So we are moving forward in our series of messages from the Psalms as we're taking a break from the New Testament and still deciding whether we're going to go back to old or maybe go to another New Testament book this time. Not quite sure yet, but we're looking at Psalm 75 for our text for our message this morning. You can find that on page 576 of the Pew Bibles, and we'll be using all 10 verses as our text for this morning. If you're able, Would you please stand with me out of reverence and respect for the reading of God's inherent, infallible, and inspired word. This is a psalm of Asaph. We give thanks to you, O God. We give thanks to you, for your name is near. We recount your wondrous deeds. At the set time that I appoint, I will judge with equity. When the earth totters and all its inhabitants, it is I who keeps steady its pillars. I say to the boastful, do not boast. And to the wicked, do not lift up your horn. Do not lift up your horn on high or speak with haughty neck. For not from the east or from the west and not from the wilderness comes lifting up. but it is God who executes judgment, putting down one and lifting up another. For in the hand of the Lord, there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. But I will declare it forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob, all the horns of the wicked I will cut off. but the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up." This is the reading of God's word. May he bless it to our hearts this morning. Please be seated. And so we come now to this 75th Psalm. Again, another Psalm of Asaph. In the previous two Psalms we've looked at, we've heard complaints from the righteous that the wicked have been lifting themselves up, that they have been lifting themselves up in pride and oppression of God's people. And we have heard the question asked by the righteous, how long, O Lord? And we understand that implied in that question is also maybe an unspoken question. Will you even judge, O Lord? Are you paying attention? In this Psalm, God answers that question for his people. Verse one opens for us with thanksgiving to God. And it is a thanksgiving that is based on not a present act of God toward his people necessarily, but it is a thanksgiving that is based on remembering and then declaring God's wondrous deeds. And by the way, I would remind you, we're not just looking at an ancient piece of history and what the practice of people were in another time. This is still a perpetual essential part of our worship that we offer to God as well. We are to be remembering his mighty works for his people throughout all ages and even for us. The mightiest of which is bringing us out of the dominion of sin and Satan and into the light and life of the kingdom of his son. We are going to do that not only now in our worship, but we're going to be doing that even into eternity and through eternity. We are going to be praising him for his wondrous works. We'll be thanking him and praising him forever for the great salvation he has wrought for his people. Now, if you remember back at the end of Psalm 73, Asaph, after being reminded in his worship of the certainty that God will eternally bless the righteous and will certainly punish the wicked, remember Asaph declared, for me, it is good to be near to God. And here in this Psalm, we hear Asaph saying something about that as well. He says that we're giving thanks to you, O God, for a reason. And that reason is because your name is near. Your name is near to us. He's confident of that. We have to understand here that again, we talked about this in other messages at other times and other passages of scripture, but when we talk about God's name, when we understand name here, we want to recognize that that word represents not just a name like Yahweh or Jehovah, but that word represents the self-revelation of God to his people. That was the whole point of the name he gave to Moses, right? What am I going to tell the people who is sending me? Tell them I am. What does that mean? I just am. There is nobody else who just is. I am God. Tell them I sent you. It's his self-revelation. It is, his name is who he is along with what he's done. It's, we kind of think of a word that is similar, like reputation. It tells you not just who a person is, but who they really are and what they're like, what they've done. It is, in a sense, God's character, but it also includes God's presence. And that in a very special way is part of what Asaph has in mind here. Your name is very near. You're here with us. In fact, Paul, Peter rather, I think it is actually in Acts chapter two and verse 21, talks about the fact that we need God's name to be near to us for our salvation. He says in that passage, all who call upon what? The name of the Lord shall be saved. Shall be. And in fact, how do we, if you want to think of it, draw God near to us? Well, in essence, it's much what Asaph is doing in the beginning of this psalm. Psalm 22.3 tells us that God is enthroned upon the praises of his people. When a king is enthroned, he's sitting in his glory and majesty. When we reflect back God's glory and praise and majesty to him, he is glorified by that. His presence is drawn near to us. His name is near. And I believe that's exactly why Asaph begins this psalm in the way he does. Now, as we approach this psalm, I want to think about it under three sections that I think flow pretty naturally out of the