WWUTT 1104 Arise O God, Judge the Earth?

You know, the Lord has called us to judge, but to judge righteously. Sometimes man gets that right, but most of the time he's pretty terrible at it. When the Lord judges, all His judgments are righteous, when we understand the text.

This is When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe.

Thank you, Becky. We continue our study of the Psalms, and I'm going to try to finish up all of the Psalms of Asaph today. That would be Psalms 80 through 83. Let's start with Psalm 80. I'll read through all 19 verses.

Psalm 80: The Shepherd, the Vine, and the Prayer for Restoration

To the choir master according to lilies, which would have been the piece of music this was set to, a testimony of Asaph a psalm. Give ear, O shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.

Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us. Restore us, O God. Let your face shine that we may be saved. O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?

You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us an object of contention for our neighbors and our enemies laugh among themselves. Restore us, O God of hosts.

Let your face shine that we may be saved. You brought a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it. You cleared the ground for it. It took deep root and filled the land. The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches.

It sent out its branches to the sea and its shoots to the river. Why then have you broken down its walls so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it and all that move in the field feed on it.

Turn again, O God of hosts. Look down from heaven and see. Have regard for this vine, the stalk that your right hand planted, and for the son whom you made strong for yourself. They have burned it with fire.

They have cut it down. May they perish at the rebuke of your face. But let your hand be on the man of your right hand. The son of man whom you have made strong for yourself. Then we shall not turn back from you.

Give us life and we will call upon your name. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved. Like Psalm 79 that we had looked at last week, this is a corporate psalm asking for the Lord's forgiveness, that he would turn to them and he would grant mercy.

Though they had sinned against God, he would not utterly wipe them out, but instead he would hear their prayers. You have in verse four, O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people's prayers?

You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure. You make us an object of contention for our neighbors and our enemies laugh among themselves. This was kind of like what we read in Psalm 79, where it says we have become a taunt to our neighbors, mocked and derided by those around us.

Because of the sin that Israel has committed against God, he has turned them over to their enemies to be punished because of what they have done. And the people of Israel are basically saying here in Psalm 80, we've learned our lesson.

We're convicted of our sin. We understand. Now, are you going to keep your back turned to us forever or will you turn and save us? Is your intention here that we would utterly be wiped out or do you mean to show us mercy?

So asking God that he would show mercy to them and you have such a wonderful beginning extolling the name of the Lord. Give ear, O shepherd of Israel. In other words, Israel recognizes God as our shepherd.

He's not our enemy. He's not trying to drive us out. He's trying to lead us even through this punishment that we have received. You who lead Joseph like a flock, you who are enthroned upon the chair of him, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up your might and come to save us.

What do all of these names have in common? Joseph, Ephraim, Benjamin, Manasseh. They're all descended from Rachel, the favored wife of Jacob. And so it's as though appealing to God to show favor to your servants by mentioning these particular names.

Ephraim and Manasseh were the sons of Joseph. Benjamin was Joseph's brother. So being of those descendants of Rachel, show us favor, O God. This is not at the exclusion of any of the other tribes of Israel, but just mentioning these particular names as though to call favor from the Lord.

Restore us, O God of hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved. That's a phrase that comes up again at the very end of the psalm. And we have you brought out a vine out of Egypt. You drove out the nations and planted it.

In the book of Deuteronomy, God tells Israel that he's called them out of Egypt and he is giving them a land where he is going to plant them. But he says to them, if in this land where I have planted you, you go after other gods, then I'm going to uproot you.

And in so doing, the nations that I was driving out before you, instead, they're going to shake their heads at you. This is Deuteronomy 29, 24. It says all the nations will say, why has the Lord done thus to this land?

What caused the heat of his great anger? We have the anger of God mentioned here in Psalm 80 and the fire that had come upon them. And so verse 25, back to Deuteronomy 29, 25, then people will say it is because they abandoned the covenant of the Lord, the God of their fathers, which he made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt and went and served other gods and worshiped them.

Gods whom they had not known and whom he had not allotted to them. Therefore, the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, bringing upon it all the curses written in this book. And the Lord uprooted them from their land in anger and fury and great wrath and cast them into another land as they are this day.

This is what the nations are saying about Israel because they did not obey God. Then finally, Deuteronomy 29, 29, the secret things belong to the Lord, our God. But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

But if they would so go after other gods and the Lord would have to punish them, he also said to them in the book of Deuteronomy that they should turn back when you remember these words that have been given to you.

