100. How the Hymns of Israel PROVE Postmillennialism

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Hello everyone and welcome back to the podcast where we prod the sheep and beat the wolf. This is episode 100, how the hymns of Israel prove post -millennialism.

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Introduction. If you want to learn what a culture values and if you're going to understand the worldview that underpins a nation, well then you must look no further than their songs.

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No matter what the whompy -jawed ideologues say behind their fake smiles and teleprompters, and no matter what manufactured narratives are peddled by the bobblehead pundits in the fake news media, the hopes and dreams of a people will be found most clearly stated in their anthems, ballads, and refrains.

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If you want to know what a society believes in and where their hopes lie, what they think the purpose of life is, and why we're all here, well pay attention to their song lyrics, to their hymns that they produce.

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It will be telling. For instance, let me say this. If I had been living under a rock for a few decades and somehow

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I ended up washing up on the shores of this strange land called the USA, and if I wanted to figure out what this particular people at this particular time valued, well,

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I might look up their top 10 most popular songs for that year. If I did that, and I did that this year,

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I would find out that the people who live in this land believe our purpose in life is to engage in womanizing, emasculation, promiscuous and filthy sex, getting drunk, doing drugs, and being a thoroughgoing moral degenerate.

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But it's all good as long as we have a good time, right? That is the attitude that our culture is celebrating through our songs.

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And while I wish I could say that I'm actually being hyperbolic, I read through the lyrics of the 10 most popular songs that are right now out on the radio, and if anything,

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I am being excessively modest. In the seedy songs that we are singing about who we are, they're debased, they're immoral, and they demonstrate a level of brokenness that this society that we live in has never yet experienced.

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It is incredible and awful all at the same time. And based on our culture's anthems, we are not only very sick and very depraved and very disgusting people, but we've gotten to the point where we're unashamedly proud of it.

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Now, however, this was not the case in ancient Israel, whose hymn book tells a much different story about who they think that they were and what they valued as a society.

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Amid the 150 songs that we have preserved for us in the canon of scripture in the book of Psalms, we can see themes like trust and praise and worship of Yahweh, lament during times of suffering and struggle, repentance and confession, thanksgiving, how he loves us and his covenantal faithfulness to the ones who love him and as well as his sovereignty and his kingship over all things.

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In fact, one of the most prominent themes in the book of Psalms is how God is going to take a sin laden world that was handed down to us by our forefather,

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Adam, and through his own son, he's going to establish a kingdom that fills the world with worshipers, which ties perfectly in with the theme, which we have been considering over the last several weeks.

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Now, if you're new to the party, we've been in a series called a practical post -millennialism where we've been talking about what post -millennialism is.

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We've been arguing that post -millennialism is the story of how God is going to fill a sinful world with worshipers before the curtains close on this old world.

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That is the promise that he made to Adam in the garden before he sinned in Genesis 128 is going to be fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

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This is the promise that God repeated to Noah after sin entered the world,

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Genesis 9 .1. It's the hope that Abraham and his family were going to bless all the families on earth,

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Genesis 12 .3, that every nation on earth was going to come under covenantal blessings because of Abraham's seed,

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Genesis 18 .18. And it's the promise that humans will never be able to do this on our own because we are just like Adam.

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We are far too sinful. So the messianic Shiloh is going to come and he's going to bring obedience and worship to all the nations,

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Genesis 49 .10. And he himself is going to fill the world with worshipers.

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Now we've seen that Jesus is going to do this and that he's going to be the one who takes the promises that God gave to the patriarchs in Genesis.

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He's going to accomplish them and bring them to be because he is the true and better Adam.

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Now last week we saw how those world filling promises are not only contained in the book of Genesis, but they spill out into the pages of Exodus into the story of Israel.

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They are also found in the law in Leviticus numbers in Deuteronomy. They're found in the conquest narratives in Joshua and they're found in the lead up to the era of the

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Kings in the book of Judges and also in the era of the Kings, which is Ruth second

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Samuel or first and second Samuel, first and second Kings and first and second Chronicles. Basically God has littered his old

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Testament with promises that the world is going to be filled with worshipers. And we saw that last week.

