Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Psalm 68:1-10

Be reading from Psalm 68:1-10.

Let God arise. Let his enemies be scattered. Let them also that hate him flee before him. As smoke is driven away, so drive them away. As wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God. But let the righteous be glad. Let them rejoice before God. Yea, let them exceedingly rejoice. Sing unto God. Sing praises to his name. Extol him that writeth upon the heavens by his name, Yah, and rejoice before him.

A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows is God in his holy habitation. God setteth the solitary in families. He bringeth out those which are bound with chains, but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. Oh God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, when thou didst march through the wilderness, Selah, the earth shook, the heavens also dropped at the presence of God. Even Sinai itself was moved at the presence of God, the God of Israel.

Thou, oh God, didst send a plentiful rain, whereby thou didst confirm thine inheritance when it was weary. Thy congregation hath dwelt therein. Thou, oh God, hast prepared of thy goodness for the poor.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for yourself. We thank you for this message in Psalms. And we pray, Lord God, you’d give us open ears to hear what is in this for us to understand it. And you give us open hands to walk in obedience to it. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

Today’s topic is the orphan. More properly put, probably the fatherless. The word seems to have implications in that line. I’d like to begin just by giving you the three-point outline I’ll be using. I’ve had some comments that it’s a little difficult sometimes to take notes, so I’ll give you the three points now and you can fill in what I say later.

The first point will be that God is a father to the fatherless.

The second point will be that God’s help for the fatherless comes from his holy habitation.

And the third point will be that we are commanded to demonstrate the grace extended to us to others and specifically to the fatherless.

Now the first two points are rather self-evident from verse 5, but we want to talk a little bit about them more. It says in verse 5 that God is a father of the fatherless and a judge of the widows is God in his holy habitation. So we know that God has a particular concern for the fatherless. And that’s nothing new really, because that’s how we got into this—we know that God tells us to use a portion of our tithe to include the poor—not the poor rather, the widow, the stranger, and the fatherless in our rejoicing before him. And he uses another portion of that tithe to set aside for the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger who’s come upon hard times in our community.

So we know that God instructs us to have concern. We know he must have concern and indeed he does. It’s interesting that the word for orphan, as I said, is more commonly translated fatherless. And it seems to indicate particularly that child whose father has died. Even if the mother is still there, the child is fatherless and orphaned in a sense.

An interesting verse is Lamentations 5:1, that says, speaking of the nation of Israel, “We are orphans, fatherless and motherless.” So the word orphan there is the only place in the King James version of the Old Testament that the word orphan occurs. And that word actually is translated in all the rest of the occurrences as fatherless in the King James version. And the word fatherless there is the only place that word occurs, and it means completely as if the person was nothing. So the implication of Lamentations 5 is the nation of Israel has become bereft or lonely without a father, and then as a result of that, it’s nothing. And those are some of the connotations of the fatherless in scripture.

Now we know from Deuteronomy 10:18 that it says God executes the judgment of the fatherless. In Psalm 10, it says God is the helper of the fatherless. In Psalm 146, which we read last week, it says God relieves the fatherless and widows. And then in Psalm 27, it says, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.”

So you’ve got a picture there of an orphan or a fatherless child who’s fatherless because their parents have forsaken them—not necessarily where the parents have died, but the parents have forsaken the child. The child is orphan, as it were, and God has taken care of that orphan or that fatherless person.

So God has concern for the fatherless. And one of the reasons for that, of course—and it’s rather obvious—is that the fatherless is in a position to be exploited. He’s in a weakened position and so it’s easy for people to take advantage of him.

We know that occurred in Bible times. In Job 24, it talks about how some have removed the landmarks and that they’ve driven away the ass of the fatherless. And then again in Job 24, it talks about the fatherless specifically as those that have no one to help them. And so Job says that one of the reasons God helps the fatherless is because he has no one to help him. And then in Proverbs 23, it talks as a command to not remove the old landmarks and enter into the fields of the fatherless.

So we know that one of the reasons God talks about in terms of his concern for the fatherless is because they’re in a weakened position. They have no one to really look out for their best interests. And you can easily see where that would be the case of a small child. And if they had an inheritance—a land that their father had left them—it’d be easy for evil men to break in and steal it from them.

