WWUTT 1139 Rejoice in the Lord all the Earth?

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There are some very popular psalms we're going to be looking at today. One of these psalms in particular has inspired a very famous hymn.

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We'll see if you can catch it when we understand the text. This is

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When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary to help encourage your time in the Word. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we feature

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New Testament Study, an Old Testament book on Thursday, and our Q &A on Friday.

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Now here's your teacher, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. We come back to our Old Testament study on Thursday, which we've been in the psalms, and so picking up where we left off last week, we'll be in Psalm 96.

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There is no author of this psalm that is mentioned at the beginning, but it is a song that celebrates

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God's reign over creation. Let's begin here, verse 1. Oh, sing to the

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Lord a new song. Sing to the Lord all the earth. Sing to the

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Lord, bless His name. Tell of His salvation from day to day.

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Declare His glory among the nations, His marvelous works among all the peoples.

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For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods.

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For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the Lord made the heavens.

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Splendor and majesty are before Him. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

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Ascribe to the Lord, O families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

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Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Bring an offering and come into His courts.

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Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before Him all the earth.

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Say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Yes, the world is established.

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It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity. Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice.

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Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field 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.

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For He comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in His faithfulness.

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So I think the psalm is pretty self -explanatory, right? I mean, we're worshiping an exalting God and with great joy and elation in our hearts as we do so.

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Furthermore, you probably recognize how this comes up over and over in the psalms saying, sing to the nations, let all the nations rejoice.

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And Israel was used by God at that time to sing his praises, not just among this people whom he had called out of slavery to himself, or he had singled out from the nations for himself.

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But even that Israel would be a witness to the nations of the goodness and glory of God.

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And certainly there was a bit of foreshadowing there in that the message of God would go out to all the nations in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And the church today stands as a witness to the entire world of the goodness of God that he has given to us in his son.

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So we come back here to Psalm 96, verse one, Oh, sing to the Lord, a new song, sing to the

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Lord, all the earth. Now, there wasn't really any clear lines of separation in like sections in this song.

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A lot of times we see the sections of the psalm separated by the word, say, la, that that pause of reflection.

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We don't have say, la, appear in this psalm, but there are actually very three clear movements in this particular song, and they are opened with exhortation.

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So this first section is right here at the very beginning, and we see it come up three times.

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Oh, sing to the Lord, sing to the Lord, sing to the Lord. The next movement begins at verse seven.

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And again, that exhortation comes three times. Ascribe to the Lord, ascribe to the

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Lord, ascribe to the Lord. And then the last exhortation is a little bit different. It comes up three times, though it's not the same phrase three times.

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It says, let the heavens, let the sea, let the field. And that's in verses 11 and 12.

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So let's start again at the very beginning here. Verse one. Oh, sing to the Lord, a new song, sing to the

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Lord, all the earth, sing to the Lord, bless his name. Remember, this is a song.

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So you're looking for repeated patterns in the song that kind of open up a theme in this poetry.

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Tell of his salvation from day to day. And this is not just according to Israel, but this is a testimony even to the nations so that the nations would know that God is the

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God who saves declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous works among all the peoples.

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And that is that's talking about Gentiles there, whether it's using the word nations or using the word all the peoples for great is the

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Lord and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all gods.

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For all the gods of the prophets are worthless idols. But the Lord made the heavens.

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You think of the contrast there between idols, false gods, and the Lord God, false gods.

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These idols, they're all made. They're manmade. But the Lord himself made man.

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An idol is a lifeless thing. But the Lord is life and the one who gives life. The Lord made the heavens.

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Splendor and majesty are before him. Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.

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He has a dwelling place where he resides. Holy is that place. We cannot get to it.

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But the Lord is the one who has sought us out and invited us into his presence.

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And he alone is worthy of our worship. Verse seven is where we see the next movement.

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Ascribe to the Lord. Oh, families of the peoples, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

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Ascribe to the Lord the glory. Do his name. Bring an offering and come into his courts.

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Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. Tremble before him all the earth.

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So God alone is worthy of our worship. And we are to ascribe to him. Now, think about this.

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God is holy. He is perfect. He is righteous. Incomparable to anything that we might point at and say, look, the glory and holiness and righteousness of God.

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He is just so holy. There is nothing that we can point to and say, God is like this.

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And so, therefore, any words that we have to offer up to God are never they are never going to be high enough, never going to be lofty enough.

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To describe just how good and how great God is yet, we should nevertheless worship him for God has called us to that.

