an enthronement
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  Psalm. It's fundamentally about the
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  crown rights of King Jesus. Crown rights.
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  I like that phrasing. It implies that he has a claim
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  on things, on people, on nations, on all of creation.
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  And that brings us to the most, the most shocking part of the
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  research for me, this idea that worship is warfare.
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  Yeah, explain that, because usually we think of warfare and
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  worship as complete opposites, peace versus conflict.
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  Not in the Bible. In the Bible, worship is a
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  polemic. It's an attack.
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  When you stand up to declare that Yahweh is king, you're
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  commultaneously declaring that everything else is not.
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  You are drawing a definitive line in the sand against the
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  idols of the nations. So it's a 0 sum game, there's no
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  middle ground. It is entirely 0 sum.
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  You're either bowing to the king or you are bowing to a fraud.
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  A nothing. There's absolutely no third
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  option. Well, let's get into the text
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  then, because if this is a battle plan, we need to know the
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  orders. We're going to break this down
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  section by section. Let's start with verses 1 and 2.
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  The sources call this the imperative of the new song.
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  Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth.
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  Sing to the Lord, bless his name.
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  It starts with the command. Actually, it starts with three
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  commands, back-to-back. Sing, sing, sing, sing.
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  It's rhythmic, it's driving. It's like a drum beat.
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  The psalmist isn't asking for volunteers here.
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  He is issuing A summons. But the phrase that catches
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  everyone's attention, or at least it should, is shir cha
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  dash. Shir Cha Dash new song.
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  Now I want to ask you, when you hear new song, what comes to
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  mind? What's your first instinct?
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  Honestly, I think of the latest release on Spotify or maybe the
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  worship pastor says hey guys, we learned a new track this week
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  and half the congregation groans because they don't know the
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  chorus yet. It's about chronology.
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  Right. We think chronologically new
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  means recent. It means it was written this
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  morning. It's the latest thing.
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  Is that not what it means here? Not primarily, not at all.
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  The Hebrew word chatash here speaks more to quality than it
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  does to time. It means fresh.
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  It means something of a different kind, a different
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  category. Different in what way?
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  Well, think about the theology of the old song.
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  If there is a new song, there must by definition be an old
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  song. So what is the old song?
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  I assume it's the song of the world before this king shows up.
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  The song of the status quo. It's the song of the fall.
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  It's the groan of creation under the weight of sin, what Paul
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  talks about in Romans 8. It's the sound of entropy, of
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  death, of things falling apart. The old song is basically a
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  funeral dirge. It's the soundtrack of a dying
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  world. It is a very bleak image.
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  It is reality. But then God acts.
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  Redemption happens, and whenever God does a new, decisive work of
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  salvation, the only logical, fitting response is a sure
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  chatash, a song that matches the quality of the redemption
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  itself. So the song is new because of
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  the reality it describes is new. The world has been changed.
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  Precisely. And this leads to a point in the
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  research that I found particularly challenging, and I
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  think you will too. One of the theologians we read
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  argues that an unbeliever, someone who's not in Christ,
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  literally cannot sing this song. Wait.
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  I have to push back on that a little.
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  That sounds, I don't know, a bit elitist.
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  Anyone can read lyrics off the screen.
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  If I bring a non believing friend to church and he sings
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  along, are you saying he's not actually singing the song?
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  He is vocalizing the words. He may even be hitting the
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  notes. Yeah, but is he singing the sure
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  chickash? The argument is no.
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  Why not? What's the barrier?
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  Because the Sure Chat ash is the exclusive property of the elect.
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  It requires a new nature. Ezekiel 36 talks about God
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  taking out the hardest stone and putting in a heart of flesh.
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  Unless you have that new heart, unless you have been regenerated
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  by the Holy Spirit, you are still a citizen of the old
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  order. You are still stuck singing the
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  old song, even if you don't realize it.
