Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: Psalm 92 | Date: March 9, 2025 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

It’s always a treat to be back here; so many memories. I remember when we moved in here. We used to meet in Orwigsburg, and we moved in here. I remember spending many weeks preparing the place. I built this platform. I remember painting the walls. I remember Jimmy was two, almost three at the time. He wanted to help, so we had him paint at the bottom of the walls. We didn’t tell him that we would cover that up with the molding at the bottom, but he was helping. A lot of great memories here of the Lord blessing in our times together. Great to be back with all of you.

Psalm 92. Psalm 92. The superscript reads, “A psalm, a song for the Sabbath.”

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre, for you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hands I sing for joy. How great are your works, O Lord! Your thoughts are very deep.

The stupid man cannot know, the fool cannot understand this, that though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever. But you, O Lord, are on high forever. For behold, your enemies, O Lord, for behold, your enemies shall perish. All evildoers shall be scattered. You have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. You have poured over me fresh oil. My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies. My ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.

The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age. They are ever full of sap and green to declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him.

As I mentioned, the superscript tells us that this is a Psalm, a song for the Sabbath, that points us to the temple setting of the psalm as most of the psalms are. They always have this orientation to the temple where they sit and gather around their king and sing these praises to the Lord. There is a tradition that goes way back that at least by the second temple period—that is the time of Jesus—the temple choirs sang Psalm 92 every Sabbath day. That tradition clearly points back to some considerable time before that, probably back to its original use because that’s the way it’s assigned in the superscript. It’s a song for the Sabbath. The setting here, as I mentioned, is the people of God gathered around their king as he leads them in singing praise to God for what he has done.

The author of the psalms has not told us in the superscript, but it’s clearly the king himself. Verse 10, he says, “You have exalted my horn like the wild ox.” The horn is the symbol of strength and power. “You have poured over me fresh oil.” That’s a reference to his anointing. The king has received this anointing from God, and now he writes this psalm. Perhaps it was David. We don’t know.

Now there are different genres of psalms, as you know. Everybody knows there are praise psalms; there are many lament psalms where the psalmist will express some complaint to the Lord and make petition to the Lord to help. There are also what are called individual songs, songs of individual or grateful praise. Individual songs of grateful praise.

Often in a lament psalm, for example, at the heart of the lament psalm is a petition. So he’ll complain; he’ll lament his situation: he’s being opposed by enemies, he’s afflicted by some sickness, or whatever it is. And at the heart of that lament psalm is a petition: “Lord, deliver me! Help me!”

And then there are these psalms of grateful praise that look back to deliverance that God has given, and they express individually—not necessarily community-wide, but the individual writing the psalm is looking back to a time when God has given deliverance and now he expresses thanks to God for it. These individual psalms, then, of grateful praise express to God some work that he has done on the psalmist’s behalf.

By the way, there are a couple of examples in the Psalter where we have both, by the same author: the lament psalm, and then later, the individual psalm of grateful praise. One famous one is Psalm 51. There’s his lament where he laments his sin and asks for forgiveness. Psalm 32 looks back on that and expresses praise to God and thanksgiving for the deliverance that God has given and the forgiveness that was granted. There’s another one: Psalm 56 is a lament psalm. When David was with the Philistines in the “madman episode,” he writes Psalm 56 in that. Psalm 34 looks back on that and gives praise to God for the deliverance that was then given.

Well, that’s what we have here: an individual song of grateful praise. There are regular markers of that in the psalm. I’ll just mention them quickly. Verses 1 to 3, we have a proclamation of praise: “It is good to give thanks to the Lord.” And then verses 4 to 8, we have a summary statement of what God has done: “I sing for joy at the works of your hands.” Then verses 9 to 11, he gives a report of deliverance. For example, verse 11: “My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies.” And then verses 12–14, he gives a reflection on what God has done, and he says, “The righteous flourish.” You will see that. And he concludes, as is typical in one of these songs, with a praise. The righteous flourish, verse 15, “to declare that the Lord is upright.”

