Latest / Reformed Thinking / When Nations Conspire Against God’s People (Psalm 83) | Charles Spurgeon

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When Nations Conspire Against God’s People (Psalm 83) | Charles Spurgeon · Reformed Thinking

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  Reformed thinking. It is good to be back in the
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  study. And to you, the learner, tuning
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  in. Welcome.
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  We have a stack of documents on the desk today that are frankly,
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  quite heavy. We're sitting down to analyze a
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  text that deals with war, conspiracy, existential anxiety,
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  and, well, the terrifying silence of God.
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  It is heavy, but it's a necessary conversation.
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  We are looking at Psalm 83. Now, before we really unroll the
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  scroll, we need to calibrate our compass.
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  We approach every deep dive with a specific lens.
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  We aren't just looking at this as ancient literature or poetry.
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  Though it is both of those things.
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  It is absolutely, but our framework is different.
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  Right. We're approaching this as
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  Protestant Christians, and specifically we're leaning on
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  the doctrines of grace, what is often called Reformed theology.
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  OK, so let's break that down. What does that mean practically
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  for this deep dive? Because sometimes people hear
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  reformed and they just think of, you know, 5 specific points or a
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  specific dusty time period. That's a fairpoint for this
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  discussion. It means we're reading this song
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  through the lens of the covenant.
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  We believe that God is sovereign over history, that he isn't just
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  reacting to the bad guys, but that he is orchestrating history
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  for a specific purpose. We look to standards like the
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  Westminster Confession as a faithful map.
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  But scripture itself is the territory.
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  Precisely. So when we see a massive army
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  surrounding Israel in this text, we aren't just seeing bad luck,
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  we aren't seeing a political accident.
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  No, we are seeing a sovereign God allowing a crisis, and that
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  changes everything about how you read it.
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  It does, Which brings us to the text itself.
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  Psalm 83. The title in your Bible probably
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  says a song or Psalm of Asaph. The last song of Asaph,
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  according to some of our notes. OK, so who is this Asaph
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  character? Asaph was a Levite.
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  He was one of the chief musicians appointed by King
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  David. But the songs of Asaph aren't
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  usually the happy, clappy ones. No, they're not.
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  They tend to be darker, more contemplative.
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  Right. They deal with the prosperity of
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  the wicked, the justice of God and national crisis.
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  And the crisis here seems absolute.
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  We have notes here connecting the song to Two Chronicles 20
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  during the reign of Jehoshaphat. Can you paint the picture for
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  us? What is the situation on the
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  ground? OK, imagine you are living in a
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  strip of land about the size of New Jersey.
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  Not very big, Not at all. And you are surrounded on all
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  sides by nations that don't just want your land, they want your
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  erasure. You receive intelligence that a
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  coalition has. Formed.
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  And it's not just one army. No, that's the key.
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  It is 10 nations, 10. They're moving in from the
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  South, the east, the north, and you have nowhere to run.
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  The sea is at your back. It's a claustrophobic nightmare.
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  It is, and the natural human reaction is panic.
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  It's to check the stockpiles, sharpen the swords, maybe send
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  out diplomats to beg for some kind of treaty.
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  But our mission today is to analyze how ASAP responds, and
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  he doesn't do any of that. He writes a song.
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  He writes a war song, but it's a strange war song.
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  It doesn't start with a battle cry.
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  No, it starts with a complaint. A complaint about God's silence.
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  Let's look at that opening line verse one.
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  Keep not thou silence, O God. Hold not thy peace and be not
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  still, O God. You can feel the desperation
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  immediately. It just leaps off the page.
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  You can, but I want to drill down on the specific herds Asaph
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  is using here. He repeats himself three times.
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  Keep not silence. Hold not thy peace.
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  Be not still. Is he just being poetic or is
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  there a distinction in the Hebrew?
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  There is, and it's fascinating. There's a distinct nuance in
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  each phrase. The first plea, Keep not thou
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  Silence is literally a request for God not to be deaf.