It would be a dangerous thing for the man to do though, because Proverbs 23:10 goes on to tell us that those who enter into the fields of the fatherless have to not do that because their redeemer is mighty. He shall plead their cause with thee. And the clear implication of that is that God is the redeemer of the fatherless, the one who has ultimate concern for them. And if you steal from the fatherless, he will wreak havoc upon you and judge you for it.

So it’s rather obvious that God has concern for the orphan or the fatherless. But I think also, if we go through the scriptures, we see that the fatherless in scripture and the orphan is also related to the nation of Israel. And there are various occurrences in scripture where the nation of Israel itself is said to be orphaned or fatherless before God. And the case in Lamentations 5 that we just cited is certainly one of the first instances of that.

Now, you probably know the basic point we’re going to go through here if you’ve been around for the last couple of weeks, because we talked about the stranger and the widow. And we talked about how those groups are certainly groups we want to have compassion for. But we understand that because God says that we were widows, that we were strangers, and God had compassion for us. So in the case of the fatherless, we expect to see in scripture where God says the same thing—that you should have compassion on the fatherless because you’re actually fatherless. And that’s exactly what we find in Deuteronomy 24, where you have all three groups referred to again: the fatherless, the widow, and the stranger.

The reason why God says to let those people glean your fields is that God had redeemed them out of bondage in Egypt. Now, it’s easy to see that relationship to slaves or to the stranger. But God uses the same set of three words there—the stranger, the widow, and the orphan or fatherless—to say, “I redeemed you out of Egypt, and therefore have compassion on these three specific groups.”

And I think the reason for that is that God says that when you were in Egypt, you were a stranger. You were widowed in a sense, and you were fatherless. You were an orphan nation. And we know that there’s other scripture that points that out very clearly. Those three groups are all indicative of our condition in Egypt—of Israel’s condition in Egypt. And we’ll see in a couple of minutes, of our condition in sin.

In Hosea 11:1, we have a specific reference to Israel. “When Israel was a child, I loved him and called my son out of Egypt.” So God says that Israel was a son and God’s child—who he was going to take care of—in Egypt, and he calls him forth. And again, in Exodus 4:22, when God is going to affect this deliverance from Egypt, Moses is told, “Tell Pharaoh, tell him that Israel is my son, even my firstborn. Let my people go.”

God had claimed them covenantally while they were still in Egypt as his children, as his captive children. And so we know that they were, in that sense, fatherless or orphaned. In Hosea 14:1, which we will read at some length at the end of the service to conclude the service—the chapter of Hosea chapter 14—we read there admonitions from God to Israel to return to the Lord, to turn away from their sin and come back to God, to repent for their wickedness so that they can offer up praises of thanks from their lips to him.

And he goes on to say there in verse two, “Shechem shall not save us. We will not ride upon horses, neither will we say anymore to the work of our hands, ye are our gods. For in thee the fatherless findeth mercy.”

God says, “Say these words to me. Tell me that you’re not going to have other gods before you because I’m the God who shows mercy to the fatherless.” God is saying, “Recognize that you are fatherless and that your wooden idols will not serve you. They will not be a father to you. In me the fatherless find mercy.”

So God clearly identifies the nation of Israel—and particularly in its sinful condition, and also in Egypt—as orphaned or fatherless without their father God. And he adopts Israel then away from those things. We know that God also has concern for the fatherless and that has applications to the church. There are many references in the New Testament that repeat the same basic concept or aspect of our position before God.

Matthew 5:9 talks about how we’re children of God. Luke 6:35 talks about, “Ye shall be the children of the Highest.” And by the way, in Luke 6:35, when God says that you’re the children of the Highest, he says, “You’re children because he’s kind.” He’s kind, rather. And then he goes on to say, “Be ye therefore merciful as your father also is merciful.” We’ll talk about that a little later.

Then in John 1:12, it says, “As many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the sons of God.”

So we know that the church is also talked about in the New Testament as children of God. And as such, adopted children, and as such, orphans are fatherless without him originally. And he adopts them into the family. Ephesians 2:19—we talked about Ephesians 2:19 a couple of weeks ago in relationship to the stranger. And we said that God had said, “You’re a stranger, and now you’re part of the citizens of my kingdom. Now you’re part of the citizens of heaven.”