Now often in these psalms, there is some careful symmetry in composing the Psalms. I won’t get into this—it’s too tedious—but I’ve got to give you a little bit of this to make one point. Often, and particularly in David’s Psalms, it’s fascinating how he’ll balance the Psalms. There’ll be two halves, and each half has two substanzas or something like that, and each stanza has an equal number of words; there are catchwords bringing to each stanza, things like that. Just from a composition standpoint, it’s fascinating to see the thinking that has gone into it and the careful balance and the symmetry that we find in the Psalms. Well, we have something like that here. Often in that, it’s important because he’ll build the Psalm in such a way to draw attention to the center.

And so sometimes the Psalms will build A, B, C, X, right in the middle. And then you’ll see B, A backing back out. This is called the chiastic structure of the psalm. But the focus then is on the center line of the psalm. We have something like that here. In verses 1 to 4, and then again in verses 12 to 15, we have the frame, what we call a frame or the brackets of the psalm.

Each of our four verses, and in each of these frames, we have the righteous giving praise to God. In verses 1–4, it’s the psalmist himself; in verses 12–15, it’s the righteous, plural, who are giving praise. And then we have the center line, and that’s verse 8: “But you, O Lord, are on high forever.” In the Hebrew, just four words. “You, Lord, on high forever.” And then we have three verses on either side of the center. And then flanking the center is a verse before and after, each with three lines. All the rest of the verses have two lines.

And you’ll see then with all of them—the reason I mention all of that is to show that he really is driving our attention to the center line. There’s more to it than that. There are seven times that we have God’s name in this psalm. Three times in the first half, three times in the second half, and then once right in the middle. He’s drawing our attention to the center line; that’s verse 8.

This is the central message of the psalm: “You, Lord, on high forever,” pointing up God’s transcendence. He’s exalted above space. He’s exalted above time, ruling over all things. And that’s the central message, the pivot of the psalm we’ll see as we go through. All right, so much for a big look at the psalm. Now let’s work our way through.

Verses 1 to 4

Verses 1 to 4: the king offers praise for some work that he doesn’t identify quite yet, but he offers God praise for some work that he has done on the king’s behalf. Verse 1: “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night, to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre, for you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hand, I sing for joy.” Now, there are a number of observations here that stand out. I can’t take the time to elaborate on them, but I’ll mention them quickly. One is the appropriateness of praise.

Verse 1: “It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name.” God has worked on the king’s behalf, and now it is only fitting, it is a proper thing to do, to return thanks to God for what He has done for them. God has worked on my behalf; He deserves my praise. In fact, verse 2, he deserves praise ceaselessly, day and night.

Another observation from this is the psalmist’s joy in sounding God’s praise. Verses 1–4 all carry the note, if you will, of joy. But it climaxes in verse 4: “For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hand I sing for joy.” This is no perfunctory duty on the part of this king. He’s not singing because he’s been assigned to do that. He doesn’t stand behind the hymnal with disinterest. But he sings with joy and a heart overflowing with joy.

This is always through the Psalter. Christians have always looked to the Psalter for what are the marks of genuine praise and acceptable worship. And one of the leading marks of acceptable worship is the joy in giving it. It’s a mark of the heart. And that’s why you find: sing and sing for joy, and shout and shout aloud, and break out all the instruments and crank up the volume. You find that throughout the Psalter because it’s an indication of the heart.

And so he says it’s proper, it’s fitting, it’s right that I give thanks to God that he has worked on my behalf. And so I do it with joy. But then the most important, I think, of these observations is this next one, and that is the subject matter of his praise. For what is he giving thanks to God?

And that’s verse two: “To declare your steadfast love and faithfulness.” That’s a common theme in the Psalter. You see those two words: two words in the Hebrew—steadfast love (that’s one word) and faithfulness (is another). It’s a common theme. Those two words show up quite often. They show up very often paired.

God’s steadfast love has been translated various kinds of ways. We don’t have an exact equivalent, and that’s why in English we have to use two words to translate it. It’s God’s love, it’s His affection, but it entails God’s loyalty. It entails thoughts of God’s pledge to help. God has promised to do something for his people; He’s going to stick to his word. And so it’s not just an affection, but there’s a stick-to-itiveness to it. He pledged his help to his people. And then you have the word faithfulness, which of course is a lot of the same as what we just saw in steadfast love. These two words: that love and then faithfulness.

