Open your Bibles with me, if you will, please, to Psalm 110. This is our final message from this psalm. If you’d like to look ahead, I think next week we’ll be looking at Psalm 113. Today, Psalm 110. We’ll be focusing today on verses 5 through 6. Let’s take the time to read through the entire psalm.
The topic today is the Triumphant King. Psalm of David, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. The Lord sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies. Your people will offer themselves freely on the day of your power in holy garments. From the womb of the morning, the dew of your youth will be yours. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand. He will shatter kings on the day of His wrath. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. He will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. He will drink from the brook by the way. Therefore, He will lift up His head.
Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, we’re grateful for the opportunity again, the privilege it is to meet together with your people, to join our hearts and voices in song and praise to you, and to come together and open your word and to hear again from you. We pray that you will bless us to that end this morning. We ask your blessing on those of our congregation who are away to the conference in New Jersey today. We ask that today, this week, would be a blessed time for them all. We pray that you will bless the ministry of your word there, the fellowship, and in every way, make it a blessed time for them. And for us this morning, we ask for your presence, that your spirit would minister your word to us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Review Of The Psalm
By way of review, you’ll remember that in verse 1 we have what is really the setting for the entire psalm, and that is the enthronement of the Lord Jesus, the enthronement of David’s greater son. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. So the mediator has come, he has accomplished his work of salvation, and in answer to that, God has exalted him to the throne of the universe, seated at his right hand, where he reigns and will reign until all enemies are subdued. In verses 2 and 3, we have a brief glimpse as to the advance of his kingdom during this age, this what we call the inaugurated phase of his kingdom, where he has an army of volunteer soldiers, and they offer themselves freely and work toward the advance of the gospel and his kingdom.
Then stanza two begins with that surprising announcement that we have looked at now the last two weeks, and that is that the king is in fact a priest. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind. You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So we have a new order of things entirely. A new priesthood with a new covenant has been inaugurated, and he has a never-ending ministry for his people.
Having finished the work of their redemption, he now intercedes for them on behalf of God at his right hand. So we have in heaven a man who has been exalted, the God-man incarnate, who has finished his work, now exalted to the throne of God, reigning as the God-man over all of God’s creation.
And we are told in verse 1, there he is until he makes his enemies his footstool. Now we should review the speakers, the varying speakers involved in the psalm. You remember the superscript tells us that this is a Psalm of David. He’s the author. And in verse one, we have David speaking. Well, he’s speaking, but he’s repeating what he has overheard. I suspect this is more than just actually overhearing a conversation.
I suspect it’s David reflecting on the oracle given him by the prophet Nathan concerning his greater son that he will come and rule. But now he says, the Lord says to my Lord, and here’s the decree: sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. So David then is speaking of what he has heard, as it were, God saying to Messiah. And now verses two and three, David is still speaking, but here he’s addressing his greater son, the subject of the decree in verse one.
And in verse two, he exhorts him, rule in the midst of your enemies. And then verse three, he assures him of a willing army and the success of his cause in the earth. Now in verse 4, the Lord addresses the Messiah again: You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.
Now in verses 5 to 7, David speaks again, and he resumes his theme of the king’s ultimate triumph that was alluded to in verse 1. He will sit at God’s right hand until he makes his enemies his footstool. Well, here he brings his psalm to a climax, and that’s the theme he picks up. This is David—verses five to seven is David’s reflections on the decree of verse one. David is speaking of his greater son, the Messiah, who will come, and he tells us he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
Often in the Psalms and in the ancient Near Eastern poetic literature generally, we don’t have a formal explanation as to who is the one in view with the change of pronouns in the Psalm. And in fact, the change of pronouns signals a different audience in view that the author is giving us. And it’s not always immediately clear who is being addressed or who is speaking to whom. And we have a question about that in the beginning of verse five.
The Lord is at your right hand. And commentators debate on this. Whom is he addressing? The Lord is at your right hand. Who is the “your”? Is he addressing Messiah, saying that Adonai, the master, is at your right hand? That would be the imagery exactly of verse 1. Or is he now addressing Messiah, saying that the Lord is the Adonai and he’s at Messiah’s right hand?