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We saw that these cosmic promises were given by God. So we know that they're going to be fulfilled.

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God's not going to abandon his plan. He's not going to jump ship before everything that he wanted to accomplish is accomplished.

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And before the last grain of sand falls through the hourglass of time, God will have done it.

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He will have filled the world with worshipers through his one and only son, Jesus Christ. These are his promises.

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And do we really believe that he's not going to fulfill them? Now today we're going to see how the book of Psalms, as we transition out of the era of the

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Kings now to the songs of Israel, we're going to see how they take these glorious themes and they sing them back to us.

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Sometimes even shouting them at us like a metal concert with loud crashing cymbals going off in the background so that we would really have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to miss the throbbing chorus today.

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As we move out of the history of the Kings and we move into the poetry and the songs of Israel, we're going to see how the hymn book of God, how his people's songbook echoes the promise of a better King, a ferocious

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King, a King who's going to put down all of his enemies and he's going to crush them underneath his feet so that he, that King will fill the world with worshipers just like God has promised.

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Part one, a song for crushing enemies. Now as men have become increasingly emasculated in our culture and as radical feminism has run its course through the societal veins like rat poison, well, the widespread view of Jesus has shifted away from the warrior priest

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King to the humble, lovable wuss. Now, if that stings a little bit, it's only because it's true.

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In art and movies, we have shamefully depict the Lion of Judah as a long flowing hair, soft and supple skin, longing eye looking woman with a well manicured beard.

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In popular, even jellyfish music, Jesus has become the emotional boyfriend in the sky to whom we belt out all of our emotive, mantric babblings, hoping that he will wrap us up in warm worshipful hugs.

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This is ironic because the songs that we sing concerning him in scripture are masculine and ferocious.

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The Psalms not only focus on his affections, but also his wrath against the wicked.

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And it's here that we learn no matter how sappily evangelicalism tries to paint this

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Lion of Judah, no matter how loud they roar that we lose down here, the softening of this

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King and the defeat of his people does not show up in the book of Psalms.

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It doesn't work. He is not a mere savior of souls working for a kingdom filled with heart playing toga wearing cloud riders.

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This prevailing notion of a weak, effeminate Christ suggests that the church's role essentially to crash and burn in this lifetime, to retreat from a world like cowards in anticipation of a heavenly reward, sidelining kingdom advancement and sidelining progress because those things aren't godly.

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Our role is to lose. Our role is to be a doormat. Our role is to be meek and mild sugar and spice everything nice and never advance the kingdom because that is aggressive.

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And Jesus was never aggressive unless you consider that time where he overthrew the tables and he called the

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Pharisees whitewashed tombs and told Jerusalem that they were going to be turned into a heaping pile of rubble. But forget about those parts.

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We're only talking about the meek and mild Jesus. You see, those people argue that Jesus is not actively building his kingdom on earth because he's focused on spiritual things.

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However, that image starkly contrasts with the robust, authoritative, kingly Messiah that's depicted in the

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Psalms. And we ought to look at that in God's God breathed anthems in the hymn book of Israel.

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Jesus is not depicted as a distant, passive. Skinny, jean wearing figure.

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Instead, he emerges as a mighty warrior, a king, not only concerned with the afterlife, but vigorously involved in the life of his people here on earth, establishing his rule, his authority, his dominion across the entire globe.

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And there will be setbacks. There will be enemies who rise up and pop off at the mouth.

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There will be times like the scriptures are not silent about those kinds of moments. Right now, our government is tyrannical and God hating.

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The Bible is not silent about that. But they are also, the scriptures are not quiet about the

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Messiah standing as the indomitable general leading the charge against the hordes of hell until every enemy of God has been crushed under King Jesus's feet.

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The Bible doesn't whisper about that. The Bible is not quiet about that. The Bible roars about that.

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And in that sense, the Psalms are not just little songs. They're not just little do -diddies that we sing in order to make ourself feel better.

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They are war cries. They're declarations of victory by a king who will bring utter devastation and ruin upon his enemies.

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Take, for example, Psalm 2 and Psalm 110. These are not gentle whispers of a far off distant hope.

