Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Psalm 97

Psalm 97. The Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the multitude of isles be glad. Clouds and darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. A fire goes before him and burns up his enemies round about. His lightnings light the world. The earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord. At the presence of the Lord, the whole earth. The heavens declare his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory.

Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols. Worship him, all you gods. Zion hears and is glad, and the daughters of Judah rejoice, because of your judgments, O Lord, for you, Lord, are most high above all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods. You who love the Lord hate evil. He preserves the souls of his saints. He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous and for the upright in hearts. Gladness rejoice in the Lord, you righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name.

Let us pray. Father, we thank you for your word and pray now that you would indeed transform us by the power of your spirit as he ministers this word to us to the end that we might indeed be your beautiful people. In Christ’s name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

During this Advent season, we are speaking of these psalms that have a progression to them that lead up to the coming of the King. We said that the occasion for these new songs, as it were, was the Davidic worship instituted in Jerusalem and looking forward to the full worship instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ. When he brought the separation between Jew and Gentiles to an end by including all peoples into his kingdom when he removed the veil that separated the ark from the rest of the tabernacle where the sacrifices occurred.

David’s worship had no veil before the ark. Apparently, it was in the presence of the face of God. It included Gentiles and apart from its initial consecration and setup, apparently no sacrifices were done there. It was the sacrifice of praise and music and musical instruments which is to characterize the worship of God’s people when the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ came to institute true full worship.

We have celebrated this season by looking first at the culmination of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ two weeks ago. We celebrated the Sunday before Advent, the feast of Christ the King. And we said that Christ comes to roll back the effects of the manifestations of the fall. We looked at Jesus cleansing the leper instead of death flowing to Jesus. Life flows from Jesus to the leper. Healing and cleansing from the effects of the fall of Adam was what Jesus came to effect.

And his people are the advent of Christ to this world. And we as well are to engage in acts of benevolence, training, education, preaching of the gospel to bring men to repentance for their sins and to see the reversal of the effects of the fall in the context of our world.

Please forgive me for failing to include the amount so far collected by our benevolence, our alms offering these last two Sundays. This is the third Sunday. This is the completion of the Sunday for the special need of one of the families of our church. To date, the first two Sundays we collected $2,650. A wonderful show of benevolence and the attempts on the part of our congregation to implement the truth that God has come to make his people a life-giving force in the context of the world.

Last week we talked about the advent of beauty in the context of Psalm 96. We said that in the context of the fourth book of the psalter there are five psalms that begin these seventeen sets of psalms that show the need for the coming of the kingdom. We then have seven psalms at the center that talk about the manifestation of the coming of the Savior King and then five psalms that reflect on the effects of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Psalm 98 is the pivot psalm when all of creation blends forth its music with the instruments of God’s people to worship him because he has come.

Psalm 95, which we did not preach on but kind of begins the sequence by talking about worship. Worship begins the advent, as it were, of our Savior in our midst. And we celebrate his advent every Lord’s day particularly at the supper of the Savior, the Lord’s Supper, but we also celebrate the advents, the special comings that he brings in judgment at particular times in history. And of course, the great advent 2,000 years ago to affect the change of history that Psalm 98 celebrates.

We said that Psalm 96 begins to show this. The King is coming. When he comes, it will be a delightful thing, a reason to give praise and thanksgiving and joy. Psalm 97 says he’s almost here. He’s so near we can talk about the effects of it. And there is kind of a change or a transition from Psalm 96 where Psalm 96 is very upbeat and joyous. Psalm 97 shows the darkness, the clouds, the judgment of God coming and the need of the people and the reality that people will turn from their idols and destroy them and worship the King of Kings or they’ll be destroyed.

So we have this judgment aspect in Psalm 97 building as we come up to the completion of all that where the King actually arrives, as it were, in Psalm 98 and the praises of God’s people come forth in the context not just of our voices but with musical instruments as well and we’ll see that next week.

Now Psalm 97 is linked to Psalm 96. As we concluded, Psalm 97, for instance, we saw that the concluding line is to give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. That will be a major element in today’s sermon that we are to give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name. For his memorial name, that is holiness. That as we saw in Psalm 96, we are to come into his courts with praise and with offering and we are to worship him in the beauty of holiness.