That would be a reversal of the imagery of verse one. There’s discussion as to which it is. I don’t think it’s critical that we decide that. What is clear is that when we get through the second part of verse five, and then certainly by the time we are into verse seven, the “your” is the congregation. He’s addressing the congregation now. For example, verse 7: he will drink from the brook by the way; therefore he will lift up his head. So, Messiah is at God’s right hand, or the imagery has changed in the first part of the verse and God is at Messiah’s right hand—whichever it is, we have then the king spoken of in verses five through seven as the avenging judge subduing his enemies.
But there’s a change in perspective. In verse one, the throne is in view. That’s the coronation setting that we have seen. It’s the backdrop to the eventual world conquest that he would give. But in verses five to seven, it’s not the throne that’s in view; it’s the battlefield and the conquest itself that is in view. There’s also a change from verse 3. We have a different scene involved. In verse 3, we have this army of volunteers carrying out the work of the kingdom seen as the battlefield. But when we come to verses five to seven, the army is no longer in view, just the king himself.
He has gone into battle, he’s equipped with divine strength, and there may be others with him, but they’re not mentioned and they’re not in view. He’s leading the battle, going out against his enemies and subduing them all until they are all made his footstool. The language here, verses five and six—he shatters them, he executes judgment, he piles up the corpses—it’s the language of a total rout. He comes, he comes in war, and the battle is entirely one-sided. So then, verses five to seven characterize the battle and the outcome of the battle. Verse five, the enthroned king of verse one now says he’ll shatter kings on the day of his wrath.
This word “shatter” is used only in the Old Testament and only in poetical sections, and it’s always indicating just what you’d guess from the translation “shatter.” It indicates total triumph, ultimate victory, complete triumph. It echoes actually the Balaam prophecy in Numbers chapter 24 verse 17. You remember: a star shall come out of Jacob, a scepter shall rise out of Israel, it shall crush—the same word here—crush the forehead of Moab and break down the sons of Sheth. This word is used in Psalm 18 of David himself in his battles, and actually it’s the same wording from 2 Samuel 22, where David thrusts through—that’s the translation we have in our version—thrusts through his enemies. Again, the idea of complete victory.
Well, now it’s David’s greater son who will do the shattering, and he’s finally subduing all the rebel kings and chiefs of the earth. Verse six then expands on that. He will execute judgment among the nations, filling them with corpses. And then, repeating the shatter language of verse five, he says, he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth.
So it’s graphic imagery. It’s that of complete subjugation. And not just subjugation, but a complete devastation of his enemy. Shatter kings, the day of his wrath, executing judgment, piling up the corpses, filling the nations with them, shattering chiefs. All this is the language of ultimate triumph, complete victory, and he does this, we are told in verse six, as an act of divine judgment. He executes judgment. The idea there is a punishment that is being brought against those who have rebelled against the king and refused his rule.
Finally, he is bringing justice to bear on the rebellious nations, and in particular, the rebellious leaders of those nations. And the whole world is in view. Verse five, it’s kings. Verse six, it’s the nations being piled up with corpses, it’s chiefs over the wide earth—the whole world is in view. He comes now, the king is triumphing over all of his enemies. We have a rebellious world, and now they’re brought into account. And it is a day of absolute triumph for the returning king.
You’ll remember that we’ve seen this in our Sunday night series, we’ve also seen it in the Psalms extensively, that the kingdom of God has these two contrasting or twin aspects, and that is there is the destruction of the enemy—it’s a day of judgment—but it’s also a day of vindication and salvation for his people. Here, it’s the judgment on his enemies that is being emphasized in particular.
A Theology Of Judgment
Now this matter of judgment is a huge theme in the Bible, and I think it’ll be helpful for us to take just a couple minutes here to correlate what we find in these verses, since the language is so shocking—piling up corpses among the nations and things like that. Since the language is so severe, I thought it’d be helpful just to correlate this with some other passages. I think most of them are familiar to you. Let me just refer to some of them. In 1 Samuel 2, you’ll remember we have Hannah’s prayer. God has given her a son; now she prays in thanksgiving to God for the son and she prays with reference to the king.