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They are booming thunderclaps of God's immutable promise. Psalm 2, 7 through 12 says,

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I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord. He said to me, you are my son. Today, I have begotten you.

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Ask of me and I will surely give the nations as your inheritance and the very ends of the earth as your possession.

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You shall break them with a rod of iron. You shall shatter them like earthenware. Now, therefore,

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O King, show discernment. Take warning, O judges of the earth. Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

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Do homage to the son that he not become angry and you perish along the way. For in his wrath may soon be kindled.

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How blessed are all who take refuge in him. Now, although David wrote this song, he's not talking about himself.

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He's an outsider to this scene. He is nothing more than a privileged spectator who's returned and reported to all of us what he beheld, what he saw within the interactions going on in the

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Godhead. He is writing a song about a conversation that God the Father and God the

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Son are having with one another. A song where the Father is going to bring his son to the earth as his only begotten.

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A song where the Father is going to give his son all of the rebel nations on earth as the inheritance for his obedience.

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Jesus doesn't get all the nations on earth by falling into the sin of Satan. You remember Satan took him up on a high place and said,

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I will give you all of the nations on earth. No, Jesus succeeded in that test because he knew that God the

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Father was going to give him all the nations on earth. And that's alluded to in Matthew 28, 18, when he says, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

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Jesus, for his obedience on the cross, gained the nations and he will begin the process of overthrowing all of the sedition on earth, breaking the pieces.

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Everyone who participates in insurrection against God, when he ascends to heaven.

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Because as the New Testament tells us, and the New Testament certainly quotes Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is one of the most quoted

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Old Testament passages in the New Testament. It quotes it in saying that Jesus is going to accomplish this at his incarnation, at his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.

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The work of Christ is going to bring him into the rule that Psalm 2 is talking about.

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And he's going to rule the nations with a rod of iron. He's going to shatter all of the Father's enemies like pottery shards.

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This is why the world's kings are told to be wise and to take warning and to take this passage very seriously.

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They're not told to repent in terror because Jesus is going to build a kingdom that loses down here and has no impact down here.

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No, they're not told to tremble in their boots because Jesus is going to do something so fantastic that only has any relevancy in the heavens.

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No, they're told to be terrified because if they do not turn from their evil ways in order to worship this messianic king on the earth and pay homage to him in his rule on earth, then he will overthrow them and displace them from here, burying them here in his righteous wrath.

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God the Father in Psalm 2 is promising that Jesus is going to win down here.

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He's going to rule down here, and he's going to crush everyone who opposes that rule down here.

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That is far from what we hear out of the evangelical bobbleheads that have told us, no, that we lose down here.

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No, no, no, no. There it is in the text. You've seen it. And you can even pause this video and study this passage for a moment if that would be helpful.

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Go ahead. I will wait. Assuming you're back now, we see that this

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Messiah doesn't come as a passive observer of world history, but as a relentless conqueror of it.

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He is the one who claims every inch of this earth as his rightful domain because he won it.

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He earned it. This is his inheritance for his obedience on the cross. Psalm 2 lays the groundwork for us to see the kingdom of God, not as a spiritual piece of land in heaven that we all go to in a disembodied soul.

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No. The kingdom of God also is a tangible possession, a tangible asset, a tactile reward given to Christ after what he did on the cross, and it's going to affect how we live here and now.

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This is his property. He purchased it. He owns it. This isn't symbolism. It's raw physical reality.

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God isn't making empty threats. He's laying down the law of the land. He's forecasting a future where his anointed son, who now owns the nations, is going to bring those nations under his rule, dominion, and authority.

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And he's either going to do that through pouring out blessings on those who are his or by crushing those who aren't with his iron royal scepter.

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Take for instance another psalm, Psalm 110. There, you're not going to see a quiet scene from precious moments.

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No, you're going to instead see a battlefield where the Messiah has piled up dead bodies, one on top of the next, for all those who oppose him.

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The psalm says this. The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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The Lord will stretch forth your strong scepter from Zion, saying, rule in the midst of your enemies.

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Your people will volunteer freely in the day of your power and holy array from the womb of the dawn.