Psalm 97 is also linked to Psalm 99 after the pivot point of Psalm 98. Very obviously one example of that is the very opening lines of both Psalm 97 and Psalm 99. The opening phrase is “the Lord reigns.” Now that phrase leads back to Psalm 96 as well. You’ll remember from last week, Lord willing, that what we said was the people of God were to publish, to evangelize the nations with a gospel. And the Septuagint actually uses the Greek word that is the basis for our word evangelism. And in Psalm 96, we’re to speak forth, evangelize the nations with the good news. And that good news is summarized in this phrase: “the Lord reigns.”

So Psalm 96 says that’s what we’re to proclaim as the King’s Advent becomes clearer. Psalm 97 picks up that refrain. And indeed, that’s the first phrase: “the Lord reigns.” Psalm 99 begins with the exact same phrase. “Praise—the Lord reigns.” And again, actually, I’ll read the first couple of verses of Psalm 99 to show its relevance. “Let the people tremble. The earth trembles in Psalm 97. Here, the people tremble. He sits between the cherubims in heaven, as it were.

Let the earth be moved. And we said that one of the major aspects of the advent of Christ, our Savior, both his first coming, his final coming, and all comings in between, is that he comes to effect on earth what is between the cherubim. He comes to respond to the prayers of his people that his will might be done on earth as it is in heaven. He siteth between the cherubims. Let the earth be moved.

The Lord is great in Zion. Remember, Zion is the place of Davidic worship. This is not the temple mount. The temple mount was different. Zion is the mount that contains or is the local, the specific locale, of Davidic worship. The picture, in summary fashion, of what will happen when worship is transformed by the coming of the Savior. No blood, no Jew-Gentile separation, no veil between us anymore, and the beauty of the ark of the covenant Zion.

He is high above all the people. And Psalm 97 refers to God as Eloyn, the most high over all the earth. We sing in Psalm 83, which we’ve spoken of recently and the men are learning to sing in a more beautiful fashion, that we want God’s judgments to fill the earth that the heathen, the pagans might know that God is most high, Eloyn, over all the earth, lifted up. And here he is high above all the people.

Verse 3 of Psalm 99: “Let them praise thy great and terrible name for it is holy.” And Psalm 97 concludes with giving thanks at the remembrance of God’s holy name. And here we’re to praise his great and terrible name for it is holy. Holiness, the summation of all the characteristics of God. It is holy.

The King’s strength also loves judgment. And judgment is seen in Psalm 97. So Psalm 99 is a reprisal, as it were, a restating, a looking back at Psalm 97 and saying these same things after the advent has been celebrated in its fullness in Psalm 98.

So Psalm 97 has specific markers backwards to Psalm 96 and forwards to Psalm 99. And we get there through the final great advent portrayed in Psalm 98 that we’ll speak of next week as we prepare to celebrate the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So what I want to do is review a little bit here. And really what we’re going to do in this review is really sort of talk about the end of Psalm 97 as I’ve just indicated. It is my belief, and I’ve outlined it on your sermon notes, that verses 1 and 10 form what in literature is called an inclusio, an inclusion or brackets of the rest of the three stanzas of this particular psalm.

So there’s this chorus or praise statement at the beginning, praise statement at the end, that mirrors the praise statement at the beginning to form an inclusion of specific material. Three separate and distinct stanzas that show a progression of this praise where we are to be ushered in terms of the advent of the Savior.

So it ends at verse 10 mirroring verse 1, which we’ll get to toward the end of our sermon. But verse 10, as I said, talks about thanking God at the remembrance of his holy name. And as I said, this relates back to Psalm 96 in terms of the remembrance, or worshiping God rather, in the beauty of holiness.

So we want to look at that again and talk about that a little bit more because really it forms the basis for understanding what this remembrance of the holy name of God is all about at the end of verse 10. If we haven’t come to a good understanding of the beauty of God’s holiness in Psalm 96, we’ll have a hard time understanding the remembrance of his holy name in Psalm 97.