text. The first five verses, we're going to think about the fact that God is lifted up. In verses six through eight, we want to consider the truth God gives that he alone is the one who may and can lift up people or even individuals or people as in nations. And finally in verses 9 and 10, we want to consider how God shall lift up the horn of the righteous. So let's look first that God is lifted up. Now, because this phrase, either lift up, lifted up, or lifting up, is so central to this psalm, we understand. It's used actually in those various forms five different times in these 10 verses. It indicates to us that this idea of lifting up is essential to understanding what this psalm means for us, what God intends us to get from this psalm. And the phrase means to be lifted up, lifting up, lift up, carries this idea of being elevated, exalted, raised up, treated with distinction. Now, God himself cannot be lifted up. by his people. That's what Asaph is going to make clear to us here. We can lift up his name. We can praise him, glorify him for who he is and what he has done, and we can tell everyone about it. In fact, we see that in this psalm. But we can't truly lift God up. But we see Asaph doing that in verse one and even if you look at whoever happens to be speaking in verse nine, it is clearly offering up praise and thanksgiving and worship and glory to God for his greatness. And that reminds us again that we as his people need to be in our public worship, our corporate worship, but also in our private worship and in our daily lives, we need to be lifting up God's name in our words, in our thoughts, and in our worship. It needs to be a constant continual process for us. But again, Asaph is clear in this text that although we can do that, God himself is already, by his nature, in terms of his essence, is already lifted up far above everything, above all creation. Even in particularly, I think Asaph would argue, above men, whether they are great or small. And in fact, notice that in verses two through five, it isn't Asaph declaring that truth. You notice verse one talks about we, we, we, but verse two down through verse five, we have somebody talking in the first person, I. Very clearly the one we're listening to in these verses is God himself speaking, admittedly through a prophet, but this is God speaking to his people. And it's also worth noting that Asaph was known to be a seer. one who had a prophetic kind of role in terms of God's word and will, especially in terms of worship. And so we have this passage here in verses two through five, where God is declaring his own exaltation, that he has lifted up far above everything. Notice first in telling us about that, God tells us the very first thing is that he is the one who sets, who fixes, appoints set times. That means that God is in control. God doesn't have to come to somebody else and say, can you make an appointment for me to have this taken care of? Can I, can I get some of your time to get this done? God simply appoints a time because he's sovereign over everything. Also, that phrase that he has these set times is significant in scripture when it relates to God. God is the one in Genesis who sets the times of the seasons. In other words, he orders nature. Who else can do that? God is the one who sets the times for the sacred feasts that his people are to follow. He's ordering the worship of his people directed toward him. This is how you will do it and when you will do it. God is over all. Nature, worship, it is all directed and controlled by him. The point here that God is making is that he has in his absolute sovereignty, when he's talking about this set time, is that he has appointed a particular set time when he is going to judge all mankind. And when he does so, he will judge mankind with equity. The word means that he will judge justly, that he will judge righteously. We remember Abraham as God comes down to look at the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham is begging God not to destroy the place, and he says to him, shall not the God of all the earth do what is right? Of course, that's who you are, and God affirms that here. I will judge, and I will judge justly, uprightly, with equity. The point, though, is that that time of judgment God is announcing already set. It is fixed. It is absolutely certain. There is no question that God is going to finally and fully judge mankind. And that is what the psalmist we've been listening to for the last couple of weeks have been asking about, right? God is assuring them. In verse 3, God speaks about the earth. And as he talks about the earth, he presents it as as if when he created the earth, he actually sort of set it down on pillars that hold it in place, like a foundation. We don't tend to think about that kind of structure in building anymore. We don't use it a whole lot anymore, at least not the way it used to be. But you might think as a contrast in this passage, think about the story of Samson. Remember Samson at the end of his life, his eyes had been taken out, his hair had been cut short, but it had grown back in. And he has had time in his captivity and shame and humiliation to reflect on his failure to be the savior that God had appointed for his people over the Philistines. And they bring him out to mock him and make fun of him. And they bring him into this building that has this huge roof that is supported by pillars. And Samson says to