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Your youth are to you as the dew. The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind.

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You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand, and he will shatter the kings in the day of his wrath.

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He will judge among the nations. He will fill them full of corpses. He will shatter the chief men over a broad country.

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He will drink from the brook by the wayside, and therefore he will lift up his head.

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Psalm 110. Now again, David does not communicate his personal experience here.

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He is standing at a distance. He is watching the communication between the father and the son. David is saying that the

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Lord spoke to my Lord. David is saying that God, who is the Lord, spoke to David's Lord, who is

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Jesus, meaning that God spoke to Jesus saying that Jesus is going to sit down at his right hand, and he's going to rule until every one of the father's enemies have been put successfully under the

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Messiah's feet. And since Jesus sat down at the right hand of God to rule during his ascension, his reign on earth will not be completed until all of his enemies, all his foes, all his opposition are thoroughly put down, and also until he's multiplied his people to the very rims of this

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God -fashioned blue marble that we live on. The Messiah is positioned at the right hand of power itself.

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He's there now, and he's not waiting for a future time to reign. He is reigning now.

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He is subduing his enemies, which means that he's on the throne reigning now. He's been doing that for the last 2 ,000 years.

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He's been pushing his kingdom forward and crushing the kingdom of man. This imagery of Jesus is not palatable to the

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Jesus meek and mild, sweet and spice sort of only crowd, but it's who Jesus is. It's who the

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Bible says that he is. And if you want to understand the Bible correctly, then you need to be willing to see Jesus portrayed as the father himself portrays him.

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He is this rugged, manly royal king, the son of man who

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God portrays in these ways, not as an effeminate, skinny jean -wearing

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Messiah who folds when any little wind blows him down. The Psalms, not just individual verses, not just individual chapters, they sketch a portrait of a world that is going to be irrevocably altered by this reigning king's authority and dominion.

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Take, for instance, Psalm 72. This is not just a prayer for prosperity, it is a prophetic glimpse into a future where the king's enemies are totally crushed, where his dominion stretches from sea to shining sea, where his adversaries are left with nothing but licking up the dust to their own shame.

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Psalm 72 is not forecasting a temporary peace or a momentary millennial ceasefire. It is heralding an ever -increasing era of righteous dominion where God's justice is going to flow down to this earth like rivers and peace like unending streams.

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This is what the Psalms are singing about. They're not like our depraved songs that sing about every single depravity and lust under heaven.

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No. And these Psalms are also not singing about a feathered -haired Jesus who refuses to get involved in the affairs of men.

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These Psalms are singing about a Messiah who wields infinite power, ultimate grace, love and grit, a ruler who is as comfortable in the courts of heaven as he is in fighting in the trenches here on earth.

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He brings his war and his conflict because filling the world with worshipers is

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God's plan for the world. And it's a two -part plan, it's a two -part work. To fill the world with worshipers, you have to do two things.

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The first thing is you have to build up the people of God. And the second thing is you have to tear down the enemies of God.

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And he's going to do both. He's going to do both of them simultaneously until he has increased his church to the very ends of the earth, until he has tore apart every rebel and has left their bodies, as Psalm 110 says, laying piled up in the sand, until no rebellion is left and the world is filled with worshipers.

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That is what the Psalms are calling you and I to sing. Part two, a song of global rule.

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When Isaac Watts, the prolific hymn writer and ardent post -millennialist, wrote these famous words, he said this,

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He rules the world with truth and grace and lets the nations prove the glories of his righteousness and the wonders of his love,

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Isaac Watts, 1719. Now Isaac Watts was not talking about a future reign of Christ after a millennial period or after a tribulation or anything like that.

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No, he wasn't talking about what Jesus was going to eventually come and do after a seven year tribulation and Antichrist and Armageddon and all of that.

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Isaac Watts was claiming that this is what Jesus is doing right now.

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And he would implore us, joy to the world. The king has come to earth and established his rule and his blessings here and now.

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And while we, you and I, we're not living in an era where this kingdom has come in full.

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We are living in a time when it's come in part. We're not living in a time when all the enemies of God have been put under his feet, but we are living in a time where some of his enemies have been put under his feet.