They’re not exact equivalents, but there’s all kinds of overlap and it’s really almost redundant. It’s like the song Lionel Richie wrote back in the ’80s or whatever that was: “You’ll always be my endless love.” It’s entirely redundant. If you’re an endless love, of course you’ll always be endless love, right? Or if you’ll always be my love, well, of course it’s an endless love. You don’t need both. But we do that a lot to underline the point. And this is what he’s doing here.

God’s steadfast love and faithfulness. God has pledged His affection. He has pledged His loyalty to help. And I sing of it. God has pledged Himself to me. And so God has done something here for the psalmist. Verse 4: “You, O Lord, have made me glad by your work. At the works of your hand, I sing for joy.”

Now, keep in mind, this is an individual song of grateful praise. This is not just to praise him where he praises God’s steadfast love and faithfulness in the abstract. This is an individual song of grateful praise. There’s been, in the recent past, some concrete expression, some concrete display of God’s steadfast love and faithfulness, and it’s to that I give praise and song.

So verse 4, he gives the explanation: “I sing for joy at the work of your hands.” For the explanation: “For O Lord, You’ve made me glad by Your work. At the works of Your hands I sing for joy.” And then again in verse 5: “How great are Your works, O Lord.” So there’s been some concrete display of God’s love and affection and loyalty and faithfulness to the psalmist.

And now he sings of it. He hasn’t told us what that is yet, but he’s singing about it. He tells us that. God has done something for the psalmist. And now the last part of verse 5, he traces the actions of God on behalf of this psalmist. He traces the work back to the divine counsels. Verse 5 again: “How great are your works, O Lord.” And then the last part of the verse: “Your thoughts are very deep.”

In other words, what God had done for this king was not some momentary reflex, otherwise unplanned. But God had a purpose in doing what He has done. It was the outworking of some deep thoughts on God’s part, carefully set in place, and now carried out. So I sing of your steadfast love, displayed in these works on my behalf here just recently, and it reflects in turn your eternal counsels in the outworking of your purpose.

Now, verse 6 is interesting then, because he says understanding these deep thoughts is beyond the reach of the wicked. They don’t get it. Verse 6: “The stupid man cannot know. The fool cannot understand this.” So the king understands something. The king knows something about what God is up to here. The wicked, they’re stupid. The word here is “brutish,” like an animal. The thinking goes about as deep as an animal, and that’s about it. That’s the idea. They’re stupid. They can’t think through and see and discern what God has done in these recent events.

Now then, that raises the question: what is it that the king knows that the wicked don’t know? What is it that he sees that they don’t see? And the answer to that is in verse 7: “That though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever.” The wicked cannot long survive. That’s his point. So here’s the blindness of the wicked. The king sees it.

The wicked sprout and flourish like grass and they seem to be doing so well and prospering, but what they don’t get is that they’re doomed to destruction forever. The king sees it, and they don’t. Spiritual blindness is a big theme that we find in the Bible, commonly referred to in a famous way in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2.

Paul talks about it where you can preach the gospel to those who are lost and it’s just… it’s just dull. There’s like this veil between. They don’t get it. You talk about the glories of Christ. You talk about the need of Christ and the need of forgiveness because of sin and the realities of sin and judgment. You talk about all that to your loved ones who are without Christ. “Yeah, yeah, that’s good for you and I’m glad you have it.”

And there’s just a dullness. And that spiritual blindness here is spoken of with specific reference to their eventual ruin. Verses 6 and 7: “The stupid man cannot know that though the wicked flourish and sprout like the grass, they’re doomed to destruction forever.” They don’t get it.

The Apostle Paul talks about this in a famous way in Romans chapter 1: that God reveals His righteousness and His attributes in the very created order. In the constitution of man made in His image, we recognize basic matters of right and wrong. But it doesn’t matter. Paul even sums that up in Romans 1.

They know; they know the righteous decree of God. But you see, they’ve suppressed it. They know it, but they don’t. And they know the righteous decree of God that those who do such things are deserving of death, but they go ahead and do it anyway, and approve of those who do as well. So you warn them like the psalmist does here: “Don’t you know that there’s a God? Don’t you know that he’s righteous? Don’t you know there will be judgment?” “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.” It’s like water off a duck’s back. They know it, but they don’t.