the young man who's led him there, let me lean on one of the pillars for strength. What does Samson end up doing with that pillar? He doesn't hold it steady and he doesn't let it hold him steady. What he does is he prays for strength from God and he takes the pillar and he shoves it out of its place. And when he does, what happens? The whole roof collapses and he kills more Philistines in his death than he ever did in his life. Now, that's the opposite picture of what God is presenting here, though. He is picturing the earth set on these pillars from creation as experiencing something, and we would understand that to be sin and wickedness that is disrupting and concerning the righteous people of God. And it is so bad that the earth seems to be shaking on those pillars and in danger of collapsing along with the people who are in that world, God's people. And do you hear what God's assurance is? When that happens, when you feel like that's what's going on, guess what? I am the one who puts my hands on the pillars and steadies them so the earth doesn't collapse. The truth is that this is very much what David is declaring back in Psalm 11 verses 3 and 4. He asked the question, what can the righteous do when the foundations are, or at least seem to be, destroyed? What can you do? It seems like everything that holds everything together is gone, and you know what he discovers in the fourth verse? What we do is we remember that God is in heaven and that he is seated on his throne. Even if it looks like that's happening, God is in control. He is the one, as he says in this psalm, who's steadying the pillars so that the world doesn't collapse. The one who can do that is, in terms of his very being, the one who is the most lifted up and exalted one who has ever or can ever exist. Now, in those two previous Psalms, as I pointed out, there were complaints from the righteous that the wicked were boasting of their own exalted, lifted up status as being able to oppress the people of God. We will totally subdue them. But notice what God says in these verses. Because he is the only one who is truly and gloriously lifted up and in control of all things, including, by the way, the wicked, he is able to speak to the wicked and to tell them, to warn them, first to boastful, Don't boast. Remember, that's what Asaph had been concerned about. These people are boasting in their prosperity as wicked people, and God is warning the wicked, don't boast. You have no basis for boasting at all. And he goes on to warn the wicked not to lift up their horn. Now, the picture of the horn, in scripture, the horn is given as a symbol of strength. Of power. Often it refers to, in terms of nations, economic, political, military power. But it can just refer to physical strength. And the image that we're supposed to get here, again, it's a little removed for us from what it would have been for these people, is the image of either a great bull or a great ram who has these huge horns and has just been engaged in battle with one of his peers and has defeated him, overthrown him, and when he finishes, takes his head and stretches his neck up as high in the air as he can and shakes those great horns to say, I am the one in charge. I have won and you are defeated. I'm in control. And God warns the wicked, don't lift up your horns. The truth is that even It isn't only the wicked who believe that, but as we've seen in these last couple of Psalms, at times the righteous, because of what they see in the world around them, begin to believe that the wicked are in control too. God is warning, don't lift up your horns. Don't, don't be boastful. Why is God able to say that to the wicked and boastful so strongly? Well, again, as we move from God being lifted up, we see the answer to that in this next section, that only God may lift up either a person or a people or nation. So he's able to talk to them like this because contrary to what the world believes, being lifted up, being exalted, elevated, doesn't come from anywhere or anything in this world. That's what God means when he says it doesn't come from the east and it doesn't come from the west and it doesn't even come from the wilderness. You can't make yourself exalted. You can't exalt anybody else. See, the way the world looks at it is that one man or one leader or one nation believes that they have risen to such power and glory and greatness that they can go to another person, leader, or nation and conquer them, defeat them, put them down, and exalt themselves over top of them. And then, before long, another man or leader or nation comes along and looks at that one and says, no, I don't think they're so great. I think I can do this. And they go and do the same thing to them and put them down and exalt themselves. And in their mind, they are lifting themselves up and exalting themselves while they're putting down others. But you see, in this psalm, God is warning the wicked not to be so foolish. Don't be so deceived in your pride and your supposed power to do these things. Why? It seems like they're doing it. Why shouldn't they be able to? Well, remember back in verse 2, God said that I have set an appointed set time where I'm going to judge in equity. And it is true that that particular set time is going to be at the last day when Christ returns in glory and final judgment is given. That particular set time is when that is going to happen, but that doesn't mean that God isn't