Our scripture reading this evening is taken from the book of Psalms, and Psalm 75, Psalm 75 from a chief musician, set to Do Not Destroy, a psalm of Asaph, a song. Psalm 75. Psalm 75 We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks, for your wondrous works declare that your name is near. When I choose the proper time, I will judge uprightly. The earth and all its inhabitants are dissolved. I set up its pillars firmly. Selah. I said to the boastful, do not deal boastfully. And to the wicked, do not lift up the horn. Do not lift up your horn on high. Do not speak with a stiff neck. For exaltation comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge. He puts down one and exalts another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red. It is fully mixed, and he pours it out. Surely its dregs shall all the wicked of the earth drain and drink down. But I will declare forever, I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. All the horns of the wicked I will also cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. And may God bless the reading of his holy word. Our text this evening is found in the chapter and the psalm that we read, Psalm 75 and verse 1. We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks for your wondrous works, declare that your name is near. At this Advent time we consider particularly the promise of Christ's coming, his coming again. We look at the world as it is and we see all manner of injustice, all manner of things that are not as they ought to be. And it's always been that way. It's not simply that suddenly things have changed, although of course things do keep on changing, but it is that has always been the case. But there, although there is some justice in the world yet, there is much injustice as well. But here is the great hope that God's people have. The Judge is coming. God is still over all. And the blessed hope of the Church is not that things will get better in the here and now, but the blessed hope is the glorious appearing of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Now that doesn't mean that we don't do things in the here and now. doesn't mean that we don't, for example, when it comes to government policy that is contrary to the word of God, that we don't write to our MPs and do what we can to see that justice is done, that just laws are passed. It doesn't mean that when great injustices come to light that we just sit back, but it means that we recognise that the fullness of justice will not be until Christ comes again. And so we look forward and we see first of all in this psalm that there is a that there is praise. It begins with praise. It moves on then to promise and finally there is the great proclamation of God's justice. There is praise, there is promise, there is proclamation. And first we have praise. Asaph begins, we give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks for your wondrous works. Declare that your name is near. Now we are not told the circumstances of the writing of this psalm. It's most likely that some great deliverance had taken place, that God's people had been delivered from their enemies in some way. But it's probable that there's a very good reason why we don't know what the situation is, which is that we may apply it then in a much broader sense than we might if we had some knowledge of the narrower circumstances. And Asaph begins his psalm with thanksgiving. It is always right and proper for God's people to give thanks. Now sometimes it is easier than it is at other times. When everything seems to be going right, it is very easy to give thanks. When things are going wrong, it becomes more difficult for us as human beings. When we are bowed down with circumstances, sometimes we are tempted to forget to give thanks to God. And yet, it is always right and it is our duty as His people to give thanks to Him. To give thanks for our daily bread, to give thanks to the mercies we enjoy day to day in life. Especially the things that we tend to take for granted. And this past week we have seen that attempt in South Korea by the president there to effectively seize power for himself, to make himself no longer accountable to the people. And it has failed. And we have seen in Syria, we've been reminded of the civil war. And in this country we do not have a situation where we have a leader who is trying to make himself effectively a dictator. We do not have a civil war. These are things to be thankful for. We are thankful for the common things of life. But particularly we should be thankful as Christians for the works of God's grace. We are thankful for the Word of God. We are thankful for the freedom that we have to worship. That freedom is not something that everybody has. There are many Christians who don't have that freedom for various reasons. We give thanks for the Word of God, the Bible in our own language. And we know there are many Christians today, even, who do not have the Bible in their first language, but they may have it in a second language. We give thanks. We give thanks, most of all, of course, that God has spoken. We give thanks for his wondrous works. And what are his wondrous works? Well, most of all they are his works of redemption, his work of salvation. The work that we see laid out in scripture that begins with his response to the fall back in Genesis