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We're not living during the fullest expression of God's blessings, where he's going to pour out his blessings on all the nations.

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But we are living in a time where increasingly his blessings are being poured out on those who love him.

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We can see that even though that these things have not come in full, they are coming and they're coming more and more and more.

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And they have been for the last 2000 years. Jesus is bringing his rule on earth as far as the curse is found until the curse can no longer be found.

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Matthew 6 10. According to the Psalm, Jesus not only crushes his enemies, but he will eventually rule over every single

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Adam on earth through increasing expressions of his dominion, power and glory and blessing.

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Psalm 72 11. This reign of Christ is going to continue until all of the good things that God promised

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Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah come on this world so full, so dense, so richly filled that there's no more room left for things like sin and misery and rebellion.

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Now, I'm not saying that the world's going to be perfect. I am saying, though, that that there is going to be a marked increase in the blessings of God and a marked decrease of the things of hell.

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For instance, God promises that he's going to sit as judge over this world, bringing his perfect justice and righteousness to all the peoples.

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God promises he's going to bring all of his justice, his equity and his truth to the people. He's not going to do that through a

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DEI project at your woke company. He's going to do that through him being the judge and the king.

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Psalm 9 8. He's going to come like a cosmic king. His kingdom is going to fill the world with his dominion.

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Psalm 22 8. And because his reign is going to become so ubiquitous, that means it's going to spread out so fully that he's going to leave no rebel stone unturned.

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All the nations are going to sing an intelligent merrymaking praise about the awesome nature of the

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God with whom we serve. Psalm 47 7 through 8. They're saying that all the nations are not just going to sing begrudgingly.

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They're going to sing intelligently. They're going to know this God. They're going to worship this God. That has not yet been fulfilled, but it will be according to Psalm 47 7 through 8.

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The Psalms reveal that his rule, wherever feet strike the ground and whether heads rest on pillows, his rule is going to fill those spaces.

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Psalm 96 2 through 3 in verse 10. These are not spiritual promises that only come true in heaven.

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These are things that are going to happen here on earth, here on the ground, under the canopy of God's sovereign son's reign.

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Part 3. A song for global worship. The psalmist also promised that God will make his glory known among the nations.

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Psalm 102 15 through 16. He will make known his saving power in all the nations so that the whole world will eventually be filled with his praises.

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Psalm 67 1 through 4. This means that he's not going to stop saving people, bringing saving faith until every tribe, tongue, nation, people, group, and family praise him, causing the world's global diverse assortment of red, yellow, black, and white, all the ones who are precious in his sight to echo in harmonious praises to God.

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Psalm 98 2 through 4. This again is nothing short of a messianic king doing what

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Adam should have done but could not do, filling the world with worshipers to the glory of God.

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The Psalms command us to sing these kinds of things, to sing these truths because why?

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So that we'll never forget them. The Psalms command us to sing God's praises and to do it not just hidden away in our churches but to do it in the nations.

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The Psalms command us to sing God's praises to the nations, to the peoples, to go out into the world and sing the praises of God.

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Psalm 9 11. To fill the world with his glad tidings and celebrate his blessings. Psalm 96 1 through 3.

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To give thanks to him among the people. Psalm 18 49. To declare his glory among the people.

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Psalm 57 5. And every time zone, latitude and longitude. Psalm 113 3. So that all the nations on earth will remember and turn to the

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Lord and join the growing chorus. The reason that we sing the Psalms and the reason that we sing them out in public is so that all the nations will come to know

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God and will join us in our song. Psalm 22 27. The Psalms command

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Egypt and Ethiopia to come and join the chorus. Psalm 68. The Psalms tell men and women from every nation to come and join the chorus.

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Psalm 86 9. The Psalm tells the kings and the dignitaries, the presidents, the potentates, the all of the rulers and every authority to come and join the chorus.

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Psalm 138 4 through 5. Why? So that the entire world from the top to the bottom, from the tallest to the smallest, from the fattest to the skinniest, whatever, whatever you want to say.

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So that all of them would unite together to bless his name forever.

