Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 96 | Date: April 29, 2018 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

Open your Bibles with me, if you will, to Psalm 96. Psalm 96, and then also, if you will, turn to Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4 and Psalm 96. We are continuing our series on the Bible story of salvation. We’ve been trying to show that the Bible is a story from beginning to end. It has a plot that runs from beginning to end to finally its conclusion at the end of the book of Revelation. We’ve tried to show that the Bible is a gospel-shaped story about Jesus. It is a story that focuses on the Lord Jesus Christ, but specifically it’s gospel-shaped, focusing on his redemptive work and then a work that will be brought to climax at the end.

We’ve been looking at that in various kinds of dimensions of the story, various themes that carry the story. And then last time we began within that then a brief series on the Messiah. We can hardly tell the Bible story of salvation without looking at this theme of the Messiah. This theme itself is so big that it could take us months and months, and I said we’ll probably take three, four weeks. It may be five, but it won’t be any more than that, I don’t think. But we look at this theme of Messiah then, keeping in mind the larger picture, the Bible’s story of salvation. The title of the message today is The Coming of God or The Hope for Divine Messiah.

We’ll begin with Psalm 96:

Oh, sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the Lord, bless his name. Tell of his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples. For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the people are worthless idols. But the Lord made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. Tremble before him all the earth. 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, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.

And then over Galatians chapter 4, let’s just look at verses four and five:

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.

Let’s bow together for prayer. Our Father, these have been wonderful themes that have occupied our attention through this series, and we pray that you would open our hearts and our minds to them once again. We pray that you will help us to grasp the greatness of this subject, that our God will come, that our Lord Jesus Christ will come and bring to completion all that you have purposed for us, all that you have purposed for history in judgment and in salvation. Help us to see the glory of his first coming. Help us to rejoice in the hope of his second coming. Give us an understanding of these things so that we may trust him more fully. We pray in his name, amen.

The Old Testament Hope Of Messiah

Well, last time we tried to look in a very brief overview way at the Old Testament hope of Messiah. We saw the Messiah theme is born actually in Genesis chapter 1 with Adam and Eve created as God’s vice-regents over the earth to reign in God’s place, to reflect his rule, to image him in the earth. That was failed, but immediately a promise comes up of a champion who will come to succeed where Adam has failed. The Messiah theme—particularly that word “Messiah” or the Anointed One—appears only a handful of times in the Old Testament. But the theme, of course, is much bigger than just the occurrence of the word, the Anointed One or the Messiah.

And we saw that it focuses on the three offices of the Old Testament that were entered by way of a ceremonial anointing. The prophet, the priest, and the king each entered their office upon ceremonial anointing. But all of that was foreshadowing ahead a prophet, priest, king par excellence who would come and do what all other prophets, priests, and kings could not do, and that is bring in the reign of God to his people.

We saw that expressed in many different passages last time in just a survey fashion. The seedbed in a great way of it—a real watershed moment, at least—is 2 Samuel chapter 7, where God promises to David that his son will rule on the throne forever and ever. And that, in fact, David’s son as king would be God’s son. God would be a father to him. He would be God’s son. And so this Son of God theme begins there—the Son of God as a messianic title, looking forward to the one who would come.

We saw a couple of big passages, and I think we may go back to some of those as we go along, like Psalm 2, which is a wonderful messianic psalm looking ahead to the reign and the work of the Messiah to come. We will probably also look at Isaiah’s servant songs, where he anticipates the coming of Messiah, but now with the title “Servant of the Lord.” We looked at some of those briefly, and all of that with this great anticipation that the Messiah would come and establish God’s kingdom. A kingdom that would be universal, a kingdom that’s characterized by peace and righteousness, and he will right all wrongs and bring about God’s rule on earth as it is in heaven.

So that was, in brief, the messianic hope of the Old Testament. Messiah would come. We saw that the Old Testament in whole could be characterized simply by the expression, “He’s coming.” He’s coming. That is the character of the Old Testament. It was all shaped around this hope that this champion will come and will succeed in God’s rule over the earth. And then the whole character of the New Testament, by contrast, is “He has come.” He’s here. His name is Jesus. So we have this hope of the coming Messiah.

The Coming Of God

Now what I want to do this morning is back up and show that alongside of that theme in the Old Testament is another theme. Not just that Messiah would come, but there’s another theme and another track of Old Testament prophecy that runs through the Old Testament, and that is that God himself will come and establish his kingdom. God himself will come.

This is not a work that he leaves to anyone less. God himself will come, he will judge, he will bring about his kingdom, and he will reign. We have a wonderful anticipation of that here in Psalm 96. It is a familiar psalm to you, if for no other reason because we sing it here now and then at church. Psalm 96: “Sing to the Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth.” Sing. Everybody sing in anticipation of this great God. Verse 2, sing about his salvation, specifically. Verse 3, declare his glory everywhere in all the nations. Why? Verse 4, because he’s deserving of it. He’s not like, verse 5, he’s not like the other gods. He’s the God who made everything that is.

Verses 6 and following, we have enumerated some of the specific aspects of praise of this God: his splendor, his majesty, his strength, his beauty. And then verse 8, back to the broader, calling us to ascribe glory to God—the glory that is due him—and worship him, he says, not just in his holiness, but worship him in the splendor of his holiness, the adornment of his holiness, that is, all that makes God, God. Praise him for that. Verse 10, tell everyone everywhere that he is king. And then we come to the second half of verse 10, and we have this forward look: “For he will judge the peoples with equity.”

And then verses 11 to 13: “Let the heavens be glad, 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. For he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.” God will come. Specifically, he will come to judge. And that, for Israel, is a happy thing. Because when he comes to judge, he will right all that is wrong and bring about God’s justice and equity in the earth.

Well, that’s Psalm 96. That is a familiar theme in the Old Testament. And I think what I’ll do is take time just to note a couple of other passages that sound the same hope: that God is king. God reigns over all. He is sovereign ruler as the creator. He reigns over everything that is. But one day he will come and manifest that reign fully, and he will take all the reins of the earth’s governments, and he will exercise his rule and judge accordingly. The establishment of his kingdom is something he does not leave to anyone less. He himself will come, he will reign, and he will judge.

Let’s look, for example, at Isaiah chapter 35. And again this morning, we’re going to be going to several different passages. I don’t know any other way to do this than to take the time to look at some successive passages that highlight the theme to get us to understand this. Isaiah chapter 35, beginning with verse 1:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. This is dealing with the effects of God’s coming. The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad. The desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it. The majesty of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the Lord, the majesty of our God. Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who have anxious heart, “be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God. He will come to save you.”

And here it speaks of the effects of his coming, the consequences of it. It speaks of it in terms of the reversal of the curse:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute shall sing for joy, for waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. The burning sand shall become a pool, and thirsty ground springs of water. In the haunt of jackals, where they lie down, the grass shall become reeds and rushes, and a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way. Even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come upon it. They shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. and the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing. Everlasting joy shall be upon their heads, they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow, and sighing shall flee away.

A reversal of the curse, a restoration of creation. Pastor Boyd wondered this morning if in the footnotes of Revelation 21 and 22, there might be a phrase, “no more bronchitis.” It’s in the footnotes, isn’t it? There’ll be no more curse and no more pain. And that’s the anticipation here of Isaiah chapter 35. God comes and what is wrong will be made right.

Well, I won’t take time to turn to Isaiah… if you’d like, those of you who are taking notes, you can mark down Isaiah 31, and verse 2 is another passage that highlights this. But let’s take the time to look at Zechariah. I know it’s a minor prophet and it’s hard to find, but there we are. Zechariah, toward the end of the Old Testament, Zechariah chapter 14:

Behold, a day is coming for the Lord when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem, and the city shall be taken, and the houses plundered, and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city. And then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations as when he fights on a day of battle. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives that lies before Jerusalem on the east. And the Mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west by a very wide valley, so that one half of the mount shall move northward and the other half southward. And you shall flee into the valley of my mountains, for the valley of the mountains shall reach to Azal. And you shall flee as you fled from the earthquake in the days of Uzziah, the king of Judah. And then the Lord my God will come and all the holy ones with him. On that day there shall be no light, cold or frost. There shall be a unique day which is known to the Lord, neither day nor night, but at evening time there shall be light. On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea, half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter, and the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day the Lord will be one and his name one.

Well, I think here’s some symbolic language being used, but you get the picture, don’t you? That God will come and the effects of it will be drastic, and he will come and right what is wrong and establish his rule in the earth. Well, this coming of God theme coalesces with what we have seen several times before in this series, and that is the kingdom of God theme. The kingdom of God will be brought to earth fully and manifested in a climactic way. It also coalesces with the Day of the Lord theme that we spent a couple of weeks looking at. God himself will come and he will rule. He will break into history and he will restore Eden. He will judge. He will bring final defeat to his enemies. He’ll establish righteousness and peace and blessing the world over.

Two Tracks Running Through The Old Testament

So, we have these two themes. Messiah will come, God will send his Messiah, and he will establish God’s kingdom, and he will accomplish God’s purpose. And then the second theme: God himself will come and establish his kingdom. He will himself bring the whole world under his sway. So we have these two tracks running through the Old Testament. Then we find some passages—and I’m going to take time to look at a couple of these—some passages where the prophets anticipate both of these hopes: that God will come and that Messiah would come.

Look, for example, at Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 34, let’s pick it up with verse 11:

For thus says the Lord God, behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel by the ravines and in the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep. I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat, and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord God, behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture, and to drink of the clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? And must my sheep eat where you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet? Therefore thus says the Lord God to them, behold I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep because you push with side and shoulder and thrust at all the weak with your horns till you have scattered them abroad. I will rescue my flock. They shall no longer be a prey and I will judge between sheep and sheep and I will set up for them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them. He shall feed them and be their shepherd, and I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the Lord, I have spoken.

So here we have both of the themes emphasized: that God himself will come. He will bring about judgment. He will feed his sheep. And at the same time, he will set David, Messiah, over them. And he will feed the sheep, and he will rule over them.

Let’s give one more passage that emphasizes this. Jeremiah chapter 23. Back to Jeremiah. I was telling my wife on the way here this morning that I really don’t like to make you go back and forth in your Bible so much as we did last Sunday, as we do today, but I really don’t know any other way to emphasize this theme but to let you see it with your own eyes. So here we go. Again, Jeremiah chapter 23, beginning with verse 1:

Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who care for my people, you have scattered my flock and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for your evil deeds, declares the Lord. Then I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. I will set shepherds over them who will care for them, and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed. Neither shall any be missing, declares the Lord. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up for David a righteous branch, and he shall reign as king and deal wisely, and shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. In his days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell securely. And this is the name by which he will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”

Well again, we see here where these two tracks come together. God will come, and God will establish Messiah to reign. God will reign, Messiah will reign. God will come and himself care for his people. Messiah will come and he will care for God’s people.

These Two Passages Completely Merge Into One

Now there is one more set of passages in which these two tracks—God is coming, Messiah is coming—are not only mentioned together, but there’s another set of passages in the Old Testament where these two passages completely merge into one. And this is fascinating, and of course it’s unfolded for us in the New Testament, but I want you to see a couple of samples of that as well.

Look at Psalm 45. Psalm 45 is a psalm that was evidently sung, it is thought, at the wedding of the Davidic king, and it may have been sung at more than one wedding. This was a psalm that was used for that, and you can see that kind of language in it, where the king is described in terms of his wedding and in terms of his handsomeness and his abilities and so on. But I want you to see how the thought progresses in the psalm. Psalm 45:

My heart overflows with a pleasing theme. I address my verses to the King. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. You are the most handsome of the sons of men. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your splendor and majesty. In your majesty ride out victoriously for the cause of truth and meekness and righteousness. Let your right hand teach you awesome deeds. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king’s enemies. The people shall fall under you.

You get the point here. He’s singing praise to the Davidic king. This king is the most handsome of all kings. This king is the strongest of all kings. This king is the greatest warrior of all kings. Now you can allow here for some kind of dramatic overstatement, poetic imagery, but by the time we get to verse 6, the language just goes too far:

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore, God, your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.

And so on. Now you might remember that this verse then is picked up in Hebrews chapter 1 and stated explicitly to be in reference to Christ. But here it is in its Old Testament setting: that the king will come and he’s the greatest and he’s the best and he’s the strongest, and then suddenly the language goes further: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.” So this king is David’s son. And yet, he is referred to as God himself.

Well, there are other passages. I can’t keep going to too many. If you’d like to jot down Daniel chapter 7, we will see that in some weeks to come. In Daniel chapter 7, the vision of the Son of Man appearing before the Ancient of Days. And although he is called the Son of Man, indicating his humanity, at the same time, he is a heavenly being who does not appear before the throne of God from earth, but he just sort of appears there as a heavenly being, and in fact, the nations are brought to worship him.

Maybe one more on this, and that is Micah. Again, to the minor prophets. Micah chapter 5, a very familiar prophecy at Christmas time. Famous messianic prophecy. Micah chapter 5 and verse 2:

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrata, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel.

All right, that’s easy enough. That echoes the Judah prophecy of Genesis 49 that we’ve seen. We’ve got this ruler coming, and specifically he comes from Bethlehem. That’s the city of David. He’s a Davidic king, after all. So we have a specific prophecy that the king to come, the Messiah who will rule, will be born in Bethlehem. But then notice the rest of the verse: “Whose origin is from of old, from everlasting.” What’s that all about? He’s born in Bethlehem, but he’s older than that? How do you put all that together?

Well, we have this kind of thing where these two tracks of God coming and Messiah coming, where they merge. And Messiah himself is spoken of in terms of deity. It’s reflected, if you might have noticed, in Jeremiah chapter 23, that this branch from the Davidic line, this branch of David who will come, his name will be called “The Lord our righteousness.” In fact, Isaiah is given several names in the Old Testament. Isaiah chapter 7: his name will be called Immanuel, God with us. Or in Isaiah chapter 9: “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.”

And again, you see this where these tracks merge. Not only is God coming, not only is Messiah coming, but Messiah himself is spoken of in language appropriate only for deity. And the Old Testament then is alive with this hope of the coming of God. And the Old Testament is alive with this hope of the coming of Messiah. It’s the soul of the hope of the Old Testament. And yet, for centuries, how these come together exactly remains something of an enigma. How does all this work out?

Now for you, it’s easy. You’re Christians, you have a Bible, you’ve been taught the two leading mysteries of the Christian faith. One: the doctrine of the Trinity, that there is one God who subsists in three persons: Father, Son, and Spirit. And they relate to one another as Father, Son, and Spirit. And each is equally God; fully whatever it is to be God is true of all three. And yet there’s only one God, and yet they are distinct persons and relate to one another as Father, Son, and Spirit. And as I’ve said, I think every time I speak on the theme of the Trinity, be careful to understand this is not nonsense. He’s not saying that God is one and three in the same sense. That would be a self-contradiction. But God is one as to his essence, and three in persons who share fully that same essence. God is one in three, leading mystery of the Christian faith.