chapter 3. When our first parents went astray, God sought them out, as one writer has put it. It was God who sought Adam, and that has been how God deals with sinners ever since. He goes looking, the good shepherd goes out looking for the sheep. He does not wait for the sheep to come to him. And his wondrous work of redemption is seen most fully in the Lord Jesus Christ. Your wondrous works declare that your name is near. as the hymn writer puts it, in his highest work, redemption. See his glory in a blaze, see what God does to deliver his people. And when we read this phrase, your wondrous works declare that your name is near, again we are reminded of the fact that in the Bible the name and the person are inextricably linked When God changes somebody's name as he does with Abraham, for example as he does with Jacob, he does so because he has changed something about them. He does so because he has decided that they will do a certain thing. that they will become a certain type of person. The name and the person are linked together. So, for the Hebrew to say that your wondrous works declare that your name is near, he's thinking that this means that God is near. And when God draws near to his people, the picture then is God comes to deliver his people, to save his people. And here we see it, of course, in the Lord Jesus most wonderfully. No one has seen God at any time, John tells us. The only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known. The Lord Jesus in His prayer, before He went to the cross, His prayer in John 17 on the night in which He was betrayed, He says to the Father, John 17 verse 6, I have manifested your name to the men whom you have given me out of the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. I have manifested, he says, your name. He has shown them, he has shown us who God is. Whoever has seen me, he can say, has seen the Father. Would we know what God is like? We look to the Lord Jesus. We see His, we see the Father's glory in Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory. The Lord Jesus shows us what God is like. He shows us the love of God, the redemptive love of God who comes and draws sinners out of the miry pit and who changes people. God who brings about the new birth in His own. Your wondrous works declare that your name is near and God has never drawn nearer to his people than he has in the Lord Jesus. Who is God with us, Emmanuel. That this time we remember that Emmanuel has come and Emmanuel is coming again. And that Christ remains forever God, forever man. We think of the Incarnation. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, says John, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Thus we see the fullness of the Father's mercy and His sovereign grace. We see then the praise. We praise Him for what He has done. To God be the glory. Great things He has done. Great things He has taught us. Great things He has done. And great are rejoicing through Jesus, His Son. But then we come to the promise. The promise. When I choose the proper time, I will judge uprightly. And we are first of all reminded that God's promise is for the proper time. God has a timetable. And God's timetable is not like man's timetable, which is always subject to change. I used to work, as many of you know, in the railways. And I worked in the delay department of the East Coast Main Line. And of course in the railways they will send out timetables and the new season comes, a new timetable, but very often subject to change. Not so with God. God's timetables never change. Because God knows all things. He knows the end from the beginning. He doesn't just wing it, as people often do. Many politicians have said, I have a plan and hoped very much that people didn't ask him what the plan was because the plan was, I will wing it and I will see what happens and I will try to respond. God doesn't do that. God has his time. When I choose the proper time, it's not just a matter of God waiting to see what the opportune time is, but God chooses what is the proper time. And so with God's works, we look to Him, we trust Him, we ask what He is doing, but at the same time if He doesn't see fit to answer, well we trust Him. God's time is always right. Paul tells us, concerning the first coming of the Lord Jesus, that when the time had fully come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law. He says that he has his proper time which he has appointed. when I choose the proper time. And the same is true of Christ's second coming. There is a proper time. And the proper time for God's judgment. There is a proper time for that. Israel was told, Jacob is told that it will not be until the proper time is come. that Israel will move into Canaan because the sin, the guilt of the Canaanites has not yet fallen. There is a proper time, the time when the guilt is full. And so we wait for the proper time and we trust that God in the proper time will judge. And then He will judge uprightly. What a wonderful thing it is to know that God will judge uprightly. We live in a society where we expect judges to judge uprightly. And there is, quite correctly, an enormous outcry in a situation where any sort of judicial corruption is discovered in this nation. But of course there are many nations of the world, where the general expectation of the common people at least is