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Psalm 72 19. So that all of us would shout joyfully to our God forever.

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Psalm 66 1 through 4. So that the entire world would radiate with the praises of God.

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That's the reason God created the world and under the reign of Jesus, it will come to pass.

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None of the passages that I just cited to you have to do with a realm that is relocated to heaven.

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None of those are spiritual kingdom passages or life in the eternal state passages. Those are passages.

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Those are expectations. Those are commands and priorities that God has promised that he's going to bring on earth through the hymn book of his people, that he's going to do all of this before this world comes to an end.

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Brother and sister, I know it's easy to believe the lie that the world is getting ever worse.

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That the church is getting weaker and weaker and everything is soon going to collapse into a moment of ruin.

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But that is simply not what the scriptures are teaching. Are we living in a downward period in our nation's history?

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Yeah. Are we living in a dark season of our country? Absolutely.

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Do our leaders hate God and promote unrighteousness? Yes. Yes, they do. But I want you to think about our time period as kind of like riding an airplane from New York to Tokyo, a long flight, 18 hours or more.

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On the airline flight, you're going to hit moments of turbulence. You're going to hit pockets of great turbulence where the plane rises and falls at a moment's notice.

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And you're going to think, man, this thing is going down. But it's not. We are not crashing, brothers and sisters.

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We are not failing. The plane is not going down. And it's not because you and I say so. It's because God says so.

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We are not failing because the one who has promised these things and has sent his son to accomplish these things and has sent his spirit to indwell his bride, the church to be his helper, to help the bridegroom achieve these things, has said that they will come true.

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And there's no room for failure in that. To ignore these truths and these promises is to say that they will not and cannot occur.

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And that is to doubt the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And if you want to do that, I pray you do that with fear and trembling.

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Because God said these things clearly in his word. Why would you doubt him? As we draw to a close in our very brief survey of the

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Psalms, it's important for us to recognize that Israel's hymn book supports our thesis that God created the world to be filled with worshipers.

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That is the end for which God created the world. And he will not stop until those ends are accomplished.

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That's why David says in Psalm 67, too, that your way may be known on earth, that your salvation among the nations, again, in Psalm 72, 17, may his name endure forever.

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May his name increase as long as the sun shines and let men bless themselves by him.

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Let all the nations call him blessed. David's praying that God's name would increase as long as the sun exists.

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So as long as the sun rises and falls, his kingdom will expand. It's not a decreasing kingdom.

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It's not a shrinking kingdom. The nations are going to find themselves blessed under him because he is expanding his kingdom of the ends of the earth.

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It says it again in Psalm 98, 2 -3, the Lord has made known his salvation. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.

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He has remembered his loving kindness and his faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of God.

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One more, Psalm 96, 10 -13, the psalmist says, say among the nations, the

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Lord reigns. Yes, the world is established. It shall never be moved.

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He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice and let the seas roar and let everything that fills it, let the fields exult and everything in it.

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Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth and he will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his faithfulness.

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At this point, at least from my perspective, the matter has been settled.

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God is preparing his world to come under the reign of his son and it has in his death, burial, and resurrection.

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And under that reign, it will be filled with worshipers. That is going to require Jesus crushing his enemies and raising up all whom the father has called to faith.

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And Jesus is going to fill the world with the songs of Yahweh's praise through his spirit in his church.

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Yes and amen. As Psalm 96 tells us, the heavens are glad. And you know why they're glad?

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They're glad because the sun came. He says that the dirt rejoices about the coming of the sun.

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The sea, the seas and the oceans sing a worshipful shanty concerning the coming of Christ.

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The trees in the forest clap their limbs and rhythmic praise because of him. And now that he has come and now that he has saved us, and now that he has died on the cross to rescue us from our sin, and now that he's justified us, and now that he's sanctified us, and now that he has indwelled us by the power of his spirit, he is going to take the most rebellious little critters in the cosmos.

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You and I, and he's going to make us join with the birds, the rocks, the sky, the trees and hallowing the father's name on every plot of earth on this planet.

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In the Psalms, we are preparing for a king to come and crush his enemies and to fill this world with worshipers whose songs are going to waft up to the heavens, whose songs are going to bounce off the space stations because they're so loud here on earth.