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  You might mimic the new song, but you cannot generate it from
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  the heart. That really raises the stakes of
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  what is happening on a Sunday morning.
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  It's not just a single long. It's a kind of proof of life,
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  spiritually speaking it. Is it's a supernatural event
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  where people who have been brought from death to life are
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  testifying to that new reality? And they aren't just testifying
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  to each other in the room. Verse one says sing to the Lord
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  all the earth. The scope is global.
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  It's cosmic. It is, and that moves us right
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  into the public nature of this whole thing.
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  Verse 2 says Bless his name, tell of his salvation.
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  It seems like the Psalm doesn't allow for what we would call
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  private faith. Private faith is a modern
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  invention, a product of the Enlightenment.
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  You won't find it here. The command is to bless his
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  name, Barako. In Hebrew, that means to speak
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  well of him publicly. You cannot have a Worshipful
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  feeling in your heart and keep your mouth shut.
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  The text demands that the overflow of the heart reaches
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  the lips and goes public. Which is so tough for our
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  culture. We are told keep your religion
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  to yourself. Don't bring that into the
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  workplace. Don't impose your views on
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  others. And Psalm 96 says impose them,
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  or rather announce them, proclaim them.
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  If Yahweh is the creator, which we will get to in a minute, he
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  isn't a tribal deity. He isn't the God of a hobby
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  club. He is the cosmic king.
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  So staying silent is actually an act of treason.
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  Treason. That's a heavy word.
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  But think about it. If you know who the king is and
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  you see people all around you bowing to false kings and you
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  say nothing, that's not politeness.
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  That's cowardice. It's a failure of loyalty.
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  This brings us to section two of our notes, the Evangelistic
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  Mandate, and I want to dig into the grammar here because the
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  notes made a huge deal about a specific Hebrew verb form.
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  I usually gloss over the grammar lessons, but this one seemed
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  absolutely vital. It is the smoking gun of the
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  passage when it comes to mission.
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  The phrase is tell of his salvation from day-to-day.
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  The Hebrew word for tell is basaru.
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  Basaru, it's the root for good news or gospel, you Angelian in
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  the Greek. But it's the form of the verb
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  that matters here, the peel stem.
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  Break that down for us non seminarians.
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  What on earth is a peel stem? So Hebrew verbs have different
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  stems that modify the action. They're like adding a layer of
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  meaning that can tell you the intensity or the causation of
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  the verb. The peel stem specifically
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  denotes action that is intensive, energetic, and
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  repeated. OK, give me an analogy.
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  What's the difference between a normal verb and a peel verb?
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  Think of the difference between mentioning to a friend, hey I
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  think I smell smoke versus running down the hallway banging
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  on every door screaming fire fire, get out, the building is
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  on fire. OK, that's a dramatic
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  difference. That's not subtle.
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  The first one is a simple statement.
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  The second one is peel. It is urgent.
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  It is energetic. It is aggressive.
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  It's a command with an exclamation point.
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  And that is the verb used for evangelism here at the peel stem
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  of Basaru. Yes, and this just completely
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  dismantles the popular, comfortable notion of lifestyle
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  evangelism. You mean the idea of I'll just
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  live a good life, act nice to my neighbors and eventually they'll
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  get curious and ask me why I'm so happy?
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  Exactly that we often quote or more often misquote Saint
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  Francis of Assisi. Preach the Gospel at all times.
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  When necessary, use words. I hear that all the time.
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  It sounds so humble and gentle. It sounds humble, but based on
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  Psalm 96 and the peel stem of Vassaru, it is biblically
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  incorrect. Yeah, you cannot mow your lawn,
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  the glory of God, into your neighbor's head.
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  You cannot bake cookies, the doctrine of justification, into
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  their hearts. It requires words.
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  You have to speak. You have to open your.
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  Mouth. You have to speak, and you have
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  to speak intensively. The text demands verbal
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  articulation of propositional truth.