that there won't be any upright judgement. There are many corrupt and unjust judges, but God will judge. God's judgment is universal. It is for the earth and all its inhabitants. It is not simply for one part of the world. The Bible tells us that God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man He has appointed, even the man Christ Jesus. And to Him we look. In Him we put our trust. And because God has promised that He is coming, because Christ has promised that He will judge, Christ tells us how then we should live, how we should behave. He speaks, and He speaks to the wicked, because the great temptation in this wicked world is that people say, well, there are no consequences. People forget that we live in a immoral universe. And for all that is said about, and some of it quite rightly, but some of it overly sentimentalised about forgiveness, yet there is a limit, because God is just. And right and wrong are not just illusions. This is the great error of the universalists, the people who say, well, everyone's going to be saved in the end. Well, then why do good? Why live rightly? Oh, well, there might be some better consequences, but in the end, Does it matter? Well of course it matters because God will judge uprightly. Because there is a judgment to come. And therefore there's a warning. There's a warning to those who are going on in sin. I said to the boastful, do not deal boastfully. Here are those who are boasting. Some of them are those whom James construct in his epistle those who boasted of tomorrow and said, in the future we will do this and that and the other thing. And he says, do not deal boastfully. In many ways, of course, that sort of boasting of tomorrow, well it's simply common sense not to boast of tomorrow because, as James says, nobody knows what tomorrow will bring forth. We see many businesses, somebody who says, this is a wonderful business plan. In 2020 and 2021 there were a lot of people who made a lot of money out of things like exercise bikes. Companies that valued themselves or valued enormously highly and are now in deep, deep financial trouble because of course now people are not going to carry on behaving all the time as though they were being shut up in their houses. And so, he says, do not deal boastfully, but also there's the boasting of oneself, what you have and what you are, but what do we have that God has not given us? What are we but his creatures? And then to the wicked, those whose lives are characterised by wickedness. And here particularly by pride, do not lift up the horn. And the idea of lifting up the horn is that of pride and power. A horn is a symbol of power and might. It's the idea that the wicked are those who use what power they have. It may be in a very little sense, it may just be in the family. Maybe in a very big sense. But they use what power they have to oppress and to hurt people. And they speak with a stiff neck. They will not listen to anybody else. And the call is fundamentally one to humility. To humility. to remember that we are His creatures, that as He was made us and not we ourselves, for exaltation comes neither from the East nor from the West, nor from the South, but God is the Judge. God is the Judge. And so we come to our third point of the Great Proclamation. God is the Judge. God is the one who has the final rule in the world. It's so easy for the world's rulers to forget this. Or for those who have worldly power to forget this. We see this again and again in history. We see it in our present world. People acting as though there's nothing beyond this world. You see it with those who exploit their fellow man, with those who act as though they are unaccountable, who want to become unaccountable. What was behind that attempt by the South Korean president to effectively overthrow the government and make himself a dictator. There's the fact that he was immensely unpopular, is immensely unpopular, of course is even more unpopular after the attempted coup, is what happens when you try to take over government and it doesn't work. But is this immensely unpopular and so I'm going to ignore the people, ignore Parliament and govern on my own. But God is the judge. He puts down one and exalts another. Therefore, since God is the judge, he is the one to whom everybody, from the very highest to the very lowest, should be paying attention. He is the one whom we should be seeking to please. Not in the sense of seeking to be saved by our works, but in the sense of saying, well, how should I live? The Christian is one who is saved not by works, but who is saved, as Paul says in Ephesians chapter 2, for, that is, unto, in order to do good works. And those good works are those things that God, in his word, has laid out as the things that we ought to do. And some of them, many of them in fact, are things that the world ignores. Now husbands love your wives, that's a good word because God says that that's what should be done. The world tends to ignore that and say can't we do some great thing that amazes everybody. Well I suppose in this present day and age perhaps a husband loving his wife should amaze everybody, but that's another matter. to see faithfulness in day-to-day life in every way. When soldiers came to John the Baptist to be baptised, he told them not to act like thugs and to be satisfied with what they were