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Praise God almighty that this king has come, that he has been enacting his plan for the last 2000 years and he's not going to stop until he is finished.

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Conclusion. David Chilton once famously said, there is a very important connection between the church's worldview and the church's hymns.

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If your heart and mouth are filled with songs of victory, you will tend to have an eschatology of dominion.

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But if instead your songs are fearful, expressing a longing for escape, or if they're weak, childish ditties, your worldview and your expectations will be escapist and childish.

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Historically, the basic hymn book for the church has been the book of Psalms. The largest book of the

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Bible is the book of Psalms and God providentially placed it right in the middle of the

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Bible so that we couldn't miss it. Yet how many churches use the Psalms in their musical worship?

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It is noteworthy that the church's abandonment of dominion eschatology coincided with the church's abandonment of the

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Psalms. Brothers and sisters, as we conclude today's journey through the theological depths of the

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Psalms, I'm compelled to call us back to a rugged faith. The faith of our forefathers, an unapologetic faith that isn't about tickling ears or spouting platitudes that make us comfortable in our pews.

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It's about reclaiming the robust, meaty, staky truths that the

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Psalms hurl at us like a divine hammer shattering our modern illusions. In the introduction today, we contrasted the emasculated and depraved anthems of our decaying culture with the war cries of ancient

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Israel. Brothers and sisters, this wasn't just an academic exercise. It was a clarion call for you and I to wake up and smell the brimstone.

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Our society's songs are anthems of despair and degeneracy. They're a far cry from the

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Psalms, which resonate with hope, strength, sovereignty, and sacred duty. Today, we've kind of walked through the valleys and we scaled the heights of the

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Psalms, and I think what we've discovered is not a meek and mild shepherd boy's poetic musing, but battle hymns that have been given to us by the king of kings.

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These aren't soft, soothing lullabies of a bygone era. They are thundering, soul -stirring marches of a warrior

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God who calls us to his side in the cosmic battle for creation. Let's get something straight.

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This isn't about promoting a brutish or belligerent form of Christianity. Far from it.

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I'm not talking about pick up your swords and go to war. I want to be very clear with that. It is about understanding that our faith is not a retreat from the world, but it's a conquest of it in the name of Christ.

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The Messiah depicted in the Psalms is not sitting in the heavens, twiddling his thumbs and waiting for us to scrape by or get beat up so badly that he finally has to come and return and rescue us.

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That's not what the Psalms are about. That's not what the Bible's about. No, he is the one who is reigning victorious now.

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He's the one who's actively crushing his enemies beneath his feet, and he's the one who's expanding his kingdom through us, his church.

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It might not be happening on your time horizon. It might be going a little slower than what you think is that it should, but it's been happening over the last 2000 years, and we know that from scripture, if you believe what it says, it will continue to happen until it is finished.

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Brothers and sisters, our engagement with the Psalms demands a response. What you've seen today, what

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I've read to you today, it demands a response. It's not enough to nod in agreement and to click the like button and the share button and to carry on just like you did before.

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If your heart and your hymn book are full of defeat and despair, then it's time for a reformation.

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We have got to ditch the weak -kneed theology that's infiltrated our ranks and put on the whole armor of God and be ready to fight with the good fight with confidence that Christ Jesus is winning.

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Remember, the Psalms don't call us to a passive, defeated life, waiting for the end times to consume us.

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We're not hanging on by a thread here. They call us to action. They call us to dominion.

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They call us to take up the mantle of our king and to push his kingdom forward here on earth as it is in heaven.

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This isn't about a future hope alone, but it's about a present reality. It's about Christ reigning now, and he is accomplishing his will in your life, in your family's life, and in your church's life.

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Brothers and sisters, don't live defeated. Read your Bible like you're participating in war.

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Pray like you're on your walkie -talkie calling your commander. Pray and work and serve and start businesses and live your life in such a way that everything you do gives glory and honor to God because this is what we're here for.

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We are here as the helpmate of Jesus to spread his kingdom to the ends of the earth, and then he will return.