But now having gotten through that, we have a hint of what works God has done for this psalmist that have prompted the king’s praise. What is it God has done? The hint is in verse 7: God destroys the wicked. There it is. So this is what we find in verses 4 and 5. The works of God’s hands that the psalmist sings praise for—and so verse 7 tells us—we’ll find this a little bit further as we go through the psalm, but it hints already that this psalm was written in the aftermath of a battle. God has destroyed the wicked. We’ll find that in verse 11. In verse 9, there are enemies. They’re His assailants. In verse 9, it’s God’s enemies. In verse 11, it’s the king’s enemies and assailants that have come after Him.

There’s been some attempted overthrow, whether this is out on the battlefield or something closer to home—some attempted coup, something like that. But there’s been some attempted overthrow that has been thwarted. God has worked on the king’s behalf. In verse 11 he says, “My eyes have seen their downfall.” And so he now sings, in response to that, his song of grateful praise.

And what the king understands, what the wicked do not understand, what the king rejoices in, is that no opposition against God or his king can ultimately stand. Verse 7: “Though the wicked sprout like grass, all evildoers flourish. They’re doomed to destruction.” In verse 4, the king revels in it. He sings for joy. He understands it. But verse 6, the wicked man is unaware of it. He doesn’t get it. He doesn’t see it.

But You, O Lord, Are on High Forever

And that brings us to our center line, verse 8: “But you, O Lord, are on high forever.” Two basic affirmations here. Number one: the Lord’s transcendence. He is exalted above all the created order, unaffected by anything in all of His created order. The Lord is not a product of creation. He’s not a product of nature. He’s not subject to it. He’s the creator of it all. He’s above it. And He’s unaffected by anything down there. The Lord is on high.

The second affirmation is that His transcendence is unchanging. “You are on high forever.” Precisely because you are exalted above all in space and time, precisely because you are unaffected by anything there, your transcendence is unchanging. It’s always the case. And that’s the central message of the psalm.

And this is why in verse 7, the wicked cannot ultimately succeed: because the Lord is on high forever. So fresh from the battlefield, he’s reminded that because God is on high forever, God’s enemies cannot ultimately stand. They may be allowed for a while; God may allow them to be a menace. But ultimately it can’t last. And it cannot last because the Lord is on high forever.

I want you to follow his thinking here. In verse 4, the king looks back to what God has done in recent experience. And he sings of it. In verse 7, he identifies that a bit: it’s destroying the wicked. That’s what he’s done. And then verse 8, he affirms basic truths about God: He’s on high forever. Forever transcendent and unthreatened and unsettled by anything going on in all of his created order. And then verse 9 now, he draws a broader conclusion from all of that. Notice how he reasons: “For behold”—we have that twice in this verse.

“For behold your enemies, O Lord. For behold your enemies.” And now notice the tense for the verb: future tense. “Your enemies shall perish and all evildoers shall be scattered.” He’s looking at what has happened and now he’s drawing a broad conclusion from it. He just said “you have destroyed the wicked,” so “all of your enemies shall perish.”

Precisely because you are Lord on high forever. And what has happened here in recent experience is just a sampling of what must be on a broad scale in the end. And so the king is thinking in big picture. This victory in battle that he has just seen is just a sampling of what must be because the Lord is on high forever. And so what he has seen is both, at the same time, evidence of the Lord’s transcendence and foreshadowing of what must be on a grand scale in the end.

Whatever threat, however powerful, however well organized—it might be like Psalm 2 where all the kings of the earth gather together in collective rebellion against God—whatever the threat, the Lord God remains enthroned, unthreatened by anything in all of His created order. The Lord is on high forever.

The wicked might be too blind to see it. But it remains the case, verse 7, that though they may sprout like grass and flourish, they are doomed to destruction forever. And this is what makes the king rejoice. In fact, now, verse 5 tells us, looking back, this was God’s purpose from the beginning. These are his deep thoughts. It’s deep thoughts that the wicked are too blind to see.

That God’s purpose in allowing them the time of flourishing, God’s purpose in allowing them a time of flourishing, was so that he may cut them down in justice. This is the outworking of divine reprobation. You might remember in a more familiar psalm, Psalm 73, where Asaph is sort of complaining at the beginning of the psalm about how things seem to be so mismanaged. The wicked prosper, and here I am, I’m poor, and they’ve got the money, and they’ve got everything, I’ve got nothing, and it seems life is just always good for them, and it’s not so good for me. They seem to be so stable in their existence, and I’ve always got problems. And he’s complaining about that.