But it goes on to say in 2:19 that not only are we fellow citizens of the saints, but it says we’re of the household of God. You’re placed into his household. Prior to our placing into that household, we’re not of the household of God. We’re fatherless, as it were. And so we know that God claims to us as well a special concern for his church on the basis of us being fatherless and on the basis of him adopting us into his family.

It’s a great passage in Romans 8:14 that talks about, “Those that are led by the spirit of God are the sons of God.” And it talks about the reason for that being God’s adoption of the sons—the children of who walk in the spirit. And it talks about the relationship because we were adopted. That’s why we’re children. And because we’re children, we’re heirs with Christ. The concept of our being joint heirs with Jesus Christ is related to adoption, which is a direct result of God finding us fatherless and choosing to exercise his fatherhood to us in adoption.

Galatians 4:5 says the same thing. It talks about the adoption of sons, whereby we cry out, “Abba, Father,” and goes on to talk about the heirship then that has come from the adoption of the sons. Ephesians 1:4 talks about again that God has predestined us unto adoption. The point of his predestination in Ephesians 1:5 is unto adoption. And that’s related to redemption in a few verses down from that. And that’s again related to our being joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

And then of course there are various verses in the New Testament that talk about God’s chastening of his children. And the chastening of God’s children is always in the concept that it’s true sons who are disciplined by God. If you’re not disciplined, then you’re not a true son. You know, you’re a false son. And so there are various elements of the scriptures in the New Testament that show that God loves us in the way a father loves a son.

We know we’re not natural sons of his. We know we’ve been adopted into the household of God. So God has concern for the fatherless specifically. He has concern for those who are actually fatherless. He has concern for the nation of Israel, which he demonstrates to have been fatherless before his bringing them into covenant with him. And he has concern for the church, which is also seen now as being adopted into the household of God. And so before that adoption, they were fatherless.

The second point is that God’s help for these fatherless that we’ve identified in scripture comes from his holy habitation. And that, of course, is found in the same verse. It says God’s a father—the father—in his holy habitation. Now, his holy habitation refers to a couple of things. First, it obviously refers to God’s holiest habitation, where his actual presence is in terms of his place in heaven.

And there are, I think, five occurrences of the phrase “holy habitation” in the Old Testament. And all but one of those occurrences, it refers to God’s habitation in heaven ultimately. And so what’s taught here is that it’s a principle of God in his transcendence—in his holiness, in his very character—to have compassion for the fatherless. He’s a father in the ultimate in his holy habitation, which says that he’s a father in his very character, in his very being. He is a father to the fatherless, and that demonstrates mercy shows the mercy of God and it shows the grace of God.

God extends grace to the fatherless because he is himself gracious and merciful. God in his holy habitation cares for the fatherless because it’s part of his very character itself.

However, the holy habitation also has reference to God’s immanence with his people—the fact that he is here with his people even though he is transcendent, he is completely other. There’s a creator-creature distinction. Yet God demonstrates himself to man through the covenantal relationship. And so the holy habitation also talks about—and in Exodus it talks about this—that God will bring his people to his holy habitation on his holy mountain. The mountain and the tabernacle that’s to reside on the mountain—all these things are seen as God’s holy habitation as well.

So when we read that God’s help for the fatherless comes from his holy habitation, we know that it comes from his very person. But we also know that the tabernacle among men, which tells us about his heavenly tabernacle, is one based upon covenant. The tabernacle is a covenantal place. The entrance to the tabernacle is guarded, and it’s a covenantal relationship that God has with his people.

We know that God’s tabernacle is the place of God’s covenantal atonement for his people and of his mercy demonstrated to his people. So when it says that God helps the poor from his holy habitation, this is covenantal language again. Because we know that the tabernacle, as holy habitation among men, is a covenant place of covenantal atonement. It’s also a place where—of course, we’ve talked a lot about this—in the Holy of Holies, where God actually resides in the mercy seat, where his law goes forth. Inside that mercy seat are the Ten Commandments, the law of the covenant again.