also judging with equity all throughout human history, right? There are times where God acts in judgment. There are times when he acts in blessing, times when he acts in salvation, intervening in history. Notice what Asaph tells us clearly in verse seven. Whenever we see these things happening, one person or nation lifting themselves up over another, when we see those kinds of things happen, what's actually happening, God says, is that God himself is executing judgment. With equity, by the way. Executing judgment because in his infinite wisdom and just judgment, he lifts up one so that he can use them to put down another. We actually see this very clearly in the history of Israel, right? At the end of the, before the exile, when the divided kingdom, north and south kingdom, Israel and Judah, are in such great sin against God, God lifts up the Assyrians, to take out Israel, and he lifts up the Babylonians to take out Judah. He sends them to literally topple his own people, and they take them and suppress them and tend them into exile, and that's what they've been complaining about. Remember the temple being destroyed and all of that. And yet what happened to the Assyrians and the Babylonians a fairly short time later in terms of history? Another nation came along and put them down and exalted themselves. God judged them because they didn't bring righteous judgment to his people. They brought judgment, but they did it in their own sinful way. And eventually that nation that did it to them was judged. And eventually God brings his people back into the land and rebuilds his temple. You see, it's God who is doing this. These people aren't doing it on themselves. God is the one who lifts them up and who puts them down. See, one of the things that Asaph came to understand in Psalm 73 through his worship of God, as he struggled with how the wicked who were oppressing God's people in his day seemed to be prospering in everything they were doing. One of the things he came to understand was that in God lifting them up to that status, to that position, was actually putting them in the most slippery place possible because it lifted up their pride. It caused them to think they were the greatest thing that had ever happened. And in doing that, it increased their wickedness and exalting against God and his people. And it brought judgment on them so that as Asaph was able to see, they are cause to fall and being brought to ruin. That is what God is showing here. These judgments of lifting one up and putting down another, which continue throughout human history, are actually judgments of God that are limited and temporal. They happen in this life. They aren't final, complete judgment, but they are indications that that final and complete judgment is certain that that time is fixed. And there will be a time when God will fully and finally complete that judgment at the last day. So God issues these commands to the boastful and the wicked, don't boast, don't lift up your horn. What happens if they disobey? What's the result if they disobey and they end up boasting and lifting themselves up? Well, we find that in verse eight. See, and again, the image here is that a cup in scripture in God's hand is understood in one of two ways. It can be a cup of blessing. But it can also be, and in this context it clearly is, a cup of wrath and judgment that is being talked about here. Notice how the cup of wine is described as foaming wine and well-mixed. It's using those phrases to point to this isn't even just ordinary wine. This is wine that has been given extra strength and potency. This is an extra powerful mix that God has brought together And it is clearly wine, a cup that is God's judgment. And God, we are told, God says, I will pour it out. It'll gush forth into the mouths and throats of the wicked in this world, and they will be forced to drain that cup down to the very dregs, down to the very last drop. None of it will be withheld. They will not be able to avoid or escape any of that wrath and judgment from God. in the last day. That is what we are assured of. This is that final sense of God is able to lift up or put down a people. The wicked will finally, eternally, be put down as they will drink God's wrath down to the very last drop. And so now the question is, How shall God lift up the horn of the righteous? We've heard the warning that the wicked aren't supposed to lift up their horn, but now the righteous, their horns are going to be lifted up. Who is going to do that and how? Well, we've seen so far in this Psalm that God is the one who is eternally and ultimately lifted up in terms of his own just essence, his being, who he is. And we've also seen in this psalm that in his judging with equity, he is the one who lifts up and he is the one who puts down. He is the only source of that. You can't be lifted up by anything or anywhere in this world. He is the source of lifting up and putting down. And for the wicked, that judgment is going to be carried out in a final and eternal way, drinking God's wrath to the dregs. But how will the horns of the righteous be lifted up? That's what we read in verse 10. Well, that's the message that we find in the closing verses of this Psalm in verses 9 and 10. But one of the first questions to ask again is who is speaking in these two verses? The Asaph is the one who's written the psalm, and yet we've seen in verses 2 through 5 in particular that God is