The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces. Against them he will thunder in heaven. The Lord will judge the ends of the earth. He will give strength to his king and exalt the horn of his anointed. Famously in Psalm 2—I’ve referred to this I think a hundred times during this series because at the opening of the Psalter, this is what we are assured of—that the nations will rebel and they will rage, but God has asserted himself and he says, I’ve set my king on Zion, my holy hill. And then the king, God says to the king, ask of me and I will make nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession. You’ll break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
Psalm 72, another famous royal Psalm. The king is shown to have dominion from sea to sea, from the rivers to the ends of the earth. Desert tribes bow down before him. And then the phrase, the expression, his enemies lick the dust. Psalm 92, we saw not too long ago.
We read that because the Lord is on high forever, his enemies shall perish and all evildoers will be scattered. Then we have that cluster of Psalms, Psalm 93 and following, where we have these “the Lord is King” Psalms, or “the Lord Reigns” Psalms. That’s the repeated theme, you remember, through those Psalms in that section, Psalm 93 to 99. And the statement there is that God is King over all, and he reigns over all, and because he reigns, he will judge the peoples with equity. And that note is sounded over and again.
In Isaiah the prophet, chapter 11, we read of a shoot that will come from the stump of Jesse. He’ll strike the earth with the rod of his mouth and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked. That prophecy is picked up in 2 Thessalonians chapter two, again in Revelation chapter 19 with reference to Jesus in his return. Isaiah 61, the servant is said to come to bring in the day of God’s vengeance.
And then in chapter 63 of the prophecy, again speaking of the servant, graphic language: “Who is he who comes from Edom in crimson garments from Basra? He who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength.” And then the answer the servant gives: “It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save.”
“Why is your apparel red and your garments like his who treads in the winepress?” And then again he responds, “I have trodden the winepress alone from the peoples. No one was with me. I trod them in my anger and I trampled them in my wrath in their lifeblood, splattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help. I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold. So my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in my anger. I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth.”
And of course we have extensive passages like this in the prophets regarding the day of the Lord when God comes in judgment and a great shaking of the earth and the destruction of his enemies. We find it graphically portrayed in Daniel chapter 2 where we have these successive kingdoms and then this great stone is cut out of a mountain and comes and crushes the kingdoms of the earth, the kingdom of God coming in judgment. We have it in Daniel chapter 7 where we have the nations raging and they’re immoral and they’re violent until finally God comes in judgment and gives his kingdom to the Son of Man. And all of the world is brought into subjection. And of course all of that finds culmination finally in the later chapters of Revelation. Revelation chapter 16 and following, we have the final triumph of Christ over the nations. We have Babylon, the world city. The great prostitute, she’s called, in apocalyptic imagery. The battle of Gog and Magog, the battle of the nations against God. When Christ returns, it’s a total rout. This is a theme running through the entire Bible, and we have it here capsulized in these three verses, verses 5 through 7. Now, these kinds of passages are sometimes embarrassing to Christians.
And so it’s important that we stop and think about this. And what we have in these verses is a brief, capsulized, succinct theology of judgment. And of course you can correlate it again with so many passages in the rest of the Bible. But let’s think through a few of these things. We have at least three interrelated ideas that stand out in verses 5 through 7, in particular verses 5 and 6.
Number one is the deservedness of the judgment. He’s coming to execute judgment. The very notion of judgment entails the idea of discerning from right and wrong and rendering what is just. And so the expression in verse 6, to execute judgment, that’s the idea of punishment, shattering kings in the day of his wrath. This is the notion of punishment.
In their destruction, justice is being served. It’s important to note that. In their destruction, justice is being served. Their crimes will no longer go unanswered. They’ve had their day, they’ve revolted against the king, they’ve refused his rule, and now the king comes and brings to bear what they deserve.
It assumes a moral order, it assumes a universal accountability of the nations to God, and it assumes then the satisfaction of justice, that justice is being served to those who by their sin have earned judgment. All right, the deservedness of the judgment.
Number two, notice the intensity of the judgment. The judgment described, particularly in verses five and six, is extensive through the whole earth, and it’s severe—piling up corpses, shattering kings. The language is just rather shocking to our sensitivities today. But it tells us that the offense was severe, and so it is being met with a due penalty. And then third, notice the zeal, the zeal with which the judgment comes. This is very important. Verse 5, this is the day of his wrath. This is the day of his wrath.
The king is not indifferent to the offenses of the world. And their offenses, their rebellion against God, their refusal of his rule, and their violation of his law is not something the king can just overlook. He’s not indifferent to it. He rules under God and the administration of justice. The rebellion of the nations cannot go unanswered forever; it can’t be just overlooked. And finally the day has come, and the king comes with his wrath aroused, and he’s zealous to punish.
Theologians often distinguish between what are the essential attributes of God. For example, love is an essential attribute of God. It is what God is. From eternity, God is love. This informs for us, for example, the relation of the three persons in the Trinity. God is love, and he’s always been loving. Quite apart considered from his creation, God is love.
God’s wrath is not like that. God’s wrath is not something that God was forever in himself considered before creation, before sin, among the three persons of the triune Godhead. There’s no wrath. But here’s the qualification. Given the reality of human rebellion and sin, wrath is a necessary attribute of God. He is a holy God. He is righteous. And given the reality of sin, wrath is both necessary and inevitable. The Bible everywhere tells us that God must judge because God is just. For example, in 2 Thessalonians chapter 1, it is a righteous thing for God to vindicate his people who have been afflicted. It is a righteous thing for him to come and afflict those who afflicted his people. It is a necessary thing.
Now today, I recognize this is just unthinkable. This is a non-starter. This idea of God coming to judge doesn’t fit within what they like to call today the plausibility structures of society. We have these presuppositions and assumptions all built into our thinking. We don’t think about them; they’re just there because it’s soaked in through years. It’s the climate of the society. We have these plausibility structures in place and certain things just don’t fit. And immediately when you meet those things, it’s discounted because it doesn’t fit in the plausibility structures.
It’s not plausible. The exclusiveness of the claims of Christ. Jesus is the only Savior. That doesn’t fit in the plausibility structures of today’s society. We’re too pluralistic for that. We’re too welcoming of other religions. And certainly this idea of divine judgment just doesn’t fit in today’s plausibility structures. We’re too open for that. We have recognized in our generation that there are no universal norms. There’s no universal truth. There’s no governing ideas that govern everything. These things are individually determined. So what is right and wrong for you may not be right and wrong for me. These are individually determined.
We all live accordingly. And add to that, God—whoever God is, he or she or it, whoever God is—is good. And if he’s good, he would never judge anyone. They’re just living out the norms as they understand them. Enter the Christian with this big note of divine judgment and wrath coming against those who oppose him, and it just doesn’t square, and it doesn’t seem realistic. Of course, nobody ever stops to think how that works. If God is good, he cannot judge. Nobody stops to really work that out.
At some point, every one of us must recognize that there’s such a thing as evil. Now, believe it or not, particularly in the educated class today, they’ve come through the universities with this postmodern pluralism, this matter of tolerance coming—they will profess that there really is no such thing as evil. There are such people. And when pressed, looking at the atrocities of the world that they see in the news, or when pressed, they still have to recognize, okay, there is something called evil.
And so the question comes up, what does it say about you if you are indifferent toward evil? What does it say about you? If you are just, oh, we can overlook that. It means nothing. It’s living out his norms. If someone has wronged you, mugged you on the street, took your wallet, would we be good people if we said, well, those are just those people living out their norms, and so they thought they had a right to your wallet, and it’s the way it is. You have to understand that.
If someone mugged your mother and did the same, what would it say about us if we were indifferent? What would it say about us as a society if we look at all the atrocities? You watch the news for just a little while, and you see the atrocities of the world. Whether it’s the child traffickers, human traffickers, rapists, murderers.
And if there were not in all of us some sense that justice has to be served—this has got to be answered—would it say that we are good people if we didn’t feel that way? Or would it say there’s something about us that’s twisted and wrong? So also with God. What kind of God would not judge wrong? Just overlook it. Be indifferent. What kind of world would this be if the Hitlers and the Stalins and the Maos—let’s throw in the Putins, the drug kingpins—what would this world be if there were never a day of judgment?
What would it say about the moral order of this universe? And what would it say about God ultimately? Is that a good God? Is that a just God? Apart from this doctrine of divine judgment, any thought of a moral God and a moral universe with moral order just evaporates. Human life and the world itself would just be anarchy. It’d make no sense at all. If God is good—that seems to be the given—if God is good, then there must be this thing called justice. In fact, if God is good, there must be this thing called wrath.
Now this partly, partly explains for us one sometimes puzzling feature of the Psalms. We’ve run into it a number of times as we’ve worked our way through. And that is that the day of judgment is in the Psalms, and often in the prophets as well, but in the Psalms it is celebrated as an occasion for praise. Pastor Boyd alluded to this in his prayer today. The Day of Judgment, a matter of praise. Let me give you just an example of this. Look back a few pages, Psalm 96. Psalm 96, verse 10.
Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns! Yes, the world is established; it shall never be moved; he will judge the peoples with equity.” Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes—here’s the cause for praise—for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness. The day of judgment, an occasion for praise for God’s people.
Of course we have this in a big way in Revelation chapter 19 as well. You’ll remember the context there that Babylon the Great, the world city and its collective rebellion against God, is brought to judgment and finally it lies in ashes and it’s been crumbled beneath God’s judgment. And we come to Revelation chapter 19 and we read, “After this, I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven crying out, ‘Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just; for he has judged the great prostitute who corrupted the earth with her immorality and has avenged on her the blood of his servants.’ Once more they cried out, ‘Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up forever and ever.’ And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who was seated on the throne saying, ‘Amen. Hallelujah!’ And from the throne came a voice saying, ‘Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great.'”
Judgment, an occasion for praise. Fascinating scene. God comes in climactic judgment over the earth and his people cheer. Now there are multiple factors that inform the praise of that day. His people are finally vindicated, yes, and that’s an important part of it. They’re finally avenged. God himself is vindicated also. There’s this matter of a sense of justice being served.
There’s a sense of jealousy—jealous for God and his honor. The godly heart has long sympathized with God. Long ago, our hearts shifted their sympathies over to his side. And we rejoice finally to see him vindicate himself and bring his enemies to justice. Too long, they’ve rebelled. And for too long, they’ve blasphemed. And for too long, it’s gone unanswered. Something in the heart of every believer says, “Yes, this day has come.”
The day of judgment is a welcome sight because the thinking with regard to sin is not just on the human level. The offense that we rightly feel because of sin, that’s not all that’s in view. Think of sin with regard to the majesty and the glory of God. Think of sin in regards to divine justice, the one who has been offended, the one whose law has been transgressed.
How do you measure the evil, the sheer evil of rebellion against the God of majesty? How do you measure the injustice of all of that? How do you measure the offense of it all? And in fact, if we measure the evil of human sin against the majesty and justice of God and his glory, how then in turn do we measure the punishment? What punishment is adequate for those who’ve rebelled against God, flouted his law, and blasphemed him over and again forever? How do you measure? What punishment is adequate? Ten-year prison sentences? Does that balance the scale? Would mere physical death balance the scale? Would the infinite offense be sufficiently answered?
How do you measure punishment due to a person who rebels against God? This is some of the thinking that underlies the biblical teaching of eternal punishment. The doctrine of divine judgment highlights for us, and it depends on truths that we all want to affirm, that God is God.
God is glorious. God is good. God is just. And because God is good and just, he has built a sense of goodness and justice and morality into the universe itself. And because he is good and because he is just, we may be assured that in the end, justice will prevail and enemies will be judged. And the wrath of the king described here in that day will reflect both the justice and the majesty of God and the sheer evil of human rebellion against him. And so he comes with a zealous kind of wrath against his enemies. In fact, it is only against this backdrop that we can understand the gospel.