And partway through the psalm, you remember, he turns. And he gets his sights on again. And you remember what he says? He says, “Lord, you have put them in slippery places.” Fascinating statement. They look so stable. And I seem to be the one that’s about to slip. But they’re in slippery places. And all their prosperity is going to make them slip. And they’ll fall.

And in all of their strutting, they think they have put themselves in that position of prosperity. And no, it’s “You, Lord, have put them in slippery places.” He’s given them their success, given them their prosperity. And as a result, they feel so self-sufficient. God, what’s he for? They feel like they’re unaccountable. And what they don’t get is that God has put them in a slippery place and they’re going to fall. And this is what he’s saying here in verse 7.

The wicked are allowed to sprout like grass and flourish. They think they prosper in their evil, but they’ve been duped. And what they don’t realize is what for them has been a time of prospering in evil is what’s going to only bring their disruption. For a time, God gives them to flourish and to prosper. He gives them a degree of strength until they think they are the reason for their own success. They think they’re unaccountable.

They’ve got it all put together. And they feel so self-sufficient that they think… they think it’s okay now. You can warn them of God’s transcendence. You can warn them about God’s judgment. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I get it.” Deep down they know it, but they shrug it off and they suppress it. And when judgment finally comes, they’re surprised. Caught off guard.

How’d that happen? And verse 5 tells us that was God’s intent all along. This was His deep thoughts. Give them what they want and establish God’s justice in condemning them. They’re too blind to see it. Verse 9, the king understands it, even in big picture. Verses 1–4, he revels in it. And so now in verse 10, the king speaks with a note of distinct confidence.

“But”—notice that turn here—”but you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. You have poured over me fresh oil.” Now the horn—you find that symbol often, that imagery in the Psalms often. It’s a symbol of strength or power. He mentions “like that of the wild ox.” You can picture an ox with his huge body and the horns leading the way. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of those horns. He says, “You’ve exalted my horn.” You’ve made me strong. You’ve made me powerful. How? “You’ve poured over me fresh oil.”

That’s the king’s anointing. You remember the anointing of the king? The prophet would come, pour oil on him, symbol of God’s Spirit’s presence. And that anointing now marks him off as under God’s protection. The one who’s anointed belongs to God. He’s God’s property. And you don’t dare touch God’s anointed.

You find that—you remember, this is what explains twice in the life of David when he was running from Saul, and Saul’s wanting to kill him. On one level, David has every right to kill Saul. Twice in David’s experience, he had it right there. He had it in his hand. He could have killed him. He could have ended it all. You remember what David did?

“Nope, not going to do that. I don’t touch the Lord’s anointed.” He’s marked out of God. He belongs to God. He’s His possession. God protects. If God wants to bring Him down—and evidently He does because He’s promised that I’d be king—but He’s king now. God has anointed Him also. If He’s going to be brought down, God will have to do it. And now the psalmist here is saying that about himself: God has made me His property. He’s made me under His protection. And no enemy can stand against me. “You’ve exalted my horn like that of the wild ox. You’ve poured over me fresh oil.” I’m the Lord’s appointed, anointed King. And so verse 11 then points to recent evidence.

“My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies. My ears have heard the doom of my evil assailants.” That is, I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it myself. I’ve witnessed it now with my own eyes. A sample of what must come of all of those who oppose God and His King. They’ve fallen. And that stands as a witness that all who oppose this God and His King, they can’t do it for long. They may sprout and flourish for a while. God may allow them a time to be a menace. But they’re doomed to destruction forever.

Our culture today is hell-bent on throwing off all of God’s restraints. It is the outworking of what we are warned of at the front door of the Psalms in Psalm 2. Collectively, the world seems to be gathering together in its united rebellion against God. The very notion of external authority, of God imposing his law on us, is just despised.

I read these stats—I don’t know if they’re true, but I read these stats in the news recently. 40% of young people in our country, 60% of Democrats in our country, think that the murder of that insurance CEO, executive on the streets of New York, was a good thing. And now the murderer, now that he’s in prison, is receiving tons and tons of fan mail, until finally he has to say, “Stop it, I can’t keep up with it all.” How does that happen?