the one who is speaking, not Asaph himself. As we come down here finally to verses 9 and 10, we have somebody else who's speaking in the first person. I, not we, I will sing praises. I will cut off the horns of the wicked, and the horn of the righteous shall be lifted up. We've heard Asaph speak, we've heard God speak, but this seems to be someone else. And I say that because when you look at this, this person seems to be distinct from God in some way, because he is going to sing praises to who? The God of Jacob. Well, is God gonna sing praises to himself? Well, I mean, God obviously glorifies himself in everything he does, but that's not the way God speaks about himself in scripture. This is somebody else singing praise to God, and yet he sounds an awful lot like God because God is the one who just assured us that he alone lifts up and puts down. And yet this person speaking in verses nine and 10 assures us that he is the one who is going to cut off the horns of the wicked. And in doing so, he is the one who is going to lift up the horns of the righteous. That sounds like God. God is the one who just claimed that. And because of that distinction, many people believe that the one speaking in verses 9 and 10 is none other than the Messiah himself. The king that God has promised to send to be over his people. Remember back in Psalm 2, it is the king who is God's son. who is promised to be given a scepter of iron to rule over the nations, and who the nations, the rulers are warned, kiss the sun, don't do anything to arouse his wrath, because his wrath can be kindled really quickly. So let's think about that connection with potentially the Messiah, even with this idea of Psalm 2 and the sun as we consider the psalm. First, this speaker, who I argue is probably the Messiah, Jesus himself, after hearing of the certain and final judgment of the wicked that's going to be poured out on them down to the last dregs, says, I will declare it forever. I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. You're going to praise God for people suffering terrible wrath? Well, of course, because that is God's purpose. He's the one who lifts up and puts down, and the wicked earn it in their boasting and their wickedness and failing to obey his commands not to do those things. Keep in mind also that when Jesus was on this earth and he taught his disciples that model prayer, when you pray, pray like this. We looked at that in one of the other Psalms. In this one, a different petition comes to mind. You remember Jesus taught his disciples to pray Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And we're to be thankful and praising that God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven, and this is what Jesus, the Messiah, is giving praise to God for, because he knows that God will fulfill everything that he has promised to do. Also keep in mind that in his ministry on this earth, Jesus declared that judgment on the wicked almost more than he talked about. There are people who will tell you that Jesus talked more about hell and the judgment God would be sending than he did about heaven itself. How many times do we hear him in Matthew talking about those who will be cast into outer darkness, gnashing and weeping? He also continues to declare that now that he is in heaven through his church on the earth, as we continue to proclaim the gospel. Remember, Asaph began this psalm by giving thanks to God for your name is near. Again, name indicating God's presence, God's self-revelation, God's help that he brings to his people. In John's gospel in chapter 17, where Jesus prays his high priestly prayer to his father, it's interesting when you keep that in mind, what Asaph said, that in verse six of John 17, Jesus says to his father, I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. I've made it clear. I brought it near. In verse 26 of that prayer, he says to God, I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, he says. And do you know why he continues to make it known and has made it known? So that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them." God's presence, his love in his people. Christ, God himself in human form, in his people. And remember what Christ came to accomplish was the mightiest work God has done, that work of redeeming a fallen sinful people for his glory and for his name. Also consider when we've been talking about all of this talk about people being lifted up. Remember Jesus too was lifted up by the will of his father. You remember, I haven't come to do my will. I've come through the will of my father. But when he was lifted up, initially. He wasn't lifted up for exaltation and for to be exalted and to be given praise. He was lifted up to shame on a cross and to suffer the wrath of God. Jesus said, and I, when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all people to me. He had to be lifted up, but he had to be lifted up first in shame. and suffering God's curse. It's also interesting, and this is why I love the way scripture all comes together, Isaiah chapter 51 verse 22. God makes a promise to his people. He promises that he will take, notice how he describes it, the cup of staggering the bowl of my wrath. I will take it from the hand of my people, he says, so that you don't have to drink it anymore. He says there he's going to put it into the hands of those who have oppressed them. Why would God's people have to have a cup of staggering, a