Two: second mystery of the Christian faith, the doctrine of the incarnation. God the Son, second person of the Trinity, became man. Now we have one person with two natures, human and divine nature in one person. Well, for you, that’s easy. You’ve been taught that, you’ve seen the doctrine of the Trinity, but beforehand that remains something of an enigma. How is all of this going to work out? And all of this remains somewhat a mystery, until finally, when the fullness of time was come, as we read, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law.

It was only in the outworking of God’s saving purpose that finally his triune nature was revealed. We find it for us, of course, in famous passages like John chapter 1 verse 14: “The Word, who was always with God, who was God, who was the Creator, who made everything that is, the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. The glory is of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” God, the second person of the Trinity, became one of us.

And the purpose of it, of course, is as we read this morning in Galatians 4, to redeem those who are under the law. Hebrews chapter 2 picks this up—and we will not have time to look at that this morning in detail—but you’ll remember we have seen it recently. Hebrews chapter 2, he takes up this theme of the glorious God, chapter 1, who in chapter 2 now became man. And it was necessary, he says, it was necessary for him to become man. Evidently God as God, God as God himself is simply not able to save sinners because that would involve some kind of compromise of his justice. And so God the second person becomes man, one of us to share in our humanity fully so that as one of us he can represent us and as our substitute take us before God and as our substitute bear the punishment of our sin, and as God makes satisfaction that is of infinite worth for us all.

And that, of course, is the wonder of the cross, that here God himself came to the rescue of his people. God himself, the God-man, the person of Jesus, came to bear his judgment against our sin. One of us our perfect substitute, our perfect representative, but because perfectly God was able to stand for us all and make atonement sufficient for us all.

This is reflected even in the birth narratives. You remember in Matthew chapter 1: “You will call his name Jesus. Why? Because he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus, the Greek equivalent of the Old Testament Yeshua, Joshua. The name means “the Lord saves.” You will call him “the Lord saves.” Why? Because he will save his people from their sins. He is in fact God with us, Matthew says. He is God to the rescue.

And so the long hope of Israel was that God would come, God would save, and the long hope of Israel is that Messiah would come, and Messiah would shepherd God’s people, and Messiah would bring about God’s kingdom. And in Jesus, these hopes converge. God has come. Messiah, David’s son, has come. He is David’s son, and he is David’s Lord.

Well, this is the long hope of Israel. This is the hope that God would come, that the Messiah would come, and in Jesus they coalesce. And so we come then to the New Testament after the Old Testament has reminded us of this hope over and over and over again. We come to the New Testament and the whole New Testament is given to this proposition that Jesus is the long-promised King, the long-promised Messiah. Jesus is God come to the rescue, David’s son and David’s Lord.

We read through the Gospels and the great announcement of the Gospels is “He’s here.” His name is Jesus and here’s what he did to save us. Come to the book of Acts and it takes the message to the world. We get to the epistles and it teaches and unpacks the significance of it all. Until finally we come to the book of Revelation and there we have the Messiah bringing God’s program to its climactic consummation in victory, and God’s rule over the entire earth.

All of this is to tell you not simply that God keeps his promises, and not simply that Jesus is the one that God promised. But all of this to tell us that Jesus is exactly the Savior that we need. One who can represent us to God. One in whom we have divinely accomplished salvation. He was delivered over for our offenses, Paul says, raised for our justification. He ascended into heaven, we are told in the book of Acts, from where he reigns at the throne of God, has dispensed his spirit, who carries out the completion of his kingdom, rescuing men and women one by one out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his own dear son.

Until finally one day, the hope for the coming of God and the hope for this Davidic son, Messiah, will converge in the glorious return of Jesus Christ. In a grand climax of history, God will come to judge and God will come to save. Amen.

Let’s pray together. Our father, we are thankful that we can see in your word how wonderfully you planned and how graciously you provided just the savior we need. We praise you for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you for him. Focus our attention on him. Focus our faith in him. Help us to see his glory, his beauty, and may we give him the praise and the service he deserves. We pray in his name. Amen.