WWUTT 1084 There is a Cup of Foaming Wine?

The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, but we should not take those things for granted.

Walk in obedience, and you will not have to fear the judgment of God when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our study of the Psalms. Picking up where we left off last week, that would put us in Psalm 74.

If you want to open up your Bible and join with me there, this is a psalm of lament. A disaster has befallen the people of God, and in this particular case, that would be the destruction of the temple.

Now, if this psalm was written before the Babylonian exile, it would be a foreshadowing, a prophecy of that event that would happen, and this psalm would be in the hearts of the people to remember what had been written that they may call upon the name of God in a day of trouble.

If this psalm was written after the Babylonian exile, then it would be more reflective.

It would be looking back on the temple and remembering God's presence with His people and then lamenting that the temple is no longer there, and therefore

God is no longer with His people. So that's the two different perspectives that you might come at regarding this psalm.

We'll go ahead and read through all 23 verses to start off with. A Mascal of Asaph.

Oh God, why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

Remember your congregation which you have purchased of old, which you have redeemed to be the tribe of your heritage.

Remember Mount Zion where you have dwelt. Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins.

The enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary. Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place.

They set up their own signs for signs. They were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees, and all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers.

They set your sanctuary on fire. They profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground.

They said to themselves, we will utterly subdue them. They burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

We do not see our signs. There is no longer any prophet, and there is none among us who knows how long.

How long, oh God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand, take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them?

Yet God my King is from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.

You divided the sea by your might. You broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.

You crushed the heads of Leviathan. You gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. You split open springs and brooks.

You dried up ever -flowing streams. Yours is the day, yours also the night.

You have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth.

You have made summer and winter. Remember this, oh Lord, how the enemy scoffs and a foolish people reviles your name.

Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts. Do not forget the life of your poor forever.

Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.

Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame. Let the poor and needy praise your name.

Arise, oh God, defend your cause. Remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day.

Do not forget the clamor of your foes, the uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually.

So at the very beginning of this, this begins the way several

Psalms do. How long, oh Lord, will you forget us forever? Or David might pray, how long will you forget me forever?

In the midst of lament, of great anguish, of sorrow, it can feel like God is not there and you don't see the end in sight.

And that's why these Psalms begin the way that they do. This is not accusing

God of anything. It's not speaking disparagingly of the Lord. It is an expression of the heart of feeling alone, a feeling of abandonment.

Though we will see occasions in the Psalm that will come up where the

Psalmist will remember that God has dealt bountifully with them in the past. He's always been a deliverer.

And so they will put faith and trust in God. That will come up in the Psalm. But what stirs the heart of the writer to come at this song in the first place is the fact that they feel like they have been abandoned.

That is the feeling that they have in their heart. It's not their truth or their reality, but it is certainly the feeling that has overwhelmed them that has prompted them to seek the

Lord in this way. So that's the way we start here. Oh God, why do you cast us off forever?

Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture? What is the event that we have in scripture where God pours out fire and judgment on a city and smoke went up?

Surely you know what I'm talking about. The story of Sodom and Gomorrah, these cities that God had so utterly judged, he rained fire and sulfur down from heaven and wiped them off the map.

No trace of them at all. And the ground that they once stood upon burned continually for centuries and centuries.

As a matter of fact, Philo, who was a Hellenistic philosopher that lived in the first century, he would have lived at the time of Christ and a little bit after Christ ascension into heaven as well.

Philo wrote in the first century that the place where it was known that Sodom and Gomorrah had once stood was still smoking in the first century

AD. So this was nearly 2000 years after God had so utterly judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The smoke was still rising from that place. It was still a reminder of the total judgment of God that would come upon a wicked and evil people.

And no matter where the Israelites lived there in the promised land, they could look in a that showed that place where these two cities once stood and God judged them by fire from heaven, a reminder of the judgment of God.

For about 2000 years, smoke continued to rise from that place. So when we read here, why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

It is certain that the writer has in mind the place of judgment where God poured out fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and serves as a memorial of the wrath of God with the smoke that rose up from that place.

Well, now God's judgment has come upon Israel and their enemies have come to Israel, have destroyed the city, have destroyed the temple.

And so it is being likened. This judgment is being likened to the judgment that God had poured out on Sodom and Gomorrah.

Why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?

This isn't a pagan foreign people that God has poured out his judgment on. He has now poured judgment out on the sheep of his pasture.