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  It demands a herald. A herald, like a town crier
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  standing in the public square. Yes, someone who stands in the
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  square and reads the King's decree aloud.
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  Yeah, you don't guess the decree by watching the Heralds
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  lifestyle. You hear the decree because he
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  opens his mouth and shouts it. And the frequency is mentioned
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  too. From day-to-day it's.
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  A daily breathing habit. This isn't I go on a mission
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  trip once a summer, or I'll share my faith when it feels
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  right. It's I talk about the King today
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  and I will talk about him tomorrow and the day after that.
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  But what exactly are we talking about?
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  Because I think a lot of modern evangelism tries to sell Jesus
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  like a product, you know? Does your life hurt?
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  Try Jesus. Is your marriage failing?
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  Jesus can fix it. That is the seeker sensitive or
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  therapeutic model of evangelism. It appeals to what we call felt
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  needs. It starts with man and his
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  problems. The basic question is what's in
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  it for me, right? But look at verse 3.
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  Declare His glory among the nations.
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  The subject isn't my happiness. The subject is Kavod YHWH, the
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  weighty, heavy, substantial glory of God.
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  So we aren't selling a vacuum cleaner that will make your life
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  easier. We are announcing a coronation.
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  We are declaring the King's attributes his sovereignty, his
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  justice, his mercy, and yes, his wrath.
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  We aren't trying to market the church as a cool place to hang
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  out with good coffee. We are heralding the reality of
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  God, which is both wonderful and terrifying.
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  And notice the audience among the nations.
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  The Amim, the peoples, all of them.
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  This brings up a point from the sources about modern social
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  theories. We hear a lot today about
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  dividing people into groups. Oppressor oppressed this race,
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  that identity. Identity politics.
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  Critical theory. These ideologies, whatever their
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  intent, tend to fragment humanity.
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  They create permanent walls based on group identity and
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  power dynamics. And how does Psalm 96 speak to
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  that? Some 96 comes in and completely
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  unifies the entire human race under one single overarching
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  category. Idolaters in need of glory.
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  That cuts through all the noise, doesn't it?
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  It levels the playing field entirely.
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  I don't care about your socioeconomic status, your
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  melanin content, your national origin, or your political party.
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  If you do not know Yahweh, you are worshipping nothings and you
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  need to hear the Basaru. The Gospel unites all tribes and
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  peoples as potential worshippers.
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  Recruiting worshippers. I love that phrasing.
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  It shifts the whole goal of missions.
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  We aren't just trying to save people from hell, we are trying
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  to bring them into the joy of worshipping the one true King.
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  That is the ultimate goal. John Piper's line comes to mind.
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  Missions exists because worship doesn't.
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  Now you just mentioned worshipping nothings, and this
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  leads us to Section 3, which is honestly the intellectual
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  highlight of this study for me. The ontological distinction, the
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  difference in being. This is the core of the
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  argument. This is where the fight really
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  happens. Verses four and five For great
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  is the Lord, and greatly to be praised.
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  He is to be fear above all gods. Now I'm going to play the
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  skeptic again here. If I read Feared above all gods,
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  am I not implicitly admitting that other gods exist?
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  Is this henotheism, the idea that my God is stronger than
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  your God? It's a very valid question to
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  ask. Henotheism would say your God
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  bell is real and my God Yahweh is real but mine could beat
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  yours up in a fight. Right, a cosmic cage match.
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  That is not what the Psalmist is saying.
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  He is doing 2 very clever things here.
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  First, he's acknowledging the spiritual reality behind
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  paganism. Paul says in 1st Corinthians 10
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  that the things pagans sacrifice, they sacrifice to
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  demons. So it's not that nothing is
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  happening in those Pagan temples, it's just that what's
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  happening is dark. It's demonic, so there's a real
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  spiritual battle. But secondly, and this is the
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  absolute brilliance of the Hebrew, there's a pun in verse 5
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  that just mocks the very idea of these other gods.