bowl of wrath in their hand? Well, it's because God's people by nature are children of wrath, just like the others. We're part of the wicked initially. It is only by God's grace that that status changes. So how does God take that cup of staggering, that bowl of his wrath, out of the hand of his people so that they don't have to drink it? Do you remember as we went through Matthew at the end as Jesus is in the Garden of Gethsemane? And he prays to his father and says, Father, if there is any way possible at all, let this cup pass away from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. And he willingly, voluntarily knows that it is his father's will that he drink this cup. And that cup, that cup is the very bowl, the cup of staggering and bowl of God's wrath that God takes out of the hand of his people. And who does he hand it to? He hands it to his own son, who in taking our sin upon himself becomes sin. He was made to be sin for us who knew no sin, so that we could become the righteousness of God in him. And he drank that cup on the cross down to the very dregs, the last drop, so that before he died, he could make this statement with confidence. It is finished. God's wrath is satisfied. And we know that that's true because after his death and after his burial, God the Father lifted him up. Right? Raised him physically, bodily out of the tomb to prove that he was in fact who he said he was and he had in fact satisfied God's equitable justice. His righteous justice judgment on sin. See, we were the wicked. We were by nature children of wrath. We deserved a cup of wrath. Christ took it for us. And in its place, do you know what Christ gave us? Paul tells us when he's talking to us about the Lord's Supper, and he talks about the cup that Christ gives to us in that supper, the cup that we drink as part of that. And what does he call it? I told you before, a cup in God's hand can be either a cup of blessing or a cup of judgment and wrath. And that, in the Lord's Supper, in Christ's death for us, we drink the cup of blessing instead of the cup of staggering in the bowl of God's wrath. You see, God has appointed a set time for judgment. But God appoints other set times. We talked about the seasons. We talked about the feasts. But God had also appointed a set time for Christ, for Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ to come and to be sacrificed, to atone for the sin of his people. Do you remember how many times Jesus throughout his ministry told people, my hour has not yet come? What hour? The hour that God had set. for when he must die. Why did he keep avoiding confrontation with the Pharisees and all those people throughout his ministry? Because his hour hadn't yet come and he couldn't have them try to kill him yet. But when the time comes, what do we hear him say at least two or three times? The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. You see, there was a set time set by God the Father. And we also know from scripture that it wasn't just an appointed time for someone to die for the sins of the people, but that God had also appointed Jesus himself to be the one who would die at that set time. To be the lamb who would take away the sins of God's people. Paul told the people in Athens that as he went to visit and minister to people in Athens, Acts chapter 17 verse 31. He's looked at all the shrines to all the different gods they were worshiping as he comes to enter into the city. And he comes across one that just says to the unknown God, And when they decide they want to hear more about what Paul's preaching about, they bring him into the Areopagus, and they ask him about this. And he says, I see that you're very religious people in every way. You even worship the unknown God, and I'm here to introduce you to him. And as part of that, he says that God is the one who has fixed a day, set time, on which he will judge the world in righteousness, equity, by a man whom he has appointed, just as he appointed this at time. And of this, God has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead, by lifting him up and raising him from the dead. You see, in Christ's resurrection from the dead, we also have been raised from spiritual death to spiritual life. Colossians chapter two and verse 12. But it's also true, and Paul makes this point in Romans 8, 11, and again in 1 Corinthians 15, that just as his physical body was raised to glory, our physical bodies one day are also going to be raised from corruption to glory. We will be resurrected and our bodies and souls will be joined in holiness forever, to reign with him forever. Jesus Christ, the God-man, I believe is the one who concludes this Psalm of Asaph in assuring us that he is the one who has and will lift up the horns, the power, the dignity, the status of the righteous because we are righteous in him and he has been exalted and we are exalted in him. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your goodness to us. Thank you for your faithfulness, your steadfast love, a love that was so eternal and so great that it caused you to send your own son to take that bowl of wrath and to drink it in our place, so that we would be able to drink the cup of blessing for the rest of eternity. We pray that you would help us to take comfort and strength and encouragement from this psalm of Asaph and the truths you have in it for us. We ask these things in Christ's name and for his sake. Amen.