So there’s covenantal atonement made at the tabernacle, and then entrance into the law of God and the grace of God that then goes forth into the whole world. So God’s help for the fatherless is keyed to his very person, but it’s also keyed to his covenantal relationship with individuals as demonstrated through his tabernacle. And that relationship is one of atonement and grace and mercy. And it’s also one of law.

Now, we know from just the term that it’s God’s holy habitation that these things are true. And then we see that same thing manifested throughout scripture when it talks about God’s fatherhood of the nation of Israel and then of his covenant people as well.

In the Old Testament in Deuteronomy 27:9, Moses—as they’re about to reenter the land and go through, as it were, a retaking of the covenant and pass through the two groups that were to yell out the blessings and the cursings of the law—entrance back into the covenant promised land of God. Moses tells them that “This day thou art become the people of the Lord.”

The becoming the people of the Lord is related to adoption and it’s related to a covenantal relationship or transaction between God and his people. And so God’s concern for the fatherless coming from his holy habitation means that concern is manifested in covenantal relationship to his people.

In the Song of Witness in Deuteronomy 32, we see the same thing. Now, we know that Deuteronomy 32 is a covenant document, and it’s talking—we’ve gone through, Reverend Sutton went through and we’ve reiterated the five points of that covenant that’s spelled out specifically in the Song of Witness. We know that in the Song of Witness itself, where God declares himself to be the covenant God of Israel, he uses similar language to talk about God recreating the people of Israel and having a rebirth, as it were, and bringing them into relationship with God the Father.

In verse 6, it talks about that God has made Israel on the basis of God creating Israel—the new nation in the wilderness. The spirit of God hovering over the people of the wilderness—God recreating them, as it were. We know that he calls forth then their obligation to him in terms of the covenantal relationship.

So we know that when the scriptures tell us that God in his holy habitation is a father to the fatherless, it is reference to his character. It also has reference to his covenant, which has specific reference to atonement, grace and mercy, and law.

Now we know this same concept is repeated in the New Testament as well. When we talk about the concept of adoption, obviously the concept of adoption is keyed to a covenantal relationship that’s based upon law. And again, it’s a manifestation of the grace that God has shown us. And so he calls us to show grace to other people.

In Romans 9:6, it tells us something about who are the children of God. “Not as though the word of God hath taken none effect, for they are not all Israel, which are of Israel, neither because they are the seeds of Abraham are they all children. In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God. But the children of the promise are counted for the seed.”

What God is saying there is that he has adopted people. He doesn’t have a physical lineage through which he is working in history today. He has those who have been called forth in the faith of Abraham. Those are the true children of Abraham.

Now, the fact that God in his holy habitation affects his fatherly relationship to the fatherless in terms of his covenant and in terms of adoption is a direct death blow, as it were, to the concept again of natural privilege. There is no natural privilege in God’s household. The only privileges that exist in God’s household are adoptive privileges.

Jesus Christ prayed to the Father and said, “My Father.” He told us to pray to the Father and say, “Our Father which art in heaven.” We are not in the same relationship to God as Jesus Christ is. Jesus Christ is the only begotten of the Father. We are adoptive children, and as such, we are joint heirs with Christ.

If we are adopted, then we are not natural children. Augustine talks in the City of God about the fact that God has called forth a new race, as it were—a race not based upon physical lineage but based upon covenantal keeping on the part of God and based upon adoptive relationship: grace, not natural privilege.

Now, in the terms that Paul uses in terms of adoption in his writings, it’s interesting to note that at the same time, the Roman concept of adoption was that when a person became adopted into the household, he would then take on the worship of that household. And so we see that when God claims his covenantal people, he calls them into a new form of worship as well based upon his adoptive relationship.

This, by the way, is the basis for why in some—well, particularly in our form, for instance, at a place in the baptism service—we talk about the Christian name of the child. The idea of baptism demonstrating the adoption of God of his people also was the reason why the people who came to be baptized, even the adults, were referred to in the first and second century of the church as neophytes—as infants, as it were. And as such, they were given new names, because it was understood they were going through a legal transformation in terms of their heirship. And they now had legal standing with God through the covenant of grace demonstrated by the application of baptism.

And so they had now a new relationship to God and as a result heirship. And so it’s very common to give people new names when they were baptized, because it was demonstrating their adoption out of one household into the household of grace of God. And the names they were given, for instance, were things like “Renatus,” “Regionatus,” “Adeptus.” These were very common names to give to new people who were baptized. And the reason was because they were stressing again the adoption of God of his people.