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  Like the phone line is dead. Exactly.
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  It's the fear that the communication line has been cut.
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  Are you even hearing this God? But the second phrase, hold not
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  thy peace is where it gets really interesting.
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  One of our sources, the Dutch theologian Herman Venema,
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  highlights the root word used there.
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  Venio brings up the imagery of wine.
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  Yes, the Hebrew implies the state of a liquid where the
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  sediment, the dregs, has settled completely to the bottom.
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  So the liquid is perfectly still, undisturbed clear.
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  Correct. If you leave a bottle of
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  unfiltered wine alone for months, it becomes tranquil.
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  The sediment rests. Asaph is looking at God and
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  saying, Lord, do not be like that.
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  Do not be so tranquil, so undisturbed, so settled on your
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  leaves while your people are being shaken to pieces.
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  Wow, that is a jarring image. It implies that God's calmness
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  looks like indifference to the person who's suffering.
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  That is the core of the complaint.
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  The world is roaring. We see that in verse 2.
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  The enemies are making a tumult. It is loud, chaotic, violent.
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  And in contrast, God is sitting there like a bottle of wine on a
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  shelf, perfectly still. The contrast is everything, and
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  it brings us to the big theological question, the why?
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  If God is sovereign, as we established at the start, then
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  this silence isn't an accident. He isn't distracted, he's not
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  busy with something else. No, he is choosing to be silent.
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  So the question is why? And for that, we have a
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  fantastic breakdown from the Puritan writer Guilter Craddock
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  in his work Divine Drops. It's a great title.
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  It is, and he argues that this silence is a deliberate tool.
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  It's something God uses for three specific reasons.
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  Let's walk through them. The first one Craddock mentions
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  is to try faith. To try our faith.
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  Yeah, and to understand this, you have to understand the
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  nature of faith. Faith, by definition does not
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  exist in the light. If you can see the solution, you
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  don't need faith. You see the eyesight?
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  Exactly. Faith requires a vacuum.
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  It requires a gap between the problem and the solution.
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  God's silence creates that gap. Craddock uses the famous story
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  from Matthew 8, doesn't he? Jesus in the boat.
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  It is the perfect analogy. You have seasoned fishermen, the
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  disciples in a storm so bad that they think they're going to die.
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  These aren't land. They know the sea and the waves
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  are crashing over the bow. The ship is filling with water.
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  And where is Jesus? Asleep on a cushion though.
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  Asleep. Now let's apply the Reformed
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  lens we talked about. Does Jesus know there is a
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  storm? Of course.
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  Is he in danger? No.
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  Could he stop it instantly? So why sleep?
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  He's not tired. Craddock says he sleeps to see
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  what the disciples will do. He is testing their theology.
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  He's putting it to a practical exam.
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  Do they trust the captain, or do they only trust the weather?
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  Craddock puts it beautifully. God allows the waves to cover
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  the ship to see if the believer can hold on to the promise even
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  when the promisor seems absent. It is so easy to trust God when
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  the check clears and the sun is shining and the doctor's report
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  is good. That is not faith, that is just
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  observation. The silence forces faith to grow
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  muscles. It has to work in the dark.
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  But then Craddock goes further. The second reason is to test
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  uprightness. How is that different from
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  testing faith? It sounds similar.
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  It's a subtle but key distinction.
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  Uprightness is about your motivation for following God.
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  It's the fair weather friend test.
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  Think about it. If God acted like a cosmic
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  vending machine where you put in a prayer and immediately get a
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  blessing, who wouldn't serve him?
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  Even the wicked would serve him then.
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  It pays too well. Precisely if holiness always
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  resulted in instant cash and safety and comfort, everyone
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  would be holy. It would be the most profitable
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  business in the world. So God withdraws the visible
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  benefits. He goes silent.
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  He lets the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer.
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  He let the storm rage, and then he watches.