So I want to talk about that a little bit more today. And you remember that what I said last week was that, picking up on an article from Biblophusa, God in himself is beauty. That God is beautiful both in his person—the fact that he is triune he is beautiful—in his perfections, his attributes, as it were. God is beautiful in his purpose that he establishes for the world. And God is beautiful in his performance of that purpose in the very nature of his being.

God is beautiful in his unity and diversity and the splendor of that unity and diversity displayed to his creation. Remember we said that those are the three basic elements people have said are the definition for beauty: a unity without destroying diversity, a diversity without destroying unity, and all of these things in a splendor, a demonstration of the beauty of unity and diversity in the context of its being displayed to the world.

And God, of course, is the definition then of what beauty is in his person as well as the working of his perfections, his attributes that have a unity to them. They can be comprised in this single term that these psalms have given to us: holiness. And yet they are distinct attributes one from the other. Strength is different from wisdom. God has in his person and in his attributes or perfections a beauty to them.

Now, this isn’t just an extrapolation based upon what we’ve read in these psalms that we’re to worship God in the beauty of holiness. We’re indeed told that the Lord is beautiful and increases, as it were, in his beauty—which we can’t really understand, but that’s what we read. For instance, in Isaiah 49, when we speak of the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In Isaiah 49, the first few verses, we read that God has called Jesus from the womb, “from the bowels of my mother, hath he made mention of my name.” It talks about the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then in verse 3: “and said unto me, Thou art my servant, O Israel, in which I will be beautified.” Your translation may read “glorified,” but really it’s the same word that’s normally translated “beautified.” So the Lord God and his triune being is beautified by the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. His beauty is displayed in a splendid way, in splendor, to the created order.

Jesus, according to Hebrews 1:3, is the brightness of the Father’s glory and the express image of his person. And in Colossians 1:15, Christ is described as the image of the invisible God. When we celebrate the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ 2,000 years ago and when we delight in the beauty of worship with the advent of our Savior, union and communion with the Lord Jesus Christ and through him with the Father and the Spirit at the Lord’s table, we celebrate the advent of the one who is most beautiful in his person and in his attributes as well.

He is the image of the invisible God. He is the essence of him. He is the dayspring on high, which is beautiful. He is beautiful in his personhood and reflecting the beauty of God.

Of course, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ is the apex, as it were, one could say, of the beauty of God. And so when the beauty of God appears with the combining of the two natures into one person—the union of two natures in one person without mixing those natures—there is a beauty to unity and diversity, and the splendor of that displayed in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is again this demonstration of beauty to the world.

He is most beautiful in him being fully God. Because as fully God, he comes to effect the purpose and to perform the steps that are necessary to complete the purpose of God, which is to bring his own people and his elect people into beauty and into relationship with him that is beautiful. The Lord Jesus Christ in his person, in his two natures, the perfection of humanity, the beauty of humanity, is restored in him taking the nature of man and yet not the sin of man.

And so the Lord Jesus Christ is this picture. We celebrate the advent of the one who is most beautiful in his person, in his attributes, in his working, the plan of the eternal Trinity, and in his performance of that through his works, in obedience to the law and in going to the cross for the sake of the elect.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the picture of beauty to us.

Now when we talk about holiness, we have to talk about a separation from sin. Holiness in its original term, the Hebrew term, means to be separated unto and away from—away from sin and unto righteousness, unto the purposes of God. And so a Puritan once said: “Grant me never to lose sight of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, the exceeding righteousness of salvation, the exceeding glory of Christ, the exceeding beauty of holiness, and the exceeding wonder of grace.”

The wonder of God’s holiness and the exceeding beauty of his holiness is a reminder to us of the exceeding ugliness and horribleness of sin in the context of our lives. It is the very coming, the advent of beauty, that is a reminder to us—a shocking reminder—of our own sinfulness and a desire to put off sinfulness and to exhibit holiness.

Caryl said: “The Christian must be consumed by the conviction of the infinite beauty of holiness and the infinite damnability of sin.”