Those whom he had been shepherding in this land, the Israelites. Remember your congregation.

The psalmist goes on to say, which you have purchased of old, redeemed from slavery in Egypt.

You have redeemed the tribe of your heritage. Remember Mount Zion where you have dwelt.

Direct your steps to the perpetual ruins. The enemy has destroyed everything in the sanctuary.

There is nothing left of the temple except and even barely the foundation upon which it stood.

Your foes have roared in the midst of your meeting place. They set up their own signs for signs.

So they have desecrated and blasphemed God by destroying that place which was once holy where God had dwelled.

And instead of looking for the signs that God has shown, they have set up their own signs.

In other words, their own manner and method of divination. They look to the sun, moon, and stars thinking that the gods are communicating to them through the created things rather than worshiping the creator.

So that's what's being said there. Verse 5, they were like those who swing axes in a forest of trees.

When they came and destroyed the temple, they knocked all the pillars down like a bunch of lumberjacks go into the forest to cut down trees.

That's the way they were with the pillars that were standing there in the temple. And all its carved wood they broke down with hatchets and hammers.

They set your sanctuary on fire. They profaned the dwelling place of your name, bringing it down to the ground.

They said to themselves, we will utterly subdue them. They burned all the meeting places of God in the land.

And so in verse 9, as we just talked about signs. So now Asaph says, we do not see our signs and there is no longer any prophet.

So the things that God gave to us for signs are not there. And they're not communicating anything.

We don't have a prophet, someone that God is speaking to and telling us what he plans on doing.

There's no prophet in the land. So God is not actively even talking to us right now. And again, there is a foreshadowing that's going on here, whether you choose to accept that the psalm was written before or after the destruction of the temple.

We have what was called the silent age. That was the three to four hundred years between the writing of the two testaments, between the

Old Testament and New Testament, waiting for the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus Christ. And there was no prophet speaking during that time.

So it was called the silent age, or we also refer to it as the intertestamental period, because it's right there between the two testaments.

So even if this was written at a later time following the destruction of the temple, there's still somewhat of a prophetic foreshadowing in the sense that there was going to be this silent period where people are going, where is our

Messiah? Why is God not speaking to us? Why has he not spoken for so long?

There is not a prophet in the land to tell us. And there is none among us who even knows how long.

How long, oh God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever?

Why do you hold back your hand? Your right hand, take it from the fold of your garment and destroy them.

Now in a much more irreverent way of saying this would be,

God, take your hands out of your pockets and do something about this. That's not quite the intention of Asaph here.

He's not being so disrespectful to God as to say, why are you just standing there with your hands in your pockets?

Take them out and do something. But your hand in the fold of your garment, it's a relaxing position.

It's not an active doing something sort of posture or God giving a command or saving with his right hand or striking down an enemy.

So Asaph says, take your hand from the fold of your garment. Take it out of that relaxing position.

Don't just stand there and not do something. Destroy them. Yet God, my king is from of old.

So we get to verse 12 and we start with yet. So this is that turn that happens in the psalm here where Asaph remembers the goodness and the faithfulness of God in the past.

So he is surely still with us and he will still deliver us and he will still judge his enemies because God has done so in the past and he is faithful to his promises in the present.

So he will do in the future. Yet God, my king is from of old working salvation in the midst of the earth.

You divided the sea by your might. That's remembering the deliverance of the

Israelites through the Red Sea. You broke the heads of the sea monsters on the waters.

And that could be a reference to the Egyptians being drowned in the Red Sea as they were trying to pass through it coming after the

Israelites. They're being depicted here as monsters. And since we're going through the sea, they were sea monsters.

They were certainly destroyed on the waters because the waters came down on their heads. You crushed the heads of Leviathan.

Now when we were studying the book of Job, there's of course the reference to Leviathan there.

But Leviathan is also kind of a generic name, even though there was a specific creature God was speaking about there.

That name was used by pagans to describe any kind of great sea creature, even imaginary ones.

And so in this particular case, it's referring to a multi headed monster. You crushed the heads of Leviathan.

You gave him as food for the creatures in the wilderness. You split open springs and brooks.

You dried up ever flowing streams, split open streams and brooks. You had places where God caused water to come from a rock for the

Israelites in the desert. But then he also took the water from them when they grumbled and complained.

Yours is the day. Yours also the night. The Lord controls the rising and the setting of the sun.