Turn back from your sin that the Lord may forgive you. So here we have in this psalm, Psalm 80, 14, turn again, O God of hosts, look down from heaven and see, have regard for this vine, the stock that your right hand planted and for the son whom you made strong for yourself.

They have burned it with fire. They have cut it down. May they perish at the rebuke of your face. Those who have come against us, may they be punished. The Lord has used them to inflict punishment upon Israel, but now may they be punished because they came against your people.

Verse 17, but let your hand be on the man of your right hand, the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself. We have the mention of the son in verse 15, the son of man in verse 17. Now this isn't a direct reference to Christ.

It's not necessarily a messianic revelation or prophecy, but it can be. There can be a correlation to that, though maybe not directly. The Lord Christ is definitely the one who is at the right hand of God, is he not?

And he called himself the son of man based on the prophecy that Daniel made. But even if the reference here is to Israel and not directly to Christ, Jesus is faithful Israel. Israel failed in its faithfulness to the Lord.

Jesus succeeded. So he accomplished everything that Israel failed at. And he is, of course, the son of God at God's right hand, whom he has made strong for himself. Verse 18, then we shall not turn back from you.

Give us life and we will call upon your name. And then finally, at the end here, verse 19, it's kind of like a refrain, a chorus. Restore us, O Lord God of hosts. Let your face shine that we may be saved.

In the book of Numbers, we have this beautiful doxology, Aaron's blessing at the end of number six. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel.

You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. It's a very popular benediction that we have there in the book of Numbers.

The Lord make his face to shine upon you. And that's what the psalmist is praying for here in Psalm 80, that very thing, that same blessing in number six, that the Lord's face would shine upon them. Let's look now at Psalm 81 to the choir master, according to the geteeth of Asaph.

Psalm 81: God Speaks to His People About Idolatry and Discipline

Sing aloud to God our strength, shout for joy to the God of Jacob. Raise a song, sound the tambourine, the sweet lyre with the harp. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the full moon on our feast day.

For it is a statute for Israel, a rule of the God of Jacob. He made it a decree in Joseph when he went out over the land of Egypt. I hear a language I had not known. Now, let's stop there for a moment.

The pause comes up after verse seven. That's where it says Selah, but we're going to make a transition here after verse five. We go from this beginning, which is, of course, the song of the people of Israel that are singing this particular Psalm.

And now we shift to the very words of God. It's gone from Israel singing to God speaking. And here we are in verse six. I relieved your shoulder of the burden. Your hands were freed from the basket. In distress, you called and I delivered you.

I answered you in the secret place of thunder. I tested you at the waters of Meribah. Selah. Now, given that this comes right after Psalm 80, which was a Psalm asking that God would show mercy and grace to them, you would almost think that the Lord is responding by saying, I have heard your pleas.

And so now I am going to deliver you. But this is actually in reference to delivering the people from slavery in Egypt, not delivering them from the punishment that God has brought upon them, because as you're going to see as we go through this Psalm, this is actually God saying, I'm going to punish you because of what you've done.

So this is still like in the context of previous Psalms we've read, like Psalms 80 and 79. So we go on here to verse eight here. Oh, my people, while I admonish you, remember that to admonish means to correct with good will.

Oh, Israel, if you would but listen to me, there shall be no strange God among you. You shall not bow down to a foreign God. I am the Lord, your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

The Lord would bless his people, but they're worshiping false gods. And so the blessing of God is not going to come to them. But rather, God is going to admonish them. He's going to punish them because of the evil that they do.

And he is reminding them of the first of the Ten Commandments. You will have no other God before me. That's right here in Psalm 81 going on to verse 11. But my people did not listen to my voice. Israel would not submit to me.

So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own counsels. Oh, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways. I would soon subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes.

Those who hate the Lord would cringe toward him and their fate would last forever. But he would feed you with the finest of wheat. He would feed you with the finest of wheat and with honey from the rock.

I would satisfy you. What is the promised land supposed to be? But a land flowing with milk and honey, right? But God is going to drive them off the land because they worshiped false gods instead of the Lord God.

Same thing that God said to Israel that God warned Israel about through the prophet Moses when he spoke to them in the book of Deuteronomy. Now we go on to Psalm 82. Again, a Psalm of Asaph. God has taken his place in the divine counsel.

Psalm 82: The Divine Council and the Judgment of Unjust Rulers

In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the fatherless. Maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.