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  He asks, do you love me for me, or do you love me for the
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  benefits? Do you love me or do you love
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  what I can give you? I cuts it.
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  It's the Job question, isn't it? Does Job fear God for nothing?
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  Is his service just a transaction?
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  It is the job question. It forces you to ask what's at
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  the core of your belief. But Craddock's third reason is
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  the most terrifying, especially in the context of Psalm 83.
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  He says God keeps silence to gather the wicked.
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  This one felt very strategic, almost like a military trap.
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  It is a trap. Craddock uses an agricultural
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  metaphor here. He talks about a farmer
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  gathering faggots, which is an old English word for a bundle of
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  sticks or kindling. OK, if you want to burn the
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  stubble in your field after the harvest, you run around burning
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  one straw at a time. No, that's completely
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  inefficient. You rake them into a pile.
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  You let them accumulate. You rake them into heaps, you
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  let them pile up until they are a massive single target.
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  God's silence allows the wicked to feel safe.
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  They get confident. They look up and say God isn't
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  doing anything, He doesn't care, or maybe he doesn't exist.
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  We can do whatever we want. So they get bold, they call
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  their friends, they start talking.
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  They form a confederacy, A10 nation alliance like we see in
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  Psalm 83. The silence draws them out.
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  It emboldens them to show their two colors.
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  Yes, it allows the mutiny to grow to its full height so that
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  the general can crush it all at once.
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  The silence isn't God retreating, it is God loading
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  the trap. So while God is silent, the
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  enemy is getting loud. That brings us right to Section
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  2, the character of the enemy. Verses 2 through 5 describe this
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  gathering storm. It starts with noise, for lo
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  thine enemies make a tumult. Spurgeon describes them as a
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  hungry pack of dogs. That's a vivid image.
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  It's not just that they're attacking.
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  They are railing and reviling. They are giving tongue.
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  All at once. It's a cacophony of hatred and
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  it says. They lift up the head.
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  That is the posture of pride, of arrogance.
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  They are confident of victory. Before the battle has even
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  begun. They are walking tall, chests
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  out, assuming that Israel is already finished.
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  They're measuring the curtains for their new houses.
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  But it isn't just brute force, is it?
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  Verse 3 says they have taken crafty counsel.
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  This isn't just a mob. No, absolutely not.
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  It is not accidental mob violence.
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  It is a conspiracy, a united conclave.
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  They are using malice mixed with wit.
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  They have sat down in a room and planned this.
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  This is calculated. And the objective is laid out in
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  verse 4. It is chilling.
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  Come and let us cut them off from being a nation.
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  That is genocide. It's not subjugation, it's not
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  just taking their land. It is total extermination.
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  They want to erase the memory of the people.
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  They want it so that future historians will say, was there
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  ever a nation called Israel? Spurgeon connects this to the
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  history of the church as well. He mentions the same
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  Bartholomew's Day Massacre or the Inquisition.
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  Why is such hatred, why they want to wipe them out
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  completely? What is it about this one little
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  nation that provokes such a violent, absolute response?
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  Because the existence of the church acts as a rebuke to their
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  sin. As long as God's people exist,
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  there is a witness, even a silent one, against the
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  wickedness of the world. Their light exposes the
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  darkness. And the darkness hates the
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  light. So the world says let us blot
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  out the name of Israel so it is no more in remembrance.
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  If they can kill the messenger, they think they can ignore the
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  message. And verse 5 highlights something
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  fascinating about this group. It says they consult with one
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  consent. The Hebrew there is literally
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  with one heart. This is what we might call the
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  Unholy Alliance. Right, because when we get to
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  the list of nations later, these are groups that do not normally
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  get along at all. Not in the slightest.
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  Wicked groups often hate each other.
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  They are rivals. They fight over territory, trade
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  routes, power, honor, but they will drop all their internal
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  squabbles in a heartbeat to unite against the godly.
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  It reminds me of the biblical example of Herod and Pilate.