The concept of adoption and its denial of natural privilege also has implications in terms of the doctrine of the fatherhood of God. You hear a lot of people talking about, “Are not all men children of God? After all, God is the father of all men.” Well, there’s a certain element in which that’s true. Of course, we’re all created beings. But in point of fact, when Adam sinned and when the human race then continued in the sin of Adam, they were disinherited from God.

We know that the inheritance in scripture went to the godly sons, not to the ungodly ones. And so there was originally a fatherhood of man. Of course, God was in a fatherhood relationship to Adam. And yet when Adam sinned, all of mankind became disinherited from God. There is no fatherly grace that comes forth from God to the unregenerate.

God is the father of those whom he has called and whom he has elected and on the basis of that has adopted into the household and reinherited, as it were. The concept of the fatherhood of God and that all men are children of God and as such receive God’s grace is a denial of the concept of covenantal adoption and it’s espousing forth the doctrine of natural privilege.

Now we know today that there are heresies in the church that have the same basic element of unbelief in them. British Israelism—the certain elements of the identity movement—claims a physical lineage with national Israel, with physical Israel. They place a basis upon natural privilege and upon physical lineage as opposed to understanding that the whole concept of God’s fatherhood, which he demonstrates in his adoption of his children, is one of a denial of natural privilege and an emphasis upon covenant and grace and mercy.

British Israelism and identity is a direct denial then of an aspect of the person of God himself, because remember that God is a father of the fatherless in his holy habitation. They deny a central element of God’s grace and mercy. And so they continue on in their sin in terms of believing in natural privilege.

Calvin himself was attacked by people who said, “You don’t have any kids. You know, you must be cursed by God if you don’t have any kids.” And Calvin’s reply was a godly one. He said, “Europe is peopled with my sons.” Because he recognized that God had put him in a position of preaching forth the gospel. And as a result of that, God had adopted members into God’s family. And Calvin could say then he was part of that whole transaction whereby the preaching of God’s word went out and sons were created, adopted into the family of God.

It’s important for us to remember that if we’re single, for instance, it doesn’t mean we can’t have children, as it were. We have children of the faith. God’s true children are adoptive and not based on natural privilege.

Because God’s help for the fatherless comes from his holy habitation—where he person himself in grace and mercy, and then the place of covenantal relationship and covenantal atonement and of his law—we know on the basis of this then that we are commanded to demonstrate the grace that God has shown us to others, particularly to the fatherless.

It’s interesting in this verse—and this is the third point, of course, that we’re now talking about—that on the basis of this fact: that God has concern for the fatherless, for the orphan, has concern for those who are also called fatherless, the nation of Israel and the church, and that he demonstrates that concern in his holy habitation through his own character, through the application of the covenant and law—he calls us to demonstrate that same grace that he’s called to us to other people, and particularly to the fatherless.

In Psalm 68, it’s this fact of God being a father of the fatherless that is reason for verse 4: “Sing unto God, sing praises to his name, extol him that writeth upon the heavens by his name, Yah.” And it goes on to say from there, and a few verses down, that we should lift up, as it were, a highway unto him. It talks about God setting the solitary in families and the rebellious dwelling in a parched land.

And so it calls upon us as children of God to respond to God through obedience and to respond to God by showing the same grace that God has shown to others, that God has shown to us, unto others. We’re to rejoice before God. We’re to sing his praises by his name—Yah, his covenantal name, as it were—and to show that same covenantal faithfulness to others.

Now, I wanted to read from Isaiah 57 at this point. Isaiah 57:13-15. God says, starting in verse 13:

“When thou criest let thy companies deliver thee but the wind shall carry them all away vanity shall take them. But he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land and shall inherit my holy mountain. And shall say, ‘Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way. Take up the stumbling block out of the way of my people. For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’”

Now, we know that the Gospels tell us to raise up a highway for him who is to come in the name of Christ, Christ himself. When the king came, the people were to prepare a highway, as it were, in the desert. It’s interesting here though that God tells us that the preparation of the highway for the king is also related to God’s concern for the poor.