Well, we’ve been taught now for a generation that everything’s relative. Your truth is your truth. My truth is my truth. And my truth doesn’t have to bear on you. That would be oppressive. Morals are the same. What’s right for me and wrong for me, that’s fine. And that’s good. You can have that. That’s not necessarily yours. I mean, I wouldn’t impose that on you.

The whole idea of right and wrong and truth and falsehood—all of that’s been relativized. If you think that abortion is wrong, if you think that homosexuality is wrong, if you think that transgenderism is wrong, now you are the evil bigot. Because in a world where everything is relative, and your truth is your truth but you can’t impose it on anyone else, and your morals are your morals and can’t be imposed on anyone else—in that kind of a world, the only evil that’s left is to say that there’s such a thing as evil.

And that’s where we are. Or to put it in the language of the Psalms, God’s kingdom is under assault. And this king in Psalm 92 has seen the assault also. But he knows something. He knows, verse 8: “The Lord is on high forever.” He looks at these past judgments that have just come when God destroys the wicked. Verse 7, He’s seen that they’ve fallen. Verse 11, and He looks back at what has happened, what God has done on His behalf, and He sees more than meets the eye. He sees in these things.

Verse 7: “Though the wicked sprout like grass and all evildoers flourish, they’re doomed for destruction forever.” Why? Because verse 8: “You, O Lord, are on high forever.” That’s why. And so verse 9: “Behold, your enemies, O Lord, behold, your enemies shall perish, and all evildoers shall be scattered.”

That is to say, what I have witnessed is just a sampling. It’s a dress rehearsal for what must be on a grand scale in the end. And all who oppose God or His King, they can’t last. And so here the king is taking a long view, a big picture look, not of just his own life, but of world history. And his recent triumph over his enemies is prospective, he sees. It’s prospective of the final defeat of all of God’s enemies.

Because, verse 8, the Lord is on high forever. Well, it’s hard to miss here pervasive in the Psalms: the Psalms are oriented around the king. You find this all through the Psalms. They’re written by the king, or they’re written to the king, or about the king. And you find the details in the Psalms referring to the king himself and his experience, his battles and the enemies coming against him. Pervasively, the Psalms are about the king. By the way, they’re not about you. They’re about the king.

And only because they concern the king do they really concern us. But we find this in the Psalter, we find it again here, that the king then foreshadows the King. You see that? Because lying behind the Psalter is 2 Samuel chapter 7. You remember that?

God makes a promise to David. David wants to build a house for God. God says, “No, you’re not going to build a house for me. I’m going to build a house for you.” There’s a pun, you know, that David wanted to build a temple, and God says, “No, I’m going to build you a dynasty. I’ll build you a house, and your son will reign on your throne forever.”

All through the Old Testament, then, in the Psalms and the Prophets, we find that promise fanned up, filled in, expanded on, reaffirmed, until we get to the New Testament. And the New Testament opens: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ. Son of David. Son of Abraham.” Here the promise is fulfilled in King Jesus. And so we read in the New Testament in the Gospels of the life of King Jesus as He came. And it takes a really surprising turn.

They put Him on a cross and they crucified Him. And little did they know that that was the means of establishing God’s Kingdom. And He dies in place of His people, destroys the sin, and taking care of the sin, He dethrones Satan and rips the Kingdom from Him. And He’s raised from the dead in triumph over death as our forerunner. He ascends into heaven, takes the throne where He rules over all for the advance of His kingdom.

And it’s only a matter of time before He returns and brings God’s kingdom to its glorious fullness. Or in the words of verse 9, when all of God’s enemies will be scattered. There’s that twofold—two aspects to God’s kingdom. When it comes in its fullness, it will be marked by these two things. One, the rescue of his people, the vindication of the righteous. And two, the destruction of his enemies. Now, we tend to shy away from this “destruction of God’s enemies” theme. It doesn’t seem kind and gentle. It doesn’t fit the sensibilities of our culture. But boy, I’ll tell you, the biblical writers don’t shy away from this at all. This is everywhere in the Scriptures and all through the Messianic prophecies. We find throughout the Old Testament there’s a sustained emphasis that Judah will rule.