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  That is a prime example. They were enemies.
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  Pilate had disrespected the Jews.
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  Herod saw him as a rival, but they became friends on the day
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  they condemned Jesus. Their mutual hatred of the Holy
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  One was stronger than their hatred for each other.
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  Thomas Watson has a great illustration for this.
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  He says two greyhounds snarling at a bone will stop to chase a
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  hare. That's good, that captures it.
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  The world is full of snarling greyhounds fighting over the
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  bone of power. But let a hare the church run
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  by, and suddenly they forget the bone and run as a single pack.
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  In the middle of this roaring pack of dogs, Asaph uses a
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  specific term for God's people. In verse three, He calls them
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  thy hidden ones. Siphoneka in Hebrew.
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  It's such a strange and beautiful term to use in the
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  middle of a war zone. It really is.
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  Let's spend some time on this. What does it mean to be 1 of
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  God's hidden ones? We have some analysis here from
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  William J that suggests there are multiple layers to this
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  title. It's a real gem of a phrase.
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  First, as Jay points out, it implies safety.
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  You hide something to protect it.
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  Like a jewel in a safe. More like Noah in the ark.
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  He was hidden from the judgement of the flood.
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  Or like a treasure hidden in a field, the world can't touch it
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  because it's in a secret place. So in the midst of this war,
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  they are hidden in God's hand, safe from the real danger.
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  Correct. Your life is hid with Christ in
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  God, as Colossians 3 says. But there's another layer to it.
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  It also implies obscurity. Obscurity.
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  The world does not know them. The world knoweth us not the
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  apostle, John wrote. The world can't see who they
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  really are. That is a helpful distinction.
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  The world sees the political entity of Israel, the nation
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  they want to destroy, but they don't see the spiritual reality
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  of the Hidden Ones. No, the internal mana is unseen.
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  The true spiritual life of a believer is a secret between
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  them and God. The world sees the surface, the
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  clay pot, but the treasure inside is hidden.
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  William J applies this practically to the learner, to
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  us today. He says believers can be hidden
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  in a few different ways. First, by persecution.
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  Right throughout history and even today, many of God's people
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  have to worship in secret. They are hidden in catacombs and
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  basements behind closed doors. They are literally the hidden
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  ones. He also says they are hidden by
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  station. I love this one.
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  We tend to think the important Christians are the ones with the
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  big platforms, the famous names, the authors, the speakers.
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  But Jay reminds us that many great Saints live in cottages or
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  hovels. Unknown to fame.
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  Completely unknown. They raise their children, they
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  do their work faithfully, they pray for their neighbors, and
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  the world has no idea they exist.
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  They're not on a stage, but they are known and cherished by God.
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  Then there is hidden by disposition.
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  This is the reserved believer. Not everyone is a bold,
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  outspoken lion. Some are like Nicodemus, coming
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  to Jesus by night. They are timid, They are quiet.
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  Their faith is genuine, but it's not loud.
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  They are still His. And lastly, hidden by infirmity,
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  this one really struck me as a deep comfort.
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  This is a comfort to us all, isn't it?
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  Sometimes grace is found amidst a lot of imperfections and
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  errors. We might look at a person and
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  see their flaws, they're stumbling, their weaknesses, and
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  think there is no grace there. But deep down, hidden under the
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  infirmity, is the seed of faith. God sees it even if we don't.
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  So the comfort for you the listener is, as Jay puts it, the
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  less the world knows, the the better for thee.
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  God knows who are his, and at the end of the day, that is
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  enough. So now moving to Section 4, we
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  get the roll call ASAP lists the nations that have formed this
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  unholy alliance and it is a long specific list.
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  It's a geographical encirclement.
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  If you look at a map of ancient Israel, they are surrounded.
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  Southeast, northwest, every border is hostile.