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We are here to prepare this place while he prepares a place for us in heaven, and when he's finished, he will come, and he will say, well done, my good and faithful servant.

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But until then, don't stop working. So as we wrap up today,

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I want to challenge you men of God. I want to challenge you sisters to live out the truth that you have seen today in the book of Psalms.

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Let them not just be words on a page, but battle cry for your heart and for your day. Engage in culture.

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Bring Jesus' war with confidence because you know that he is going to complete the story that he started.

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Know that your weapons of warfare are not bombs and grenades and M16s. Your weapons of warfare are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self -control.

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Your weapons are prayer and the means of grace. Your weapons are going to church every week and being a rebel by being at the

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Lord's table every single week. Your weapons are love your wife like Christ loves the church and wives love your husbands like the church loves

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Christ and submit yourselves to him. Brothers and sisters, our weapons is bringing all of Christ into all of life.

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We're not called to be spiritual wallflowers. We're not called to hide away in our churches. We're called to be faithful Christians in every single sector of our life so that the spiritual battle that's raging around us will come under the dominion of Christ through his faithfulness and through our faithfulness to his plan through his purposes.

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Brothers and sisters, stand firm in the faith. Be courageous. Be strong.

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Do everything that you do in love. Men act like men. Women act like women. There should be no gender confusion in the kingdom of God.

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Men act like it. Women act like it. Do everything you do with strength and resolve, humility, and grace.

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Work in such a way that the world knows that you're a Christian. Does your boss know that you're a Christian?

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Does your mailman know that you're a Christian? Live your life in such a way so that everyone knows who you are.

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Let them know by singing the Psalms of God. Let them know by telling them the promises of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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Let them know that Jesus Christ is the risen one and that God himself is his father.

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We have to move out of the shadow of defeatism and into the light of victorious faith.

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We've got to live our faith as if we're not ashamed of it anymore. Brothers and sisters, we shouldn't walk out into the world with our heads down and afraid to pray in public because we don't want someone to notice us.

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We've got to live boldly, authentically, vibrantly. We've got to show the world who Jesus is through our life and through our words.

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Our churches have got to become bastions of hope and truth instead of epicenters of defeatism.

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We've got to let our hearts be filled, our homes be filled, our hearts be filled with the songs of Jesus's victory, for he is the king who has come.

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He is here. He is reigning now. He is victorious. And one day, every corner of the world is going to be filled with Christians.

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Men and women, have children. Fill the world with worshipers that way. If you're more on the evangelistic side, tell your friends and neighbors, fill the world with Christians that way.

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We've got to march forward under the banner of Christ, who is the lion of Judah, not the pussycat of Galilee.

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He is the king of kings. He is the lord of lords. He is the one who's going to let, who's going to invigorate us to sing his psalms of victory and dominion and hope across the nations, so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters covers the seas.

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Amen. Thank you so much for watching another episode of the podcast.

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This is episode 100. That means we've been doing this a hundred times at this point, and I'm so thankful that you have subscribed, that you've liked this show, and that you share this show with your friends.

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Over the past three months since we went on YouTube, I keep telling you that our show is growing.

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It's continued to grow. It's quadrupled in size since we began. Our subscribers are almost at 400.

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We're, I don't even know where all of this is coming from, but thank you. Thank you for all that you do and sharing this show.

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If you haven't liked it, if you haven't subscribed to it, do that so that you can get notifications. If you want to support us further, you can go to www .theshepherds

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.church and click the giving tab. Every dollar that you give to the Shepherds Church is going to reach men and women through things like this, through the

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Lord's Day gatherings, and through other ministries that we're doing at this church, trying to see Jesus made famous and made much of in New England.

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And if you're not in New England and you're watching this, take these truths and make them known in your churches, make them known in your neighborhoods, in your communities.

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We can see the world filled with worshipers because God said it's going to happen.

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Let us not be the generation that sat on our laurels because we were too scared to try. Let us be the generation that when we get to heaven and we look

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King Jesus in the face, he smiles and says, wow, well done, my good and faithful servant.

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Till next time, God bless you. We'll see you again on the podcast. I'll see you next time.