He’ll have a scepter and he’ll rule over the people. Jacob said that. Balaam said the same. He’ll have a scepter and he’ll rule over God’s enemies. Hannah prayed the same, 1 Samuel 2. The King will come and he’ll destroy God’s enemies to the ends of the earth. We find it through the Psalter. We find it through the prophets.

Prophets with a big theme of the day of the Lord. He’ll come and you had your day; now this is God’s day. It’s an enormously important theme in the Scriptures. This is God’s world. We’re His creatures. We’re accountable to Him. Whether you acknowledge it or not is irrelevant. We are accountable to this God who has made us.

And if God is a righteous God—that he is—then there must be an accounting. And it is infinitely important that in the end, God’s enemies be destroyed and the Lord be seen to have triumphed over his enemies. It’s necessary as a matter of right and wrong. It’s a matter of justice. It must come.

And this is what the king sees here. Verse 9 then teaches us to view history with an eye to the future. What I’ve seen, the King says, it’s prospective of what will be on a big scale. It teaches us to view history with an eye to the future. All through history, God has brought judgments against the wicked. We see it with Egypt. We see it with Assyria. We see it with Babylon. We see it with Medo-Persia. We see it with Greece. We see it with Rome. We see it with the Third Reich. We see it with the Soviet Union.

And each of them, in its fall, is prospective and a witness of what will be on a big scale in the end. It’s what we’re warned about at the outset of the Psalter. Psalm 1: “The way of the wicked will perish.” And He teaches us then to view history in that way, as warning signs along the way. Psalm 2 is the same. The Lord warns—it’s one of those psalms where we have God Himself speaking and we hear Him quoted. He warns the rebelling nations against Him. He warns them, “I’ve set my King on Zion! My holy hill!” The fascinating thing is that same King then offers peace. The psalmist says, “Kiss the Son, lest he grow angry with you.” He offers terms of peace.

And the great thing, the great thing for every believer is to recognize that this King has come and all of the judgments of God that we deserve for our sin, He’s taken to Himself. And He receives us freely. But still, history will witness the final elimination of all those who refuse Him. The book of Revelation, of course, draws this out in a vivid kind of way.

We have Babylon, the world kingdom. Kingdom singular. In all of its collective rebellion against God. Having their fits. Thinking they have their way. And in fact, for a while, being drunk on the blood of the martyrs. But only until the King returns. And then it’s over.

And this is the theme of the Psalter. The whole theme of the Psalter is the establishment of God’s Kingdom on earth. It’s the theme of the Old Testament, the theme of the New Testament, the theme of the whole Bible: the establishment of God’s Kingdom.

Verses 12 to 15

When we get to verse 12 then, the scene shifts. Now the king looks back. There he looks not just to the elimination of God’s enemies, but in verses 12–15 he looks to the vindication of God’s people. The imagery here is of the righteous flourishing in the temple. The righteous flourishing in God’s presence. Verse 12—this is poetic imagery here.

He says, “The righteous flourish like the palm tree, grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the Lord. They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age, they’re ever full of sap and green.” This is the righteous, vindicated and flourishing at last in the presence of God.

Verses 12 and 13: they’re like a palm tree. 60, 70 feet high with their plume-like foliage at the top, very majestic, stately looking. Or, to change the figure, they’re like a cedar in Lebanon. These are like up to 120 feet tall. Majestic, majestic sight.

Verse 14: they bear fruit even in old age. There’s always green. They never die. Eternal life. Eternal joy of the righteous in the presence of God. And then verse 15: the righteous here are prospering forever in the presence of God, and they have their own purpose. Verse 15, what is their purpose of being there? “To declare that the Lord is upright. He is my rock and there is no unrighteousness in Him.” This is all accented by the setting here in the Psalter itself. The Psalms were not a book written by one psalmist and then just collected together. There’s a gradual collection. We have Davidic psalms. We have more Davidic psalms. We have other psalms after David and other psalms after David.

And you’ll notice in your Bibles, like at the top of Psalm 90, you’ll see “Book 4.” There are five books of the psalms which reflect something of their collection. The first collection, I think, was probably one David had a hand in, collecting his own psalms. Book 2, we have another collection of psalms. It ends with the statement at the end of Psalm 72, “The prayers of David are ended.” Then we have book 3, then book 4, and book 5. We have these collections of the Psalms.