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  I love a good theological pun. Break it down for.
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  Us, the text says. For all the gods of the peoples
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  are idols in Hebrew, it reads, For all the elohim of the
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  peoples are illelim. Elohim versus Illilim, they
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  sound similar. They're meant to.
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  Elohim is the general word for mighty ones or gods.
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  But illilim, well, it's a diminutive term of contempt.
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  It sounds like little nothings. It literally means empties,
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  vapors, zeros. Heroes.
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  So he is saying all the so-called mighty ones of the
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  nations are actually zeros. It's biting, devastating
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  sarcasm. Yahweh is the great I am, the
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  idols are the great I am not. That is such a powerful claim.
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  It's meant to be. It strips all dignity away from
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  false religion. It's a complete dismissal.
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  But hold on, this really, really flies in the face of our current
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  cultural moment. We live in the age of the
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  Coexist bumper sticker. We are told that all religions
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  are just different paths of the same mountain.
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  Religious pluralism, right? You have your truth and I have
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  mine. If I go out and say my God is
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  the I am and your God is a zero, I'm going to get cancelled.
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  That's seen as the height of intolerance.
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  It is intolerant. Truth is always intolerant of
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  error. You cannot have a meaningful
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  dialogue with a 0. Psalm 96 is telling us that
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  there is no common ground with nothingness.
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  We aren't saying other religions are just less helpful.
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  We are saying they are ontologically empty.
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  They cannot save, they cannot hear, they cannot act because
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  they are not. So how do we back that up?
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  Because that's an incredibly bold claim.
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  If I'm going to tell someone their God is a zero, I better
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  have some proof. The proof is in the second-half
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  of verse 5. It's the great but for all the
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  gods of the peoples are zeros, but the Lord made the heavens.
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  Creation. Creation ex nihalo out of
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  nothing. That is the verifiable non
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  negotiable credential of deity. If you can make a universe out
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  of nothing, you are God. If you exist within the
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  universe, you are just a thing, a created object.
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  This is where the source material gets really interesting
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  regarding modern secularism, because we usually think of
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  idols as golden calves or stone statues, but the research points
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  out that this is a direct attack on evolutionary natural too.
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  Absolutely. Think about it.
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  What is the materialist belief? They believe that time and
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  chance and biological process created the order and complexity
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  we see. They ascribe creative power to
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  the mechanism itself. Exactly.
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  They take the attributes of God, eternality, omnipotence,
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  creativity and they give them to the process.
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  They are worshipping the Allylum of nature.
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  They have deified the created order.
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  So the atheist isn't actually irreligious, they have a
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  functional God. No one is a religious Everyone
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  who worships you either worship the Creator or you worship
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  something in creation. The atheist worships the
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  machine. The Pagan worships the statue.
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  Psalm 96. Just as one simple clarifying
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  question Did that thing make the heavens?
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  And if the answer is no. Then it's a zero.
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  It's an Ali. That is such a clarifying razor,
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  it just cuts through everything. And because Yahweh did make the
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  heavens His sanctuary, His presence is different.
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  Verse 6 says splendor and majesty are before Him.
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  Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.
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  The atmosphere of God. Right.
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  And you can contrast this with the chaos and often the ugliness
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  of Pagan shrines, or even the ugliness of much of modern
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  secular culture. Things like brutalist
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  architecture, dissonant art, a culture that often celebrates
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  the grotesque. The argument here is that true
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  aesthetics, true beauty, is rooted in theology.
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  Because God is a God of order and logic and goodness.
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  His sanctuary radiates splendor and beauty.
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  Beauty isn't just in the eye, the beholder.
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  At its root, beauty is a reflection of the very nature of
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  God. Which brings us to a very
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  practical question. If this God is the Creator, and
• 18:16
  if he is surrounded by this intense splendor and majesty,
• 18:19
  how in the world do we approach him?
• 18:21
  We can't just waltz in with a coffee and a casual, flippant
• 18:24
  attitude. No, you can't.