You have established the heavenly lights and the sun. You have fixed all the boundaries of the earth.

You have made summer and winter. God is the one who causes the seas to change.

And so this is an acknowledgment here that God is still controlling the change of things.

He's the one that brought an enemy against us, and he's the one that will deliver us from that enemy. If God can cause the seasons to change, he can deliver us from this circumstance.

Remember this, oh Lord, how the enemy scoffs and a foolish people reviles your name.

Do not deliver the soul of your dove to the wild beasts. Do not forget the life of your poor forever.

Have regard for the covenant, for the dark places of the land are full of the habitations of violence.

Let not the downtrodden turn back in shame. Let the poor and needy praise your name.

Arise, oh God, defend your cause. Remember how the foolish scoff at you all the day.

Do not forget the clamor of your foes. The uproar of those who rise against you, which goes up continually.

So you have in an act of sacrifice, in an act of atonement, oftentimes we see sacrifices upon an altar.

I think, for example, Noah doing this after they had landed on Mount Sinai. They disembarked the ark, and then

Noah built an altar to the Lord and sacrificed to him. And it says that the smoke lifted to the heavens and was a pleasing aroma to the

Lord. It was a propitiation. The wrath of God was satisfied. And so just as a sacrifice will satisfy the wrath of God with its fragrant aroma that lifts up to God in the heavens.

So Asaph is saying here, let the stench of those who do wickedness reach your nostrils and you be stirred to strike down those who do evil.

That's the way that this psalm ends. And we know that God did take vengeance out on his enemies.

He told Habakkuk that he would. But first he was going to use these pagan people to punish the

Israelites who had rebelled against God. So continue, my brothers and sisters in righteousness, do not sway from the path, lest God judge you in your wickedness.

We come next to Psalm 75 to the choir master, according to Do Not Destroy, which would have been the piece of music that this was set to, a psalm of Asaph, a song.

We give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds.

Now something happens here in the psalm. You'll notice that quotation marks are now added.

Well, that's because we've now shifted from the psalmist to it being the voice of God. Verses two through five.

At the set time that I appoint, the Lord says, I will judge with equity.

When the earth totters and all its inhabitants, it is I who keeps steady its pillars. I say to the boastful, do not boast.

And to the wicked, do not lift up your horn. Do not lift up your horn on high or speak with haughty neck.

Now, the interesting thing about this, considering what we just read in Psalm 74, this is almost like an answer to the psalm that we just previously read.

God saying he will do something and he will not allow the arrogant to continue in their way.

Verse six, for not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up.

But it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another.

For in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

But I will declare it forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the wicked

I will cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up. This statement that we have here in verse eight, in the hand of the

Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.

This cup is mentioned in the book of Revelation as the wrath of God that is poured out on the wicked.

This is also the cup that Jesus prayed to the father that he would allow it to pass from him.

Jesus, when he was praying in the garden of Gethsemane, said, Lord, if it be your will, let this cup pass from me.

Not as I will, but as you will. And three times he prayed this according to Matthew's gospel. And it was this cup of wrath that Jesus was hoping he would not have to drink.

If there was another way, God, if there is any other way, let it be that way. But yet Jesus was willing in submission to the will of the father to go to the cross and drink the cup of God's wrath on our behalf.

Second Corinthians 521, for our sake, he became sin who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

He became that atoning sacrifice, taking the wrath of God upon himself for us that all who believe in him will be forgiven their sins and have everlasting life.

Now, those who do not know Jesus, who is the sacrifice for us that took the cup of God's wrath on our behalf to those who don't know

Christ and do not follow him, they will have to take the cup of God's wrath and they will not survive it.

They will be utterly destroyed and committed to eternal punishment forever.

And so we must turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. He who has satisfied the wrath of God, a propitiation for our sins.

Amen. Glory. Hallelujah. Let's close with prayer. Our heavenly father, we thank you for this day in which we can open up the

Psalms and read such glorious promises that have been given to us through your prophets of old.

And we are reminded of the sin of man, that what we deserve is judgment.

We've read a couple of Psalms here about God's judgment being poured out on those who rebel against the

Lord. We ask that you forgive us our sins, that we would recognize that sin early so that we might put it to death and walk in the righteousness that you have set before us in your son,

Jesus Christ. Forgive us our sins, cleanse us of all unrighteousness, and thank you for the gift of your son that has justified us in your presence.

It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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