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And that language that we can lift up and exalt to him is never going to fully encapsulate or or represent

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God in the holiness that he has. But nevertheless, the Lord has blessed us in receiving those words that we lift up to his name.

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We are to ascribe to him glory and strength. Scripture even tells us how we are to worship

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God. It will never, ever be good enough. But God accepts it because he is merciful.

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He is gracious. He receives our worship, though it is not enough. Yet he receives it because God is good.

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So we should worship him according to how scripture says he is to be worshipped and says what we should ascribe to his name.

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Ascribe families of the peoples, a family worship, everybody coming together to worship

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God, ascribe glory and strength, ascribe the glory, do his name, bring an offering, worship the

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Lord in the splendor of holiness, tremble before him all the earth. There's three ways that we can worship him right there.

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Bring an offering, bring an offering with your whole heart, desire that it would go unto the

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Lord and that he would use it for his glory. Worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness.

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Sing songs, praises unto his name as is being done here. Speak of his holiness and praise him for it and tremble before him all the earth, knowing that he is

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God. We can't even look at him. Our eyes could never behold him.

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They would burn right out of our skulls if he were to appear in front of us right now in all of his holiness and glory.

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We would be vanquished to nothing because of how awesome and mighty he is.

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And yet we are to tremble before him, knowing that he is God and he is great and powerful, welcomes us into his presence.

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So how wonderful and marvelous that is, how glorious a thing it is to come into God's presence, to be able to pray to him and utter his name and not be wiped out for saying his name, though we are feeble creatures, right?

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He has received our worship when we worship him according to how his word has said he is to be worshiped.

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We worship in the way he is, he says to worship him, not the way that we want to worship him.

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So verse 10, say among the nations, the Lord reigns. Yes, the world is established.

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It shall never be moved. He will judge the peoples with equity, meaning that God judges fairly.

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He does not show partiality. That's said over and over again in the scriptures, whether it's from the law,

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James says it in his epistle, verse 11, let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice.

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Let the sea roar and all that fills it. Let the field exalt and everything in it. Here we have that that final movement here.

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Then all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes all this to say that all of creation is subdued before God as mighty and as great as creation might be all around us.

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God is even more powerful and more mighty than all of this. He comes to judge the earth.

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He will judge the world in righteousness and the people's in faithfulness.

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And that's a theme that you're going to see come up in the Psalms that we look at today. We go next to Psalm 97.

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The Lord reigns again. No author is mentioned here, but such lofty and high language to describe the the kingship of God.

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Verse one, the Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice. Let the many coastlands be glad.

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Clouds and thick darkness are all around him. Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

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All of that to say that we can't see God. He is shrouded in mystery.

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He is invisible. The apostle Paul mentions that about him in first Timothy chapter one. He is the immortal, invisible

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God. And and yet his power is even displayed in this. Yet we see righteousness and justice, the foundation of his throne.

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And this is how he rules and reigns over all the earth. Verse three, fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around.

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His lightnings light up the world. The earth sees and trembles. The mountains melt like wax before the

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Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. If you've ever lived around mountains, then you know how mighty a statement this is.

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Mountains are huge, man. And even from a distance, it's like you behold this mountain and it's it's huge and glorious.

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And then as you get closer to it, you even start to explore that mountain or travel up that mountain and you see that there's all kinds of of layers to it.

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You go to this summit and then that summit and you still not gotten to the top of the mountain and as high as mountains are and as nearly impossible as they are to climb, though there are certainly people that have conquered them, but it's it's few and far between.

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Yet God is even more mighty than this. He even causes the mountains to melt like wax.

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Fire goes before him, burns up his adversaries all around. And when a person dies by the hand of God, he is just in this execution.

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It is not murderous. It is not unfair or unjust of God to ever strike a person down or judge someone for any reason, for he is righteous and we are not.

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And this goes back to once again, righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. So who has any ground to say to God that he is not just?

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Everything he does is justice. In the book of Deuteronomy, all his ways are justice.

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Verse six, the heavens proclaim his righteousness and all the peoples see his glory.

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All worshipers of images are put to shame who make their boast in worthless idols.

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Worship him, all you gods. So this is similar to kind of the the deviation that we have in the previous

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Psalm and Psalm 96, where we go from worshiping an exalting God to like, get these idols away from me.

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Right. That's kind of the way that Psalm 97 comes into that as well. We're worshiping

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God, the one who has created all things, not the one who is created by things. The statement worship him, all you gods is kind of tongue in cheek because the idol itself is lifeless.