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  And this leads us to Section 4 in our notes, the Regulative
• 18:28
  principle of Worship. How do we do this correctly?
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  Verses 7 through 9 ascribe to the Lord.
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  O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and
• 18:37
  strength. Let's stop on that word ascribe.
• 18:40
  In Hebrew it's Havu. Why does that specific word
• 18:43
  matter so much? Because to ascribe means to
• 18:47
  acknowledge something that is already there.
• 18:49
  It does not mean to generate or to create.
• 18:52
  So we aren't manufacturing the glory in our worship service, we
• 18:55
  are simply recognizing it. Yes, and this is a major
• 18:58
  critique of what we might call the concert atmosphere of some
• 19:01
  modern worship services. You mean the lights, the haze
• 19:04
  machines, the synth pads, the whole production?
• 19:06
  The emotional engineering. Often the goal in those
• 19:10
  settings, stated or unstated, is to build the energy or bring the
• 19:14
  spirit down. It's an attempt to manufacture a
• 19:16
  mood to create an atmosphere. The idea that if we sing the
• 19:20
  bridge 10 more times with enough passion, God will finally show
• 19:23
  up. Exactly, but that's paganism
• 19:25
  that is trying to summon or manipulate the deity.
• 19:28
  Psalm 96 is the complete opposite.
• 19:30
  The glory is already there. The king is already on the
• 19:33
  throne. Your job is to align your mind
• 19:35
  and your heart with the objective reality of who God is.
• 19:38
  We don't create worship, we confess it.
• 19:40
  Ascribe to the Lord the glory, do his name.
• 19:43
  It's a debt. It's something that is owed.
• 19:45
  It's a debt we owe. It is not a favor we do for God
• 19:49
  because we're feeling particularly spiritual this
• 19:51
  Sunday. And then it says bring an
• 19:53
  offering and come into his courts.
• 19:55
  The Mihai. Historically this was a grain
• 19:57
  offering. It was a tribute of loyalty from
• 20:00
  a vassal to his king. So we don't come empty handed.
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  We are participants, not spectators.
• 20:06
  Never. But we have to be extremely
• 20:08
  careful here. This is not the prosperity
• 20:11
  gospel. This is not I give God a dollar
• 20:13
  and he gives me $10 back. That turns God into a celestial
• 20:17
  vending machine or an investment scheme.
• 20:19
  It turns the offering into a bribe.
• 20:21
  The Ming Ha is tribute. You pay tribute to a king to
• 20:25
  show your submission, not to buy his influence.
• 20:28
  He owns the cattle on 1000 Hills.
• 20:30
  He doesn't need your money, he wants your loyalty.
• 20:32
  And for us in the new covenant, the offering is ingrained.
• 20:35
  It's the sacrifice of praise. It's our very selves, as Romans
• 20:38
  12 says. And it creates A crucial
• 20:40
  distinction between a consumer and a worshipper.
• 20:44
  The consumer comes to church to watch, to critique the band, to
• 20:47
  see if the sermon is funny or engaging.
• 20:49
  I didn't get much out of it today.
• 20:51
  That's the voice of the consumer.
• 20:53
  The worshipper asks a different question.
• 20:55
  Did I bring my offering today? If you are spectating, you
• 20:59
  aren't worshipping. That hits home.
• 21:00
  It's a real challenge. Then we get this phrase in verse
• 21:03
  9 that sounds beautiful but is actually kind of intimidating.
• 21:07
  Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.
• 21:10
  Hadrad Kodesh. Splendor of holiness?
• 21:13
  What does that actually mean in practice?
• 21:15
  Well, literally it could be translated holy array or sacred
• 21:18
  attire. So dress code for church?
• 21:21
  In the Old Testament, the priests had literal, specific
• 21:24
  garments they had to wear. But the theological principle
• 21:28
  here, which is what we call the regulative principle of worship,
• 21:31
  is that God determines the terms of engagement.
• 21:34
  We don't invent how we worship Him.
• 21:36
  If he commands it in scripture, we do it.
• 21:38
  If he doesn't, we don't add it. Correct, but it goes deeper than
• 21:41
  just the form of the service. It speaks to the moral condition
• 21:44
  of the worshipper. We are to be clothed in holy
• 21:48
  attire, which is for us the imputed righteousness of Christ
• 21:52
  and a life of ongoing sanctification.
• 21:54
  So a beautiful church isn't one with a cool stage design and
• 21:57
  great lighting. The beautiful church is a holy
• 22:00
  church. You can have the best production
• 22:02
  value in the entire world, but if the congregation is living in
• 22:05
  unrepentant sin, that service is ugly to God.
• 22:09
  And that reality should produce a very specific reaction in us.
• 22:13
  The verse ends trembled before him all the earth.
• 22:17
  The Hebrew word there is chill. It means to writhe, to shake, to
• 22:22
  be in anguish or awe. Writhe.
• 22:25
  That's visceral. That's not a gentle feeling of
• 22:27
  reverence. It's the Mysterium tremendum,
• 22:30
  the shaking awe. We have almost completely lost
• 22:32
  us in the modern church. We have the buddy Jesus.
• 22:35
  Jesus is my homeboy. That whole vibe.
• 22:37
  Right. We've domesticated him.
• 22:39
  We've made him safe. But true Reformed worship at its
• 22:42
  best includes reverend joy. It's joy deep enough to sing at
• 22:46
  the top of your lungs, but reverend high enough to bow on
• 22:48
  your face. If you aren't trembling at least
• 22:50
  a little, you probably haven't met the real king.
• 22:52
  And this king isn't staying in the building.
• 22:54
  He's moving out. This brings us to Section 5, the
• 22:57
  royal announcement. Say among the nations the Lord
• 23:00
  reigns. YHWH Malik, this is the
• 23:02
  headline. This is a political claim, an
• 23:04
  explosive political claim. It is the ultimate political
• 23:08
  claim. It relativizes every earthly
• 23:10
  government, every president, every king, every Prime
• 23:13
  Minister. And look at the results of his
• 23:16
  reign. The world is established.
• 23:18
  It shall never be moved. This is where we have to talk
• 23:20
  about eschatology, the doctrine of the end times.
• 23:24
  I knew we'd get there eventually.
• 23:25
  The source material we looked at leans toward a premillennial
• 23:28
  view here. It looks at the world right now.
• 23:31
  It's shaking, it's unstable, it's chaotic.
• 23:34
  Wars and rumors of wars, famines, earthquakes.
• 23:36
  It's anything but established. Exactly.
• 23:39
  The world is not established yet, but the promise is that
• 23:42
  when the king returns, when he assumes the throne in the
• 23:46
  millennial Kingdom, he will stabilize the geopolitical
• 23:49
  order, he will reverse the curse on a physical level.
• 23:52
  So this isn't just spiritual stability in my heart.
• 23:54
  This is physics. This is geopolitics, This is
• 23:57
  ecology. It's the restoration of the
• 23:59
  entire cosmos to its proper ordered function under its
• 24:03
  rightful king. And a huge part of that
• 24:04
  restoration is judgment. He will judge the peoples with
• 24:07
  equity. Now we have to be careful with
• 24:09
  that word equity. In modern English, that's become
• 24:12
  a very loaded political term, often meaning equal outcomes.
• 24:15
  Right? In the Hebrew, the word means
• 24:17
  straightness. It means orthodoxy of action.
• 24:20
  It implies A Plumb line, a standard.
• 24:22
  So the judgement is not crooked, it's not biased.
• 24:26
  Think about earthly judges. They can be bribed.
• 24:29
  They have personal biases. They protect their friends and
• 24:32
  punish their enemies. Or they bow to political
• 24:34
  pressure, to the mob. But Yahweh judges with a
• 24:36
  straight edge. He is utterly impartial and
• 24:40
  frankly, that is terrifying if you were crooked.
• 24:43
  But if you are a victim of injustice, if you have been
• 24:46
  crushed by a corrupt system your entire life, a straight judge is
• 24:51
  the best news in the world. It means the scales finally
• 24:53
  balance for real, finally, and perfectly.
• 24:56
  And that anticipation, that deep hunger for things to finally be
• 25:00
  put right, is why Section 6 blows my mind.
• 25:03
  This is the cosmic rejoicing section.
• 25:04
  The crescendo of the whole Psalm.
• 25:06
  Verses 11 through 13. Let the heavens be glad, and let
• 25:09
  the earth rejoice. Let the sea roar, and all that
• 25:12
  fills it. Let the field exult, and
• 25:15
  everything in it. And then verse 12.
• 25:18
  Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
• 25:21
  The Singing Trees, it's an incredible image.
• 25:23
  Is this just poetry? Is it just a metaphor for human
• 25:27
  happiness, or is there something deeper, something theological
• 25:31
  happening? Here it is deep, deep theology.
• 25:33
  You have to connect us to Romans 8.
• 25:35
  Paul tells us that the whole creation has been groaning
• 25:38
  together in the pains of childbirth until now.
• 25:40
  Groaning. Why is creation groaning?
• 25:43
  Because of the fall, when Adam sinned, he was the federal head
• 25:46
  of creation. He was the king of the garden.
• 25:49
  When he fell, he dragged the whole ecosystem down with That's
• 25:51
  where thorns come from. Thistles, Death, predation, The
• 25:55
  law of entropy. So nature itself is broken.
• 25:57
  It's not in its ideal state. Nature is in bondage to
• 26:00
  corruption, and This is why radical environmentalism, which
• 26:03
  essentially worships nature, is so profoundly misguided.
• 26:07
  You're worshipping something that is dying and broken.
• 26:09
  Nature cannot save itself. It needs a savior from outside
• 26:12
  of itself. It needs the second Adam, Jesus
• 26:15
  Christ, to come and lift the curse that the first Adam
• 26:18
  brought down upon it. So when the trees of the forest
• 26:21
  hear that the Lord is coming. They sing for joy because they
• 26:24
  know the gardener is back to fix the garden.
• 26:26
  For he comes, for he comes to judge the earth.
• 26:28
  Kiva kiva, the repetition in the Hebrew indicates certainty and
• 26:34
  eminence. He is coming.
• 26:36
  It's a settled fact. And this is the paradox that I
• 26:38
  really want to sit with for a second.
• 26:40
  Usually we think of Judgement Day as a scary concept.
• 26:43
  Here comes the judge. We picture fire and terror, but
• 26:48
  the trees and the fields in the sea are celebrating.
• 26:51
  Why? Because biblical judgement isn't
• 26:53
  just about punishment. It is rectification.
• 26:56
  It is the Great Putting the World Back Together project.
• 26:59
  It is the end of the reign of the Elliman, the nothings that
• 27:02
  corrupt and destroy the earth. It's the end of cancer, the end
• 27:05
  of war, the end of human trafficking, the end of abuse.
• 27:08
  It is the setting right of all things.
• 27:10
  That's what judgement is. It's the arrival of perfect
• 27:13
  justice. And who is this judge who brings
• 27:15
  such joy to creation? Verse 13 says He judges in
• 27:18
  righteousness and in His faithfulness.
• 27:21
  If we look at the whole Council of Scripture, we know who the
• 27:24
  Father has appointed as the judge of the living and the
• 27:27
  dead. It's Jesus.
• 27:28
  It's Christ. The very same Jesus who came in
• 27:30
  grace to save is coming in glory to judge.
• 27:33
  That is the blessed hope for the believer.
• 27:35
  For the believer, yes, but we absolutely must end on a sober
• 27:39
  note. For the unrepentant, for those
• 27:42
  who are still worshipping the zeros, the LLM of this world,
• 27:47
  this is not a day of singing, it is a day of pure terror.
• 27:50
  Because he judges in righteousness, and we are not
• 27:53
  righteous in ourselves. And he judges in truth, emunah
• 27:56
  in Hebrew faithfulness to the standard.
• 27:59
  He doesn't grade on a curve. He doesn't negotiate.
• 28:01
  The sources point out that this text absolutely crushes the idea
• 28:04
  of universalism, the hope that everyone gets saved in the end.
• 28:07
  Because he comes to judge, which implies a separation.
• 28:10
  He comes to separate sheep from goats, wheat from tares,
• 28:13
  worshippers of the I Am from worshippers of the I Am and us.
• 28:16
  If you are clinging to your alum when he arrives, you were swept
• 28:20
  away with him into nothingness. That is a Stark ultimatum.
• 28:23
  There's no escaping it. It is the only honest way to
• 28:26
  read this text and the rest of script.
• 28:28
  So how do we apply this? We've covered a lot of ground
• 28:30
  here. Our sources suggest a head,
• 28:32
  heart, hands framework. Let's walk through that briefly
• 28:34
  as we close. Sure, it's a helpful model.
• 28:36
  First, head the intellect. What is the main intellectual
• 28:42
  take away? We need a rigorous, unapologetic
• 28:44
  submission to divine exclusivity.
• 28:47
  We have to stop apologizing for the fact that Yahweh is God and
• 28:50
  idols are not. We have to intellectually reject
• 28:53
  pluralism. We have to intellectually reject
• 28:56
  the evolutionary worldview that gives creative power to matter.
• 28:59
  The Lord made the heavens. That has to be the bedrock of
• 29:02
  our thinking. Second heart, the affections.
• 29:05
  What should we be feeling? We need to check our spiritual
• 29:07
  pulse. Do we actually have the new song
• 29:10
  in our hearts? Do we have a heart that
• 29:12
  genuinely loves the glory of God more than the glory of self?
• 29:15
  We need to cultivate that holy fear, that trembling joy.
• 29:18
  If worship is boring to you, the problem isn't the band.
• 29:21
  The problem is your view of God is too small.
• 29:24
  And finally, hands the duty. What are we supposed to do?
• 29:28
  Proclamation, the Peel imperative.
• 29:31
  We have to open our mouth and speak.
• 29:33
  We cannot be silent in a world full of idolaters and we must
• 29:36
  regulate our worship. Stop consuming churches
• 29:39
  entertainment. Come prepared to bring your
• 29:41
  offering of praise. It really all comes down to a
• 29:43
  binary choice, doesn't it? Elohim or El Elim?
• 29:47
  God or zeros? Submission or rebellion, Life or
• 29:50
  nothingness? And the clock is ticking.
• 29:52
  The refrain of the last section is for He comes.
• 29:55
  He is coming, and the notes end with this powerful image of the
• 29:59
  city of Refuge in the Old Testament.
• 30:02
  If judgement was coming for you, you ran as fast as you could to
• 30:04
  the designated city of refuge. Christ is that city.
• 30:08
  We have to flee to Him now before the day of equity
• 30:10
  arrives. That is the message.
• 30:12
  Sing the song, declare the glory.
• 30:14
  Fear the King. Amen to that.
• 30:15
  You know, as we wrap up here, I just keep thinking about those
• 30:18
  trees, if the rocks and the hills.
• 30:20
  These inanimate objects are ready to burst into song at the
• 30:23
  mere thought of his coming. What does it say about us who
• 30:27
  bare his very image if we remain silent?
• 30:30
  That is the question that should haunt us and motivate us.
• 30:33
  Thank you for digging into this with us.
• 30:35
  It's been a heavy but a very good discussion.
• 30:38
  This is reformed thinking. We'll see you next time.