paid. When tax collectors came, John told them not to rob the common folk but to take only what they were appointed to take in taxes. Faithfulness in common life, good works. We look to do according to God's Word. Let our yes be yes and our no be no. Let us not be the sort of people that the Lord Jesus condemns, people who used words to deceive their neighbours, but those who speak plainly. Because God lifts up and God puts down. And more than that, God has a judgement. In the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red, it is fully mixed and he pours it out. Surely it's dregs for all the wicked of the earth. Drain and drink, down there is a cup. The picture there is this cup is filling up with judgement. This wine that is to be drunk is a wine that will ruin all who drink it. A wine of punishment. And here is the cup. And this cup is a judgement for the wicked of the earth. And who are the wicked of the earth? Well, first of all, all who have sinned and come short of the glory of God. You and me. We all have sinned. But there is one who has drunk a cup. that is in the little village of Roughton Hedge in Cumbria, a little wayside chapel, a little church. And in the church there is a window, the agony in the garden, a figure kneeling, and before the figure is a cup, a cup filled with the wrath of God. And it is the Lord Jesus, of course. The picture is that of the Lord Jesus praying in the garden, And he beheld that cup with all of its agony, with all of its pain, with all of its curse. Death and the curse were in that cup. And it was full for him. And his pure soul shrank from that cup. as a pure soul must, and he prayed, if it is possible, O Father, let this cup pass from me, but nevertheless not my will but yours be done. And he was strengthened, and he went forth from the garden to take the cup and to drain it to the dregs. That bitter cup, he drank it up, our cup, that you and I should have drunk, that all mankind should drink, and he drank it for his people. He drained it to the dregs, and he cried upon the cross because he drained the cup. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? for all incarnate God could bear with strength enough and none to spare. He drained the cup to its very dregs for all who believe in His name. The judgment of God fell on Him, on the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. The justice of God there and God himself in our nature, in that mystery of the atonement. The one who suffered is God with us. The one who suffered is the man who shall judge all creation when he comes again. and thus there are only two sorts of people. There are those for whom judgment is now past because Christ bore their judgment, and there are those for whom judgment is future because Christ did not bear their judgment. There are those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and who receive the atonement, and there are those who do not believe and do not receive the atonement. And thus it is that There is to be a final separation, verse 10, all the horns of the wicked I will also cut off, but the horns of the righteous shall be exalted. Now this word is very often, as the poet puts it, right forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne. In this world, very often, power is held by the wicked. The horn of the wicked is exalted. The wicked does what he pleases and makes the righteous, the Lord's people, suffer as a result. The wicked, one of their characteristics is they treat people as things, they treat people like objects. objects to be exploited. They're not concerned about doing the right thing, they're concerned about what they can get out of things. Very often the wicked take the view that, well, everyone's in it for themselves, so I'll be in it for myself. And all the horns of the wicked, God says, I will also cut off. Those who seek power, those who seek might for themselves, and all the wicked do. One of the great facts of life is that the wicked do not seek the good of other people. Sometimes, of course, it is expedient for them to act as if they do, but what they seek is themselves. And all the horns of the wicked I will also cut off, but the horns of the righteous, that is, those who are united to Christ by faith, shall be exalted. Those who now are crushed down, he shall lift to his throne. He shall lift to share the new heavens and earth in which righteousness dwells. and his people shall be exalted, because he is exalted, because finally the great exaltation is the exaltation of Christ. He is glorified in his people. He is lifted up in his people. So it is that the Apostle Paul, as he contemplates what is to be, he writes of the Thessalonians, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1. So we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure. which is manifest evidence of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer. Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you And to give you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction in the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints and to be admired among all those who believe. Thus the Judge is coming. Thus we are reminded at this Advent time Christ is coming again. And we join with the psalmist. We give thanks to you, O God, we give thanks for your wondrous works. Declare that your name is near. Amen.