And so we read in Psalm 97: “You that love the Lord hate evil.” Not “you know, try to avoid it,” not “coexist with it.” “You that love the Lord hate evil.”

Jonathan Edwards in his treatises on religious affection says this: “He that sees the beauty of holiness or the true moral good sees the greatest and most important thing in the world. Unless this is seen, nothing is seen that is worth seeing. For there is no other true excellence or beauty.”

Let me read that again: “He that sees the beauty of holiness or true moral good—exhibited in God, exhibited in the coming of the Savior, seen in his word and law—Edwards says, sees the greatest and most important thing in the world. Unless this is seen, nothing is seen that is worth seeing. There is no other true excellence or beauty.”

To attempt to find beauty apart from the Creator is to fall into sin, into the damnability of it, and the ugliness of it, because it moves away from the beauty of God’s holiness.

Now Psalm 96:6 told us that beauty are in God’s sanctuary—ultimately speaking, I think, of the ark of the covenant, a portrayal of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Again we read in Psalm 27:4: “One thing have I desired of the Lord that will I seek after—that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. For what purpose? To behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple.”

The one goal of the psalmist, the goal of the Savior whose thoughts we see reflected in the Psalms, and the goal of all those that would call themselves Christians is to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives for the purpose of beholding the beauty of the Lord.

Psalm 29:1-2 repeats this requirement of Psalm 96: “Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”

Zechariah 9:16-17: “The Lord their God shall save them in that day as the flock of his people. And then in verse 17: For how great is his goodness and how great is his beauty.”

Beauty is an essential attribute in the person and work of God, in his infinite variety, in his unity in his person and in his attributes. The Lord God is most beautiful in all of his attributes to us.

Edwards again, a couple more quotes from Jonathan Edwards. “From what has been said, it may easily be understood what I intend when I say that a love to divine things for the beauty of their moral excellency is the beginning and spring of all holy affections. A love to divine things for the beauty of their moral excellency, for the beauty of holiness—this, Edwards says, is the beginning and spring of all holy affections.”

“Holy persons in the exercise of holy affections do love divine things primarily for their holiness. They love God in the first place for the beauty of his holiness, of moral perfection, as being supremely amiable, supremely beautiful and delightful in themselves. God—our love to God for his holiness is what is most fundamental and essential in our love. Here it is that true love to God begins. All other holy love for divine things flows from hence.”

“This is the most essential and distinguishing thing that belongs to a holy love to God with regard to the foundation of it: a love to God for the beauty of his moral attributes. This leads to and necessarily causes a delight in God for all his attributes. For his moral attributes cannot be without his natural attributes, for infinite holiness supposes infinite wisdom and an infinite capacity and greatness.”

“A love to God for the beauty of his moral attributes leads to and necessarily causes a delight in God for all his attributes.”

There is this relationship between holiness and God’s beauty. That is to be the subject of the praise of God’s saints. The love of God’s saints is for his moral excellency and his beauty. And that is the wellspring of the desire for God that we all are to have.

All that glitters is not gold. The world, as it moves away from the excellencies of the Lord Jesus Christ and our country, as it moves away from the excellencies, likes the tinsel. They like the lights. They like the happy songs. They like the giving. They like the demonstrations of selflessness opposed to each other. But they want all of this without the holiness of God, without being driven by a desire for fellowship with the God who is himself existing in the beauty of holiness that we might indeed also reflect that beauty of holiness in our lives.

The gods of our day, the rulers of our day, have increasingly eliminated Christmas from visible representations of the biblical statement of the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ as beauty of holiness. And now even the secular symbols that we’re left with are under attack. A crew from 2020 is down in Eugene or at least was last week to talk about the actions of the city manager of the city of Eugene, who has now banned nativity scenes, not crashes, not crosses, he has now banned Christmas trees themselves from all publicly-owned city buildings and places.

Now the argument against him on the part of other rulers in the area is, “Well, these are simply a secular symbol of joy—the Christmas tree. Why can’t we have it?” A pox on both their houses! We should never defend the secular use of religious demonstrations of the righteousness of Christ, which the Christmas tree is. It’s a representation of the fruitfulness of God’s people, which I’ll talk about a little bit as we come to communion.