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  There is no way out. But it isn't just a random
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  collection of neighbors, is it? We have a source here from
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  Joseph Francis Thropp, who suggests there's a deeper
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  pattern to this list. He argues we shouldn't just read
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  this geographically. Thropp's analysis is brilliant
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  because it moves us from geography to typology.
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  He shows us that the Church isn't just fighting flesh and
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  blood, we are fighting spiritual archetypes.
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  These enemies represent recurring forms of opposition.
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  OK, let's walk through them. Let's start with the first one
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  on the list, the Tabernacles of Edom.
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  Edom, Now you have to keep your biblical history in mind.
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  Who was Esau, the father of the Edomites?
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  He was Jacob's brother, the twins.
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  He was the kin, the family. Thrupp suggests that Edom
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  represents intellectual pride and the hatred of the close
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  relative. Remember, Esau despised his
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  birthright. Right, he sold it for bowl of
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  soup. He knew the truth.
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  He grew up in Isaac's house, but he sold the spiritual promise
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  for a moment of physical satisfaction.
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  So this isn't an enemy who is ignorant of the truth, this is
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  an enemy who knows the truth and hates it.
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  Yes, the Edomite spirit is the spirit of the apostate or the
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  bitter skeptic who says I know your religion, I know your
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  history, and I despise it. That is why the hatred of Edom
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  was always described in the Old Testament as the most bitter.
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  It's a family feud. Next on the list are the
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  Ishmaelites and the Hagarines. Descendants of Hagar the
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  bondwoman. Thrupp links them to the spirit
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  of legalism and persecution of the born of the spirit.
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  Paul uses this exact analogy in Galatians.
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  Just as Ishmael mocked Isaac, the legalistic spirit mocks the
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  grace of the gospel. So this is the enemy that tries
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  to put you back in bondage? It is the hatred of the slave
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  for the free air. It's the Spirit that says you
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  must earn your salvation, and it despises the one who says it is
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  a free gift. Then we have Moab and Amin.
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  The descendants of Lot, and we have to be blunt about their
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  origins. A story of sin.
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  They were born of incest after the destruction of Sodom, right?
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  Thropp categorizes these nations as representing slaves to lust
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  and unholy passions. They represent the undisciplined
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  carnal appetites that war against the holiness of God's
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  law. So we have intellectual pride,
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  legalism and lust. It's quite a cocktail so far.
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  But then we move to the coast and the motivation changes.
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  We see the Philistines and the inhabitants of Tyre.
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  This is a fascinating shift in the list.
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  Tyre was the great merchant city of the ancient world.
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  They were the capitalists. The Mediterranean and the
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  Philistines were coastal opportunists.
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  Trump points out that these groups didn't necessarily have a
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  theological hatred for Israel's God.
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  They weren't like Edom. They were just businessmen.
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  Right. They represent mercenary greed.
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  To Tyre, Israel is just an obstruction to trade routes or
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  worse, a commodity. We know from the prophets that
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  Tyre and Felicia were involved in the slave trade.
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  They would capture Israelites and sell them.
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  Exactly, it wasn't personal, it was just business, which is
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  almost more chilling. They are the type of enemy that
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  will sell out the church, not because they hate Jesus, but
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  because the church interferes with their profit margins.
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  If the gospel stops you from selling your silver shrines like
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  in Acts 19, then the gospel has to go.
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  And finally, looming over all of the big one, assure Assyria.
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  The superpower, the iron empire. This represents worldly ambition
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  and sheer political power. Assyria doesn't want to sell
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  you. They won't absorb you.
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  They represent the state when it decides to become God.
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  It's the spirit of Caesar or Babylon or any worldly empire
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  that demands total allegiance. So let's step back and look at
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  the whole picture again. You have the skeptic from your
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  own family, Edom, the legalist who wants to enslave you,
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  Ishmael, the hedonist who hates all law, Moab, the greedy
• 18:45
  merchant who wants to profit from you Tyre, and the
• 18:48
  tyrannical state that wants to consume you, Assyria.