What is salvation? Why is it necessary? How will it be accomplished? The very need of salvation lies in the fact of human sin and rebellion against the God of glory. And justice demands the punishment. That’s the predicament every one of us is in. We’ve sinned against the God of heaven. And because we are already guilty, we have no leverage. There’s nothing we can do. Our only hope is to have someone who hasn’t sinned, someone of infinite worth, stand in our place and bear the judgment of God for us. And that’s the gospel. It’s worth making—we’re running out of time—it’s worth making one more observation from this passage.
Notice the focus here in verses five and six on national and societal leadership. Verse five: the Lord is at your right hand; he will shatter kings on the day of his wrath. Verse six, last part of the verse: he will shatter chiefs over the wide earth. Prophets routinely remind us that God holds nations accountable as nations, people groups. Collectively they’ve rebelled against God, and collectively they will be judged, and judgments will come against the nations.
That’s the explanation for Joshua’s rout of Canaan. The prophet Amos is famous for this: “For three sins of the people of Amman, yea for four, I will not withhold punishment. For three sins of Edom, and for four, I will not withhold its punishment.” People groups, nations as nations in their collective rebellion are accountable to God, and judgment will come collectively because of it. Entire nations are held accountable to God, but here David singles out those who have led them in their rebellion. Verses five and six: he’ll shatter kings and chiefs over the wide earth.
So yes, the people groups themselves are accountable and they will be judged. They were complicit in it. They went along with it. They’re guilty as well. But a particular guilt is borne here by those who have led them in their rebellion against God and for the influence that they have used against God, influencing other people against him—they bear a greater guilt and a greater judgment.
And so we’re led to think here—think in terms of government officials, leaders at various levels of society and culture, and those who exert influence in all of our cultural centers: entertainment, education, media, today professional sports, corporate America, religious leaders. Insofar as they have used their influence for evil, they will be held accountable and will fall under divine judgment. Psalm 110 verses 5 and 6 in particular proclaim loudly just exactly what our culture and our society today denies. And that is the whole world—the whole world is accountable to King Jesus. The world’s rebellion will inevitably end in a day of massive defeat.
He Will Lift Up His Head
Verse 7 gives us a brief glimpse into that day, the king in the process of that day of battle. Verse 7: he will—that is the king—will drink from the brook along the way; therefore he will lift up his head. This drink from the brook along the way—that imagery is taken from an experience in David’s own life and military campaigns.
1 Samuel chapter 30, David was pursuing the Amalekites. It ended up being a total rout. They stop at one point at a brook for some refreshment, and many of his men just were too exhausted; they couldn’t pursue the fight. David took a drink from the brook, refreshed himself, and then presses on to complete the mission in the defeat of the Amalekites.
And what he’s telling us here is that so also the Lord Jesus Christ in his pursuit of God’s enemies in that day will not relent at all until every enemy is subdued. God will supply refreshment for him, as it were. He’ll press on in the fight until the whole world acknowledges him as king. There’s more imagery, verse 7.
Therefore he will lift up his head. I love this. Therefore he will lift up his head. This and similar expressions in the Old Testament are given to signify acting with boldness, acting with confidence, lifting your head in that sense. It’s even used in the Old Testament in passages that indicate what we would call strutting. Almost an arrogant lifting of your head—”I’ve got this.” That’s the sense of it.
Psalm 83 in verse 2, we read: “God’s enemies will make an uproar; those who hate you have raised their heads.” Raised their heads in rebellion and defiance against God. Confidence and boldness in their sin against him. There are a number of illustrations of this in the usage of this word in the Old Testament. And what it pictures here for us is the Lord Jesus routing his enemies with unrelenting zeal and with complete confidence of the completion and utter success of his mission. He’ll come in judgment against his enemies. He’ll lift his head, as it were, in total confidence. This day is mine. In other words, it’ll be an altogether one-sided conflict and his success will be decisive and it’ll be final.