So the rulers of our nation have given us glitter but no gold. Glamour that is devoid of the beauty of God’s holiness. Christmas is a beautiful time of year. Your houses, I hope, are beautiful—not just on Christmas but all the rest of the year. Well, but certainly at Christmas time we put up beautiful decorations. The church becomes beautiful. But the beauty must reflect a desire on our part not for the tinsel or the glimmer, the glamour apart from the beauty of God’s holiness. It’s to reflect the desire for the beauty of God’s holiness.

These things all work together. God’s holiness is his beauty. His beauty is what we are to love, and his beauty is what we are to desire.

Again, another quote from Edwards: “Holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of the divine nature. Hence, we often read of the beauty of holiness,” and he gives verse citations. “This renders all his other attributes glorious and lovely. It is the glory of God’s wisdom that it is a holy wisdom and not a wicked subtlety and crafty.” And then he goes on to mention others of God’s attributes.

The Lord God is beautiful in his holiness. And these psalms tell us that when we celebrate the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to do so—Psalm 96, by worshiping the beauty of his holiness and becoming beautiful ourselves; Psalm 97, we’re to celebrate the advent of our Savior by remembering the memorial name, the name of God’s holiness, to his people.

To know the beauty of God’s holiness, it means first and foremost that God is beautiful in his holiness. It means secondarily that we are to image these same attributes in ourselves as God’s people. We are to desire God.

Isaiah 26:8-9: “Yes, in the way of your judgments, O Lord, we have waited for you. The desire of our soul is for your name and for the remembrance of you.”

The Lord Jesus Christ has been given a name above all other names. That name is holiness. The remembrance of his name is holiness. According to Psalm 97, the concluding verse, we are to desire the beauty of the Lord Jesus Christ as a manifestation of the beauty of the triune God. That is to be our chief and utmost desire.

How is it with you this morning? What is your desire as we move into this season of gift-giving and spreading of holiday cheer? I don’t know about you, but I know that for me, much of the delight I took in Christmas as a child was glimmer and glamour—was not the beauty of God’s holiness. Now, I suppose that reflects the immaturity of youth, but may we desire for our children and for ourselves to approach the Christmas season with a strong desire not for the glimmer and glamour but for what they represent to us: the exceeding beauty of God’s holiness.

Do you thirst for that today? If you do not thirst for the beauty of God’s holiness, you come to the Lord’s table hungry and thirsty for something else. You will go away unsatisfied. It’s the wellspring of everything else. So Edwards wrote—I think he’s for the most part correct—these psalms reaffirm to us that we’re to worship God in the beauty of holiness. We’re to desire his name. We’re to desire the remembrance of his name, which is the beauty of holiness.

God’s process of actions is also spoken of in the scriptures as beautiful. When we celebrate the advent of God, of Christ, we celebrate a beautiful thing.

Proverbs 3:17, speaking of God as wisdom, says: “Her ways are ways of beautfulness, pleasantness.” In the King James version, same, referred as beauty here in the context of our Hebrew scriptures. “He beautifies himself in Israel” in the book of Isaiah.

Psalm 90:16-17: “Let thy work appear unto thy servants and thy beauty unto the children. Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.”

And so we said last week that a proper application of this desire for the beauty of God’s holiness is that we should be a people who desire the advent of beauty, that our lives might reflect that beauty of holiness.

You know, we have these special times. God set up special calendar cycles for the Old Testament people. I mean, all time is not the same. There is holy time and then there is normal time. And until the eschaton is realized, it will be that way. Hebrews says that we’ve not fully entered into the fullness of the rest of Christ. So we continue Sabbath-like keeping, a keeping of separate days set apart for holiness.

And those days in the Old Testament, the church year of the Old Testament, reminded people of the great salvation events. And we have one day in the New Testament, the resurrection day of the Lord Jesus Christ, when the beauty of holiness was reflected. The penultimate purpose of God in the advent of the Savior becomes manifested by this coming of the Savior and his resurrection and ascension. We have a holy day in which we remember the person and work of the Savior.