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  All joined together, verse 5 says they have consulted with
• 18:53
  one heart. All their different motivations
• 18:56
  have found a common enemy. And that explains the impossible
• 18:59
  odds, Spurgeon says. 10 to one against Israel.
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  With those odds, humanly speaking, Israel is finished.
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  There is no political solution to this map.
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  There's no treaty to be made. Which is why Azaph doesn't ask
• 19:10
  for a political solution. In Section 5 we see his strategy
• 19:13
  is history. He looks backwards to move
• 19:15
  forwards. He goes to the archives of God's
• 19:18
  faithfulness. He does not ask for a new
• 19:20
  unprecedented miracle. He asks for a repetition of past
• 19:24
  victories. He prays.
• 19:26
  Do unto them as unto the Midianites.
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  He's referring to the story of Gideon in the Book of Judges.
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  Yes, Judges chapters 6 through 8.
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  Gideon with only 300 men armed with trumpets and jars and
• 19:38
  torches defeated the massive Midianite army.
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  Asaph is saying Lord you did it before you took a tiny group and
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  defeated a massive horde through confusion and your power.
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  Do it again. And he mentions specific names
• 19:51
  oreb and Zeeb. The Raven and the wolf, those
• 19:55
  are the names of the Midianite Princess.
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  This is not a vague prayer, it's a specific one.
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  Strike the head, Don't just scatter the soldiers.
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  Deal with the ravenous leaders, the Raven and the wolf who prey
• 20:06
  on your sheep. And then Zeba and Zalmunah.
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  The kings, the ones who claim they would take God's houses in
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  possession. Gideon pursued them and executed
• 20:13
  them. Asaf is being very precise in
• 20:15
  his historical memory. He is holding up God's past
• 20:18
  actions as the pattern for his present request.
• 20:21
  He also brings up Deborah and Barack's victory at the Brook
• 20:23
  Kishon. That is the defeat of Sisera and
• 20:26
  his iron Chariots. The imagery here is powerful.
• 20:29
  In Judges 5, we learned that a sudden divine storm caused the
• 20:32
  brook to swell into a raging torrent.
• 20:34
  And the Chariots, their great military advantage, got stuck in
• 20:37
  the mud. They were completely
• 20:38
  neutralized, that the thing they trusted in became their trap.
• 20:41
  Then the torrent swept them away.
• 20:42
  But then Asaph adds a detail that is.
• 20:44
  Well, it's grim, he says. They became as dung for the
• 20:48
  earth. He's referring to the battle at
• 20:50
  Endor. It's graphic, but it reflects
• 20:52
  the reality of ancient warfare. The bodies were left unburied.
• 20:56
  They rotted and fertilized the ground.
• 20:58
  It sounds harsh to our modern ears, and it is.
• 21:01
  But it is a statement of total indignity and total defeat.
• 21:04
  These were pride men who lifted up the head.
• 21:07
  They wanted to wipe Israel off the map.
• 21:10
  Instead, they became fertilizer for Israel's soil.
• 21:13
  Complete reversal. And the root of their sin, their
• 21:16
  core crime, is stated in verse 12.
• 21:18
  Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
• 21:22
  That's it. That is the core crime.
• 21:24
  They looked at the Holy Land, they looked at the temple, at
• 21:26
  the pasture lands of God and they said we will take this.
• 21:28
  We will be the landlords now. They wanted to evict the tenant
• 21:31
  God and the sub tenants Israel. And that is a dangerous game.
• 21:35
  Will a man rob God? The prophet Malachi asks.
• 21:39
  To claim ownership of what belongs to the Almighty is to
• 21:41
  invite disaster. It is attempting to displace God
• 21:44
  from His own throne on His own earth.
• 21:47
  So Asaph prays for their destruction, and he uses some
• 21:51
  incredibly vivid imagery in section 6 to describe what that
• 21:54
  should look like. Verses 13 through 15.
• 21:56
  Oh my God, make them like a wheel.
• 21:58
  The King James says wheel, but the Hebrew word galgal refers to
• 22:02
  something very specific. We have a great note on this
• 22:05
  from WM Thompson in his book The Land in the Book.
• 22:07
  He identifies this not as a chariot wheel, but as a plant.
• 22:10
  Yes, the wild artichoke. He calls it the rolling thing.
• 22:13
  In the autumn, the stem of this plant breaks and it forms a
• 22:17
  light, rigid globe of branches. The wind catches it and it rolls
• 22:20
  violently across the plains. Thompson describes them leaping
• 22:23
  and bounding, scaring the horses, tumbleweeds.
• 22:26
  Exactly. They have no roots, they have no
• 22:28
  stability. They are at the lumber sea of
• 22:30
  every gust of wind. The metaphor is clear.
• 22:32
  The wicked may look strong like a fortress, but Asaph praise
• 22:36
  make them like tumbleweeds, rootless, powerless, driven.
• 22:39
  Driven by the storm of your judgement.
• 22:41
  Contrast that with the righteous, who are described as
• 22:44
  a tree planted by rivers of water.
• 22:46
  The Holy Spirit is a spirit of rest.
• 22:49
  The wicked are like the troubled sea, or here, like a rolling
• 22:53
  weed. They can never stop.
• 22:55
  They can never find peace. Then he switches the metaphor
• 22:58
  from wind to fire as the fire burneth the wood.
• 23:01
  The setting here is a dry mountainside in late summer.
• 23:04
  If you have ever seen a wildfire in a dry climate, you know how
• 23:08
  terrifying and fast it is. The fire climbs the hill.
• 23:11
  The flame set at the mountains on fire.
• 23:13
  It is driven by the wind. The two images work together.
• 23:17
  Asaf is asking God to be that wind driving the fire.
• 23:20
  He wants God to pursue them with his Tempest and his storm.
• 23:23
  It's a prayer for total routing, not just a defensive stand, but
• 23:26
  an offensive, intensive clearing of the threat.
• 23:28
  Chase them until they're gone. Which brings us to the purpose
• 23:31
  of all this. Why ask for such a severe
• 23:33
  judgement? Is it just revenge?
• 23:34
  Is it just we want to be safe? Section 7 suggests there is a
• 23:38
  higher purpose, a teleology or a goal to the judgement.
• 23:42
  Verse 16 says, Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek
• 23:45
  thy name, O Lord. This is fascinating.
• 23:47
  It's a turn in the prayer. There are two ways to look at
• 23:50
  this request for shame. Option A is what we might call
• 23:53
  the mercy of shame. How is shame of mercy?
• 23:56
  That seems contradictory. Because pain and failure can be
• 23:59
  a grace. If they break human pride, when
• 24:02
  these proud nations are defeated, when they're lifting
• 24:05
  up of the head is crushed into the dirt, perhaps then they will
• 24:08
  realize their gods are false. Perhaps then their arrogance
• 24:11
  will break. And in that brokenness, they
• 24:13
  might actually look for the true God.
• 24:15
  Exactly. So this is actually a prayer for
• 24:18
  their salvation through defeat. It is.
• 24:21
  It's saying Lord beat them so they will bow to you.
• 24:24
  It is better to be conquered by God and live than to to win your
• 24:27
  war against Him and perish. If there's an option B, he
• 24:30
  doesn't stop there. No he doesn't.
• 24:32
  Verse 17. If they will not turn, let them
• 24:34
  be confounded and perish. This is the justice of shame.
• 24:37
  If the shame does not lead to repentance, it must lead to
• 24:40
  destruction. The logic is simple and severe.
• 24:43
  It is better that they perish than that Israel be rooted out.