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And so it can't worship God. But the idol was made by man.

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So therefore, man, to a certain extent, makes himself a god when he fashions a god.

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So the man who has committed evil in this way is being told here to repent and worship the

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Lord. Therefore, worship him, all you gods, you who think that you fashion gods, you think you're a god yourself.

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No, no. Humble yourself, repent and worship the Lord. Verse eight,

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Zion hears and is glad and the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments,

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O Lord, for you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth. You are exalted far above all gods.

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Oh, you who love the Lord hate evil. Once again, you have that contrast from he is exalted above all gods.

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So, oh, you who love the Lord hate evil. Don't even dabble in this. Don't get anywhere around any of this injustice or unrighteousness.

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Serve the one whose ways are justice and whose righteousness is the foundation of his throne.

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He preserves the lives of his saints. He delivers them from the hand of the wicked. Light is sown for the righteous and joy for the upright in heart.

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Rejoice in the Lord. Oh, you righteous give thanks to his holy name.

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And finally, we look today at Psalm 98. It has a title right at the beginning of it.

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It says a psalm. Some of this might sound familiar to you. I'll ask where else you've heard this psalm when we get to the end of it.

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I'll read all nine verses. Verse one. Oh, sing to the Lord a new song for he has done marvelous things.

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His right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

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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 steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our

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God. Make a joyful noise to the Lord all the earth. Break forth into joyous song and sing praises.

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Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre. With the lyre and with the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn.

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Make a joyful noise before the king, the Lord. Let the sea roar and all that fills it, the world and those who dwell in it.

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Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the hills sing for joy together before the

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Lord. For he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.

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Did you catch what song this kind of sounds like? Of course, it sounds a little bit like Psalm 96.

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We have some similar themes there. I'm thinking a little more modern than that. Think around Christmas time.

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What famous Christmas song sounds a lot like Psalm 98? Maybe joy to the world?

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Because it was Psalm 98 that inspired Isaac Watts to pen his famous Christmas carol, which was not originally a

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Christmas carol at all. Because of course, as you're reading Psalm 98 here, you're like, well, where's the Christmas themes? Isaac Watts wasn't thinking about Jesus' first coming.

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He was thinking about his second coming. What Isaac Watts was doing at that time was reading through the

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Psalms and looking for Christology. He was looking for mentions of Christ as we would have it in the

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New Testament. He's looking at the Psalms and finding New Testament themes in the Psalms. And this one in particular struck him as foreshadowing prophecy concerning the coming, the return of our

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Lord Christ. Though he hadn't yet come the first time at the time this psalm was written, it is yet looking forward to Christ's ultimate return to judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity.

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As the psalm concludes, The Lord has made known his salvation.

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How has he done that? In the person and work of Jesus Christ. He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.

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How has he done that? Through the preaching of the gospel to the world. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel.

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All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. And then those joy to the world themes really start kicking in in verse 4.

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In other words, joy to the world, the Lord has come. Let heaven and nature sing.

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It's right there in verse 4. You think also of verse 9 where it says,

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He will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity. Well, that's like verse 4 of joy to the world.

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

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So we see this foretelling of the return of Christ even here.

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Let the sea roar and all that fills it. The world and those who dwell in it. If you've read the book of Revelation recently, just those two lines right there summarize the judgment of God upon the earth throughout the book of Revelation.

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The seas roar and all that fills it. As the earth is kind of disrupted by the judgment of God that is coming upon it, the world and those who dwell on it, the people that will cry for the mountains to fall on them and hide them from the judgment of God.

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For the Lord comes to judge the earth. Verse 9, with trumpets and the sound of the horn, make a joyful noise before the king, the

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Lord. John and his revelation talking about the sounds of trumpets blasting and the roars of many peoples that sing the praises of God.

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All those themes are there. Those revelation themes right here in Psalm 98. So we who praise the

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Lord have nothing to fear of that day of judgment. For we will be delivered from it into his eternal kingdom.

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Coming back again to the beginning of this Psalm, his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

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All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Let us pray.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for the saving grace that has been given to us in Jesus Christ, our

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Lord. May we be so filled with joy concerning this grace that you have shown to us, your love and your mercy and your faithfulness day by day that we cannot help but share with somebody else about the goodness of our

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God in our lives, forgiving us of sin, covering over transgression, and giving us a place in your kingdom with you forever.