We’re called to this memorial, and that memorial is a memorial of his holy name.

Now this day should be set apart. This is a day that we think differently. This is a day that we dress differently. This is a day that we set different patterns. We don’t get up the same way we get up the other six days a week. Most of us don’t get up a little different, a little different time, different manner. You know, you try to establish patterns. You don’t go through your normal morning routine on the Lord’s day. At least, I don’t think we should. We should see it as a day set apart.

If we don’t set apart this Lord’s day, and I think that we’re going to have a very difficult time setting apart anything else in our lives. I mean, it is the calling of this church to engage in cultural conflict. It’s the calling of this church to extend beauty—you know, the beautiful music, the beautiful art, the beautiful literature of the last 2,000 years have been, for the most part, a contemplation of the beauty of God’s holiness, been religious themes. They’ve been written—the great pieces of music for the worship of the church, and paintings have been done to decorate the architecture of the church or to manifest in some way the beauty of God’s holiness.

And so that is what is to be our goal. We’re to see our culture, the ugliness of it, driven back, act with the beauty of God’s holiness reflected through his image bearers.

I think that by way of application, that means we begin with this day. If we’re to worship God in the beauty of holiness, first it necessitates this understanding of who God is—that he is beauty and he is holy. But secondly, it means we’re to be here worshiping him in the beauty of holiness. It refers to us. God has come to clothe the meek with salvation and to beautify his people.

Well, how does he beautify it? Well, certainly we see the reflection of his beauty in our garments. There was holy array for the children of God in the Old Testament, children of God in the Old Testament. The beautiful structures that’s proper. But the verse reminds us—both the verse, “the beauty of holiness,” and from Psalm 97, “the remembrance of his holy name”—reminds us that when we come before God to worship, rather obviously I’m restating the obvious: the beauty of holiness is our state, our moral state before God.

Have we walked about, separating ourselves from so-called secular pursuits? Have we separated ourselves from the sins that we’re to hate, the evilness of reflecting ugliness in our lives and reflected around about us? Have we set this day apart as a special day consecrated? Otherwise, what we do as we are a church that encourages cultural engagement—the danger of that, I remember hearing about Vatican II.

I remember hearing a Jesuit scholar say that, you know, in Vatican II, I guess I don’t know much about Catholic history, but apparently they opened the windows to the world. They said they wanted to go out from the place, open the windows so they could see out and engage the culture. But he said the thing we forgot was that the culture can come in those windows just as easily as we can go out those windows to do the work of the ministry of beautifying the world.

Well, that’s true of us. We have opened wide the windows and doors as a church, exhorting one another to engage in the culture, not to be, you know, pessimistic about the future, to be optimistic, to engage it, to delight ourselves in God’s creation and his gifts, literary gifts, etc. That is all proper and good. But if we do not instill a desire for the beauty of God’s holiness and a resultant beauty of holiness in our own character and in the character of our children, we have called God’s judgment upon us.

We will see reflected increasingly in a specific way in the Lord’s day and in the world secular realities and not God’s realities. You see, the windows go both ways. Doors swing both ways. We must at this time of year remind our children that the beauty of Christmas, the delight of all the tinsel, is that they reflect the exceeding beauty of God’s holiness. And we must exhort one another to that holiness.

I’ve been reflecting the last couple of weeks on duty and desire. And I have in certain areas of my life attempted, fought the good fight for years in terms of duty. And I think I’m beginning to realize that duty is good in its place, but it follows desire. And I think that’s what I’m trying to make the point of here.

Psalm 96 talks about the great desire we’re to have for the beauty of God’s holiness. Psalm 97 repeats that. Psalm 97 puts in the idea of God’s judgment, and it puts that in the context of this desire. And it is God’s judgment that drives us in terms of duty. But I think beyond all of these things, we have to have desire.

All right, that was a little bit of review and a little bit of conclusion to Psalm 97 all wrapped up together.

Let’s specifically now go through Psalm 97 very quickly. I do think it’s important when we deal with the text of Scripture to just give an overview of it in a summary fashion to help you to understand what’s actually being said here.

And while we focused on the last verse, let’s look at the rest of them. We’ll come back to verse 1, to the inclusion, at the conclusion of this quick overview of the three stanzas.

And again, think of the Psalms, kids. Whenever we’re reading the Psalms, this is a hymn book. These psalms were written to be sung, to be played with music to. It’s a song. And last week, we saw very definite stanzas with triplets at the beginning of each stanza. And that’s what that psalm… Some songs are three verses and that’s it. This one has a nice little beautiful chorus at the beginning. Then it’s got three stanzas that are a little different from one another, and then it ends with a beautiful little chorus repeating the same thing with other words: unity and diversity.

Verse 12, and then we have stanza one. Following the inclusio, I’ve summarized this: God is no buttercup. God is coming to establish the gospel kingdom. Remember, these psalms are psalms of Advent. Now he’s coming, and what’s stressed in this first stanza is that God comes to manifest his justice and his attributes.

And so, God is no buttercup. That’s not my terminology. Otto Scott said that years ago, and it stuck with me. What do we read here?

“Clouds and darkness surround him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. A fire goes before him, burns up his enemies round about. His lightnings light the world. The earth sees and trembles.”

The advent of the Lord Jesus Christ brings trembling to the nations. Then in A.D. 70, the completion of that first advent, trembling came to the nations with the judgment of God on Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

These clouds, this manifestation of fire, the presence of God melt the mountains like wax. The mountains are the securest place in the context of difficulty. The mountain won’t come down, at least. But no, the mountains melt like wax at the presence of the Lord, “at the presence of the Lord of the whole earth.”

Again, heaven and earth are combined here in this. “The heavens declare his righteousness and all the peoples see his glory.”

And as we look at the way this is displayed, we see those clouds coming combined up with the idea of the world seeing the demonstration of the glory of God. This is the glory cloud manifestation that is a major theme from the beginning of the scriptures to the end. It’s a physical manifestation of the approach of God in the glory cloud.

Then we move to the other verses. We see there reflected the righteousness and justice of his throne. They reflect the ethical characteristics of God. The justice, his throne in heaven, is established in righteousness and justice, and that’s what he brings with him to earth. The ethical characteristics of God, his attributes that are ethical or moral, reflected in justice, become an essential element of his advent to his people.

There are then physical manifestations of ethical presence and resultant judgment upon the earth. The fire that burns up his enemies—fire isn’t a bad thing, kids. Our God is a consuming fire. But we want our sin consumed. Our God is a consuming fire, but we want our sin and wickedness consumed by God. That’s why we rejoice.

Yes, it’s a heavy topic. God’s judgments filling the earth, melting things, destroying nations, bringing down nations, exalting others. But we desire that judgment, the manifestation of the ethical characteristics of God. We delight in the fact that God is no buttercup. That when he comes to deal with us, yes, he deals with us according to the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, but he comes in justice and judgment.

Every Lord’s day, judgment begins at the house of God and then rolls out across the land. And that’s what we see happen here. It begins, this advent, the physical manifestations of God’s sovereignty and in his sovereignty, his judgment.

Then we go to the second stanza, and I’ve summarized this as “the Most High and the abased.” Because of these ethical characteristics of God’s advent and the manifestations of his glory cloud judgment to the earth, things happen. God is coming to establish his gospel kingdom. It is a kingdom of justice and righteousness. And it’s a kingdom that moves men and nations away from idolatry toward God.

And we see that in the second stanza.

“Let all be put to shame who serve carved images, who boast of idols. Worship him all you gods. Zion hears and is glad. The daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments, O Lord. For you, Lord, are most high above all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods.”

We see here the shame of serving the creature rather than the Creator. “Let all be put to shame who serve carved images.” It’s useful to be ashamed. When God brings you to shame, it’s because you’re serving something other than him. You become ashamed when God reveals to you the silliness of your idolatry, the wickedness of your sin.

“Let all be put to shame who serve carved images.”