• 24:46
  If the choice is the survival of the Church or the survival of
• 24:49
  the persecutor, the psalmist chooses the Church without
• 24:52
  hesitation. And the ultimate goal, the final
• 24:55
  reason for all of this is found in verse 18, that men may know
• 24:58
  that thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the most High over
• 25:02
  all the earth. Everything comes back to this
• 25:04
  the glory of God. The purpose of the victory is
• 25:07
  not just so Israel can sleep safely at night, it is so the
• 25:10
  whole world will know who God is.
• 25:11
  He highlights the name Jehovah, the covenant name.
• 25:14
  The I am the self existent one, the source of all being.
• 25:18
  The nations have their little local deities, their bales and
• 25:21
  their ashtrath's, their idols of wood and stone.
• 25:24
  But Asaph says show them that you alone are the I am the
• 25:28
  ground of all reality. It implies that the world often
• 25:30
  disregards God or treats him as one God among many until his
• 25:34
  judgments force them to pay attention.
• 25:36
  Sadly, that is often true. Men are practical atheists in
• 25:39
  fair weather, but when the storm of judgement comes, they are
• 25:43
  forced to acknowledge there is a Most High who rules the affairs
• 25:46
  of men. There is a famous historical
• 25:48
  anecdote about this, isn't there, regarding Alexander the
• 25:52
  Great. Josephus, the Jewish historian,
• 25:54
  records it. When Alexander was marching on
• 25:57
  Jerusalem intending to conquer it, the high priest came out to
• 26:00
  meet him in his full priestly garments.
• 26:03
  And on his headdress. He was wearing his mitre, which
• 26:05
  had the name Jehovah inscribed on a golden plate.
• 26:09
  And what did Alexander the Great, the Conqueror of the
• 26:11
  known world, do? He got off his horse and bowed
• 26:13
  down. His generals were stunned.
• 26:15
  They asked why he, whom all the world worships, would bow to the
• 26:19
  Jewish high priest, and he said he didn't bow to the priest.
• 26:22
  He bowed to the name inscribed on the mitre because he had seen
• 26:24
  a vision of a man in such a garment who promised him
• 26:27
  victory. That is a striking image, the
• 26:30
  greatest worldly power bowing to the name of God.
• 26:33
  It is the fulfillment of this Psalm in a way that men may know
• 26:36
  that thou art the Most High over all the earth.
• 26:38
  So as we wrap up this deep dive, we see a clear movement in the
• 26:41
  Psalm. It moves from complaint.
• 26:45
  God, why are you silent all the way to adoration?
• 26:49
  You are the Most High over all the earth.
• 26:51
  Adversity enriches sacred literature.
• 26:54
  Without the threat of the Confederacy, we wouldn't have
• 26:56
  this song of trust. The pressure squeezes out the
• 26:59
  praise. And here is a thought I want to
• 27:01
  leave with you, the learner. We talked about God's people as
• 27:04
  the hidden ones. The world wants to destroy the
• 27:07
  church because it's very existence is a rebuke to them.
• 27:10
  But perhaps there's another angle to that.
• 27:13
  What is that? If the church is truly hidden in
• 27:15
  Christ, if our life is supernatural and unexplained by
• 27:19
  worldly mechanics, perhaps the reason for the hostility is
• 27:22
  simply that the world is baffled.
• 27:24
  They try to destroy what they cannot understand.
• 27:26
  They see a piece that doesn't make sense in the middle of a
• 27:29
  storm. They see a joy that defies
• 27:31
  circumstances and it drives them mad because they can't replicate
• 27:34
  it or control it. That is a solid thought.
• 27:37
  The world cannot tolerate a mystery it cannot control.
• 27:40
  It must either own it or destroy it.
• 27:42
  So the question for you to think about is, is your life hidden
• 27:45
  enough in Christ that the world is baffled by your peace, or do
• 27:50
  you look and sound and worry just like them?
• 27:53
  Because if you are hidden in him, you're safe, no matter how
• 27:56
  loud the tumult of the nations. Gets Amen to that.
• 27:59
  Thank you for joining us for this session of Reformed
• 28:01
  Thinking. Until next time.