It would certainly be to our loss if we were ever to fail to recognize the wonderful doctrine of God’s common grace. God works in this rebellious world in wonderful ways for the flourishing of not only his people, but the flourishing of people everywhere. He maintains a social order. He even uses wicked people to accomplish good things for society. A wonderful doctrine of common grace. And it’s important that we see that. It’s important that we see it because of how it reflects on the goodness of God.
But we would be naive ever to think for a moment that this world’s a friend of God. Listen to the news for a few minutes. In only a few minutes, you see that the struggle to maintain societal order is increasingly more difficult all the time. Our cultural morals, the norms of every decency, are continually sliding. The language of everyday discourse becomes increasingly filthy, corrupt.
We see it in our elected officials. We hear it in our spokesmen of society. We even see it now in the headlines in the news. They don’t mind putting it there either. Increasingly, there’s a loss of respect for life, loss of respect for private property. Less and less, there’s a sense of personal responsibility. At every level of government, elected officials—corruption, elected officials on the take, using their office for personal gain at the expense of those that they represent. Even sometimes—it’s not always the case, thankfully, but even often enough—what we would consider to be the better of the leaders, because of their policies, better of the leaders are known to be openly immoral. All of our cultural centers that I mentioned earlier, continually pushing the boundaries. Decency is maligned as outdated. Immorality is touted as normal. Good is rebuked as evil. God’s people who want to maintain some kind of decency are increasingly the butt of jokes and ridicule.
So much that you finally decide that, okay, in the book of Revelation, when it speaks of Babylon, the great prostitute, described as drunk with the blood of the martyrs—okay, maybe that’s a metaphor, maybe that’s hyperbole, but just barely. Given the opportunity, whenever it can, this world slides toward more evil. Continue. In fact, Paul tells us in 2 Thessalonians 2, if it were not for God’s restraining hand right now, it would be much worse.
And the only thing holding it back is this restraining hand of God, keeping it back. And in the end, he’ll let go. When the Lord Jesus came the first time, the world rejected him; they crucified him. When he comes the second time, he’ll be met with rebellion. The human heart won’t have changed. But when he comes the second time, it won’t be with that lowly meekness we saw the first time.
He’ll come in triumph, and both aspects of his kingdom will be on full display. On the one hand, there’ll be his people. 2 Thessalonians 1 tells us they’ll see him and they’ll marvel at him. I love it. He returns in glory, and his people say, “Ha, ha, ha, there he is! The one who died for us. The one we’ve been serving. The one for whom we’ve kept ourselves pure. Here he comes.”
Then on the other hand, he’ll also be coming to execute judgment on all of God’s enemies. And that’s a sustained prospect in the Psalms. This is how, from beginning to end, the Bible describes the end of history. The Lord Jesus will bring God’s kingdom to earth. The world will have had its day, and now he will have his.
All right, quickly, some things we should take away from this psalm. Number one, obviously, evil will not triumph. We have the sense of justice that it must be served, and verses five to seven tell us one day that will happen on a grand scale worldwide. The Bible does not lead us to expect a gradual improvement of humanity, a gradual improvement of society. It leads us to expect a continual rebellion against God and the dominance of evil, and in his return, the Lord Jesus will destroy it. At last, righteousness will prevail.
So, you may be one who’s tempted to fret. When you see our culture sliding toward more evil, what’s happening? You might be one who chafes, tends to chafe because of injustice that you felt, your loved ones have felt, or the injustice you see at a broad scale. Or in fact, you might be one who just hangs on to some utopian ideal.
Society will get better. And in every case, the Bible calls us to hope, to patience, and to trust, waiting for the arrival of our King. I say it all the time: I can’t wait. Number two, all this reminds us of the urgency of the gospel. It’s urgent because of the reality of a coming judgment. I can’t expand on that now; we’ve gone too late.
And then number three, it is the glory of the Christian to rest assured. God’s judgment will come, but it will not fall on us. And the reason it will not fall on us is because it has fallen instead on our sake. It was borne, the punishment of our sin, so that in that day we will marvel at the coming of our Savior. Amen. Let’s pray.