This nation needs a good solid dose of shame. This nation serves idols, carved images. The idol of democracy, the idol of the kind of government we’ve established. It’s not the only legitimate government given to us in the scriptures. Kings are okay, too, for instance.

We have this idolatry when the state is God. Then true religion, true politics rather, is political action. And what do we see for the last month? We see our nation subsumed. Every news media and outlet taken up with this horrific political crisis. This is not a crisis for God. This is the advent of God dividing the nation.

Not between the righteous and the unrighteous, probably, as much as between two different groups who take two different approaches to political action. Now there is a sense of righteousness and holiness that’s reflected here. There are men who want to rule by the rule of law. Many people are very concerned that while we’ve seen changes to our political structure in America because of judicial activism setting the agenda for legislators, now we see the potential, at least, of judicial activism replacing the very way we elect our public officials.

I mean, judicial activism has basically taken over the legislative work of those elected officials. And now some people see a further deterioration where the judicial activism will actually choose our candidates for us. And so the judges, not reflecting the beauty of God’s holiness nor the order of law, decide for themselves what is good and bad.

But the broader picture here is that God is not going to let us have unity and peace while we’re a country that has rejected the beauty of his holiness. How more divided can a nation get? One guy wins the popular vote, another the electoral vote. The state that gives an electoral vote is divided right down the middle. Maybe anywhere from 100 to a thousand votes separate. Who knows? That Supreme Court rules four to three one way. The United States Supreme Court rules five to four the other. You can’t get closer than that. Absolute division.

God is testing this country with futility. He’s frustrating the plans of men. And he’s also doing another interesting thing. I think this Florida Supreme Court decision was nudged. Way the swing vote—apparently was one of the female justices—and the swing vote for the five-to-four United States Supreme Court stay of the recounting. They say the rumors have it that swing vote was Sandra Day O’Connor.

Homeschooled, by the way—another woman. Is God showing us here that when the men refuse their covenantal responsibilities to delight in the beauty of God’s holiness, he shows the disaster coming upon our nation through division and through the lifting up of women?

Why do we have Hillary Rodham Clinton, United States senator and very possibly a presidential contender? It isn’t because that person’s so bad. Don’t think of it that way. God is using the Nevites again to bring judgment to his people. He is frustrating the idolatry of this nation.

We want our seasonal greetings. We want our Christmas trees without Christ. And he’ll work through an ungodly magistrate to get rid of even the trees. And we want our constitution even though we don’t want his word, and he shows us the constitution really is pretty difficult in terms of sorting out these difficulties.

It is the beauty of God’s perfection and his performance of his plan when he works in such a way as you hear news commentators saying, “Gee, we couldn’t have written a story with this kind of twists and turns in it.” That’s right. God is the ultimate story writer, and he is affecting his purpose and plan, and he’s reminding men again of his sovereignty.

Now do they listen? They do not. It is to the shame of this country that I don’t see anybody on any of these stations from any political party saying what we should be doing in addition to doing what’s right according to the law is to pray to Almighty God for guidance and direction. I don’t see that from anybody. That would be stupid. That would bring shame. That would be weak. That is the point of strength.

We’re engaged in idolatry in this country. And when God’s advent comes, what we celebrate at Christmas is the coming of him who destroys the idolatry of men, who frustrates them.

“God is most high above all the earth.”

That’s what it says here. Eloyn, this phrase is first used when Melchizedek is portrayed as God, God Most High. The name usually has reference to God’s supremacy over every other god in the whole world, all the gentile gods and rulers.

God is the supreme court, always in session, as they say, always fulfilling his judicial orders in a beautiful way. God is most high. God has made his people most high as well. The scriptures say that God has exalted us. We are most high. But that most high status can be good or it can be bad. Because in Micah, where it talks about God’s coming and advent and the things, elements melting, etc., he says he’s going to make a heap out of Jerusalem and out of his people.

And he says the same thing to Solomon: I’m going to make a heap out of you. I’m going to make you most high. I’m going to set you church on the pedestal for good or for bad for you, for your beauty in the midst of the nations if you conform yourself to the beauty of my holiness, or for your degradation and for your shame.

I’m going to lift you up. It isn’t surprising.