Rescue the weak and the needy. Deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They have neither knowledge nor understanding. They walk about in darkness. All the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, you are gods, sons of the Most High, all of you.

Nevertheless, like men, you shall die and fall like any prince. Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations. So just like the previous Psalm, most of this is in the voice of God.

It says God has taken his place in the divine counsel. In the midst of the gods, he holds judgment. And this is in reference to the rulers of the earth. Even the rulers of the earth, those who sit on thrones of man, they have been made in the image of God.

So therefore, he has given judgment to them, just as God sits enthroned as judge over all of creation. But they have abused their power and used it to benefit themselves rather than defending the cause of the poor and needy.

So the Lord is going to judge them. They think of themselves as gods, but they are going to be reminded that they are but men. And God stands in judgment over them. This, of course, this Psalm, Psalm 82 is used by many, especially prosperity teachers and word of faith heretics to say that we are gods.

And so therefore, you have this little God doctrine is the way that it's referred to. Therefore, we can command things into existence. You can command your own wealth. You can command your own health.

You can command your blessings. You can declare that it is already been done for you, and it will be done for you. This is all wrapped up in prosperity theology and the word of faith movement, the health and wealth gospel declared in it, it will be yours.

Just as God said, let there be. And it was so you can do it yourself. This is what these false teachers teach. Now you'll hear the little God's doctrine less often than you used to. It was a lot more prominent in the 90s in the early 2000s.

But you don't hear it as much anymore because of the stigma that's been attached to it with sound teachers coming out and saying, watch out for this little God's doctrine. So you don't hear it as often, but it's still wrapped up into the prosperity theology.

These guys believe that you can be as God and you can proclaim your own existence or make it your own reality. John Gray, a preacher who's been shamed because of his sexual immorality. I believe he pastors a church or, yeah, I believe he still does.

Pastors a church in North Carolina used to be a pastor under Joel Osteen. But he's a guy who recently preached at Stephen Furtick's church, Elevation Church. And he said this very thing. He didn't call it the little God's doctrine, but he said, your words create your reality.

So if you just speak it into existence, it will be. They continue to say this, even though they don't say anymore that you are gods. There was the guy, Jim Jones, who was responsible for the Jonestown massacre back in the 70s.

He was a guy that preached the little God's doctrine. Of course, Jim Jones even claimed to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. But he said to his people, you are gods. And they all died. So much for that teaching.

It is deadly. It will lead a person to hell. You can see here these persons who thought of themselves as gods, these rulers of the earth. And God reminded them, nope, you're just a man. And like men, you shall die and you will fall like any prince.

And that's the end of the word of God there, at least God speaking. And then verse eight concludes, Arise, O God, judge the earth, for you shall inherit all the nations. God is a much better judge than man is.

So we go to Psalm 83 and we'll conclude with this one. A song, a Psalm of Asaph. O God, do not keep silence. Do not hold your peace or be still, O God. For behold, your enemies make an uproar. Those who hate you have raised their heads.

Psalm 83: God Against the Nations That Conspire Against His People

They lay crafty plans against your people. They consult together against your treasured ones. They say, come, let us wipe them out as a nation. Let the name of Israel be remembered no more. For they conspire with one accord.

Against you, they make a covenant. The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites, Gabal and Ammon and Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre. Asher also has joined them. They are the strong arm of the children of Lot.

Selah, do to them as you did to Midian. As to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon, who were destroyed at Endor, who became dung for the ground. Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeb. All their princes like Zeba and Zalmunna.

Who said, let us take possession for ourselves of the pastures of God. O my God, make them like whirling dust, like chaff before the wind. As fire consumes the forest, as the flame sets the mountains ablaze.

So may you pursue them with your tempest and terrify them with your hurricane. Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek your name, O Lord. Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever. Let them perish in disgrace, that they may know that you alone, whose name is the Lord, are the most high over all the earth.

Yesterday, Dr. Josh Bice on Twitter, he said the following, the shepherds stood in wonder at Jesus' birth. The soldiers stood in wonder at Jesus' death. The witnesses stood in wonder at Jesus' resurrection.

Someday, the whole wide world will stand in wonder at Jesus' return. Jesus will judge all the nations. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the Father, as it says in Philippians 2, 11.

Be on the side that bows before God in reverence, not the side that is bowing before God in fear, before utterly perishing in judgment. Turn to the Lord Jesus Christ and live. Amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you'd like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com and let your friends know about our ministry.

Join us again tomorrow as we grow together in the study of God's word when we understand the text.