Both Jewish and Christian scholars have always argued these are inspired men who worked on our behalf. There’s a strong tradition that Ezra himself was the one—the final editor in all of this. And what we see often in that is the editor’s eye and their understanding of the psalms in arranging them the way that they do. One psalm will be placed after another because of some common themes, common vocabulary that are put together. And even the books themselves, the five books, have a distinct emphasis.

In book one we have David running. We have David’s kingship in book two. Book three reflects the failure of the Davidic kingship and the Davidic kingdom. And it ends with Psalm 89 and that horrible lament of the collapse of David’s kingdom. It seems like God’s promise has failed. Then we have Book 4.

And it picks up in Psalm 90. Psalm of Moses, the great deliverer. A new hope is offered. Then Psalm 91 and Psalm 92. And these both pertain to the guaranteed success of the Messianic king. Psalm 91 and 92, both of them complement one another. For example, Psalm 91—if you look back, Psalm 91 in verse 8—the king is promised, “With your eyes you will look and see the retribution of the wicked.” And now in Psalm 92, verse 11, the king testifies, “My eyes have seen the downfall of my enemies.” They complement one another. In Psalm 91, the faithful king is promised that he’ll be invincible. And now in Psalm 92, he sings the song of grateful praise for his past victory and looks ahead to what it promises in the future.

And after that, Psalm 93 and following, we have the “Lord is King” Psalms. Because the Lord is King, the Lord is… You see that over in these Psalms? The Lord is King, and because the Lord is King, He can keep His promise to David. There are plenty of pictures here in this Psalm itself that the psalmist is looking ahead to David’s greater son who is promised, the Lord Jesus.

Right from the beginning, the superscript: “A song for the Sabbath.” It’s a temple setting. But it’s not at all certain here that the Sabbath in view is just the weekly Sabbath. As far back as the ancient interpreters, Jewish interpreters understood this eschatologically—that is, with reference to the end, the Sabbath of the age to come.

The Targum on Psalm 92:8 reads, “But you are on high and supreme in this age, O Lord, and you are on high and supreme in the age to come.” They understood it as a reference to the Messianic King coming in the age to come. Mishneh Tamid writes, comments here: “A psalm for the future, for the day that is completely Shabbat, that is tranquil or rest for all eternity.”

Well, were they right? Well, there’s evidence here in the psalm itself that encourages that outlook. Verses 12–15, we have the final destruction of the wicked and the praise of the righteous in the presence of God. In verse 14, they bear fruit in old age. They’re ever full of sap and green. Poetic imagery describing the endless joy of the people of God.

Verse 12 even hints that way with these illustrations of the palm tree and the cedar in Lebanon. These are two very different trees, and they don’t grow together. In fact, they grow in very different climates. The palm tree grows in a low elevation and in a hot climate, and the cedar trees grow in a high elevation in a cold climate. What are we doing with these two trees together? I think it’s this new creation imagery that we find throughout the Old Testament and the Prophets, speaking of the age to come when God’s blessing is worldwide and pervasive. And in fact, even the setting of this psalm is prospective.

Here we have in Psalm 92, the king addressing his people as they are gathered around him, and they’re singing praise to God for what he has accomplished through the King. Verse 13, the King positions himself among the people of God to sing praises with them of what God has done.

Brothers and sisters, I have news for you. That’s our destiny. One day we gather around our King and have Him lead us in singing praise to God for what He has accomplished. Hebrews 2 informs us that there’s a foretaste of that already. Every time the people meet together, the people of God meet together, the Lord Jesus Christ is there proclaiming God’s Word and yet standing in the congregation and singing with His brothers and sisters the praise of God. And one day—all of this reflects it—one day we will gather around our King to sing God’s praise for what He has accomplished for us through our King. And that, of course, is the heartthrob of God’s people throughout this age.

Until then, when we see verse 7, “evildoers flourish,” what do we do? What we do is maintain the confidence of the King. In verse 8, the Lord is on high forever. God’s promise still stands. The wicked will not flourish forever. The Lord Jesus will return and bring God’s kingdom to its glorious fullness in the end. Amen. Let’s pray. Our Father, what a marvelous prospect You’ve given us. Encourage the hearts of your people today with this, we pray. And we ask with John, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen.