Would you turn in your Bible to turn to Psalm 118? I'm going to be reading first Matthew 2630, as it says here, but for reasons which will, I hope, become very clear as we go through the sermon, I'll be also reading Psalm 118 as well. And so the sermon will be on Matthew 2630, but the bulk of it actually will be on Psalm 118. We'll see how that works. It's not nearly as confusing as it sounds right now. It's actually quite logical when we understand it. Matthew 26.30 reads, and remember the context here, they had just celebrated the first Lord's Supper, the first communion, and now they are departing. And this is Matthew 26.30. And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives, Matthew 26, 30. And that hymn which they sung was, as commentators here agree on this, it's Psalm 118, or at least the climax of the hymn would be from Psalm 118. So this is what we're going to read here today. It's from Psalm 118, all of it, verses 1 through 29, remembering that this is the word of the Lord and remembering to listen accordingly. O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His mercy endures forever. Let Israel now say, His mercy endures forever. Let the house of Aaron now say, His mercy endures forever. Let those who fear the Lord now say, His mercy endures forever. I called on the Lord in distress. The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is for me among those who help me. Therefore, I shall see my desire on those who hate me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. All nations surround me, but in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them. Yes, they surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them. They surrounded me like bees. They were quenched like a fire of thorns, for in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them. You pushed me violently that I might fall, but the Lord helped me. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord does valiantly. I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord. The Lord has chastened me severely, but he is not giving me over to death. Open to me the gates of righteousness. I will go through them and I will praise the Lord. This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous shall enter. I will praise you, for you have answered me and have become my salvation. The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I pray, O Lord. O Lord, I pray, send now prosperity. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. We have blessed you from the house of the Lord. God is the Lord, and he has given us light. Find the sacrifice with cords, the horns of the altar. You are my God, and I will praise you. You are my God. I will exalt you. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endures forever. That's the word of the Lord, and we pray that he will bless it to our hearts. Amen. One of the things I've been recently doing, mainly with my oldest daughter, but also Ambrosius sometimes joins me, is we've been reading Narnia together. I think we're on the fourth book, we're on the silver chair, so it should be the fifth or the fourth, they have different orderings. And one of my favorite parts, and one of my daughter's favorite parts, is at the very end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and there's a bunch of If you know the story, they're going to the Aslan's country, which is, you know, heaven, basically. And there are lilies in the water, and the water is beautiful, and they're going out there. And while they're on their way, there was this little mouse whom my daughter fell in love with, named Reepicheep. And Reepicheep was going to the ends of the earth, and he knew that there were prophecies about people going to the ends of the earth. My daughter loves it. I think it's the fact that Reba Chief is a mouse, and she also loves the Mouse King from the Nutcracker as well. But anyway, they were going to the end of the world, and this mouse is very honorable. He's a speaking mouse, and he loves to defend his honor. There were more people inside or below the water They had a sphere they're ready to looking like at least in his mind ready to attack the ship This mouse went out jumped out and went to attack them to defend the honor of the ship and protect the people on it but as he did it he tasted the water and the water wasn't salty as you might expect in the sea, but it was sweet and And all of a sudden his mind went away from attacking and defending and on to the ancient prophecies which spoke of the water being sweet near Aslan's country, near the end of the world. And he realized at that point that he was the fulfillment of these prophecies. that the ancient prophecies which talked about the sweet water at the end of the world and people traveling there were being fulfilled before his eyes. What a point of realization. And so he stopped thinking about fighting and started thinking about these prophecies. I've often imagined Jesus reading the Old Testament. Reading the Old Testament not as one outside, but as one who knew that they were speaking of him. I wonder what he must have felt like when he realized or as he realized that these are speaking of him. It's clear that Jesus understood things this way. After the resurrection, he talked to people and said and told them that and opened their minds and showed them from the Old Testament that the Old Testament speaks of him. And so as Jesus read, as Jesus memorized, as Jesus cherished the scriptures. He knew they were speaking of him. In our sermon this morning, Jesus and his disciples are singing a hymn, a hymn which all commentators agree is part of what's called the Egyptian Halal, or basically what we know as Psalm 113 through 118, which people sang during Passover. What we're going to do this morning is to look at not so much this one verse, because it's pretty self-explanatory, but the hymn to which it refers. And that would be Psalm 118. And try to understand that as Jesus would have as he sang this psalm at the Passover right before his own arrest and right before his own crucifixion. In order to do that, we're going to break down the sermon into four parts. First, we're going to talk about the background, trying to get ourselves oriented with the way they thought and with the rituals and customs at this point. I think it will help us greatly. That will be the first section. And then we're going to talk about three sections dealing with the actual psalm. And the psalm speaks of God's protection, his protection of his people and confidence that that elicits God's vindication, his vindication of his anointed and after victory in battle, and finally, God's exaltation, the praise which the psalm teaches us and exemplifies of God himself. So beginning with some background information here. As you remember, last time we were talking about what we call the First Communion or the Last Supper, sometimes it's called either one. And basically, as we said last week, this was deliberately by Jesus himself meant to replace, meant to fulfill, I should say, the Passover meal. Jesus deliberately had it at that time to fulfill the Passover meal and to fulfill all that that feast was pointing towards. And if you remember, Jesus said, this is my body. This is my blood, which is shed for you. In effect, what he is saying by that is that not only is he the new Moses who will come and deliver his people, but he's also the real Passover lamb Through whom God's people will receive redemption and the forgiveness of sins Okay, so he's saying by that not merely that he's going to deliver his people But also the mode through which or the way in which he will deliver them that will be through his sacrifice and so it was traditional at that time that after the Passover meal, people would come and sing these psalms. And these psalms are called the Halal, which means praise, like Hallelujah, which means praise the Lord. And then the Egyptian Halal, sometimes called because it speaks about the exodus from Egypt. And this was, in general, Psalm 113 through 118. But the climax, and clearly the focal point, is Psalm 118, where everything is going toward. I'll give you a brief outline of these songs. We sang Psalm 113, and if you were paying attention when you sang, you'll know that basically Psalm 113 is about the vindication or the exaltation of those who are considered to be despised, the poor, the barren woman, little Israel, all these Entities are despised by people around and God has said to place them with the princes of the land to give the barren woman children to do all these things For those who seemed to be nothing to make them everything now if you were reading that as an ancient Israelite you would think of these social Circumstances and think about how God does do that or will do that, but I think also you would think of how Israel is despised and and how Israel is small, and how God has promised to vindicate them and make them the one through which the whole world would be blessed. And so this psalm is also about them, small, insignificant. After the time of the United Monarchy with Solomon, it doesn't take long for Israel to become small and insignificant, although they were powerful and rather illustrious at one point. They became small and insignificant very quickly. And so this psalm would have been sung in that way. And as we continue on through the psalms, Psalm 114 actually speaks of God's deliverance from exodus, of course, with one eye thinking that God is going to do this again. Psalm 115, we read about God being the one who does whatever he pleases, being the God of all the earth. And so saying that he will bless Israel, even though the enemies of Israel surround her. In Psalm 116, we have that same idea, you know the psalm, the cords of death entangled me, they were all around me, but God delivered me from them. Again, the idea of being in distress, of being in utter duress, but God coming to save his people. Again, let's not think First and foremost, of ourselves personally, think about how it would have meant to them. They had plenty of enemies, Israel did, and oftentimes they were surrounding the cities. Think of what we read earlier about Sennacherib surrounding the city of Jerusalem. Yet God had saved his anointed king. Psalm 117, we all know it as the shortest chapter in the Bible, talks about praising God. When I was young, Psalm 117 is two verses. When I was young and I was really tired, I didn't want to feel guilty about not reading my Bible, I read that chapter, because at least I could say I read a chapter of the Bible before I fell asleep right there. So anyway, it's a psalm of praise there, Psalm 117 is. And of course, the great climax of it all is Psalm 118, God delivers the king and grants the king victory and vindicates the king in the face of his enemies. And this is what they would sing together with their eye back upon what God did at Passover back then, but also their eye on the future and the present about what God is going to do through his people Israel who find themselves in a very similar situation. The people of Israel were back then that is being enslaved by a foreign power, although they were in their land They were still enslaved by a foreign power That is the background on those songs and Jesus and his disciples Would have been singing these at this point as they travel toward the Mount of Olives and Jesus as he's saying them knew that they spoke not just of Israel back there but of himself and and what he was going to do, and what God would do for him. So as we look at Psalm 118, I think it's important for us to see this, not only as talking about Israel, but also speaking about Christ. So let's go to Psalm 118. Again, it's not the only psalm they sang, but certainly the focal point and the climax of that, of those hymns which they sang, that hymn is considered one. First, in Psalm 118, we learn clearly that it speaks about God's protection. and our confidence, which we should draw from that. And that's from verses five through nine. Let me read those again to you. I called on the Lord in distress. The Lord answered me and set me in a broad place. The Lord is on my side. I will not fear. What can man do to me? The Lord is for me against those who help me. Therefore, I shall see my desire on those who hate me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. Now, the setting of this psalm is unknown. It's one of those psalms which we do not know the writer of. We know a lot because David had written a lot of them. But this one is anonymous, so we don't know who wrote it. But it's clear that the setting is a military type of setting. The psalmist is in trouble in a military type of way. And obviously, the enemies of the psalmist are surrounding him as he sings this. He is praying for and hoping for and expecting deliverance, salvation, in that very real and concrete sense as his enemies surround him. And as he waits, he boldly proclaims that his confidence is in the Lord. That his hope is in the Lord, and that even though it looks rather bleak from his own perspective, that God had made promises to him and to his people, so therefore he will continue to hope in the Lord during this time. He even declares in verses 8 and 9 that it is better to trust in God than it is to trust in man. It is better to trust in God than it is even to trust in princes. I think this is important for us to remember as we seek to read and apply this home for us today in that culture. princes or kings were not simply human beings. So what's going on here is not simply a restatement of what was said previously is better to trust in God than to trust in man. Let's state it in another way. It's better to trust God than to trust in princes. That's not exactly it. Because princes in that culture, in many cultures around, not Israel, but in many cultures around Israel, the prince was seen as quasi-divine. You can think of the pharaohs. the pharaohs or the king of Egypt, they were considered by many to actually be divine. And this helped them sustain and solidify their own claim to the throne. They were called gods. Even in Roman times, this idea lingered on that the emperor is somehow God or a son of God. I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again. In that time, Jesus' time, the coins said, were hailing Augustus, son of God. Which makes the term applied to Jesus really interesting. But anyway, these princes were considered to be quasi-divine. And to say that it's better to trust in God than to trust in princes is an implicit critique of that way of thinking. But it's also saying it's better to trust in God than the best and the most powerful and the strongest of what human beings have to offer. Very important as we seek to understand this. Now, if Jesus himself would have read this, we don't know exactly. It's always going to be a little bit of speculation how he thought about this. But judging by what happened to him and the way in what he said previously, we can see that he certainly trusted in God even when he was faced with great temptation not to trust in God. Think of his temptation. Satan said to him at one point, I will give you all the kingdoms of the earth, for they are Mine to give, if you bow down to Me." Now, I don't think we understand how great of a temptation that would be for Jesus. Because Jesus knew that the kingdoms of the earth were promised to Him. He had read the Scriptures. He knew that the Old Testament talked about the King, the Son of David, ruling over all nations. He knew that those were His inheritance. He had read Psalm 2 before. He had read Psalm 110. He knew them, as we see from his ministry. However, he also knew that he had to suffer. He also even knew, as the Gospels unfold, which makes it very clear, he knew that he had to die first and then be resurrected. So he knew he'd have to suffer before he received his vindication, before he received the kingdoms which God had promised him. This required a great amount of confidence, a great amount of trust in God, His Father. Why? Because, in general, going to die is not a good strategy for victory. In fact, it never is. No emperor would ever command their soldiers, go ahead and die, you'll win victory this way. The best or closest we come to it is go and sacrifice yourself for your country. And this way you will be a great hero. But that's very different because the promises were made to Jesus himself about being the king and not just a great and favored nation. So, Jesus put his confidence in God. And as we will see, his confidence remains in God, even to the point of utter testing. Think about what's going to happen in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus there asks God, take this away if you can, but not my will, but your will be done. His confidence remains in God, even though he knew that he had to go through the trial and the suffering and even death on a cross. So how do we in Christ try to understand this as we apply it to our lives? First of all, I think it's very applicable when we think of it's better to trust in God than to trust in princes. There are a lot of people, and I think we have this temptation in this country because we have such a strong country and such a strong military, that at the end of the day think, well, We'll be okay. We'll be safe. We have the bombs. We have the tanks. We have everything we need. People trust in the United States government for their safety, their security, and their protection. And as we think of world history, we know that that is not a sure hope in any way. As strong as the US military is now, as strong as the government is now, and the fact that it controls so much, we know that that can change instantly. And the temptation to trust in the government, not just for our protection, but for everything, is so strong. We can make fun of the ancients for thinking that their rulers were divine, but what have we done in this country to our own leaders? We don't call them divine, certainly not, but we trust in them for everything, so much of it. And so this temptation is here for us, but we don't trust in our government. We don't trust in our military. We don't trust in our princes, our chariots, our horsemen. We trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the ruler over all nations. We trust in God, even as Jesus himself did, even though he was being tempted in such a strong way. We must trust in God, we must have our hope and confidence in him, even when we know this will mean also that we must suffer before we are exalted and before we receive our inheritance. God protects His people. We must have confidence in them. And this protection doesn't mean we won't have troubles. It doesn't mean we won't die. Unless the Lord comes, we all will die. But it means that God will be there with us even on through death itself, to the other side, to the resurrection of the dead. He is there to protect us and to restore us and to renew us keep our hope and our confidence in God secondly Secondly God to some speaks of God's protection. It also speaks of God's Vindication, okay vindication of God's anointed or of his King Interestingly here in In this psalm, we learn that the nations surround the psalmist, who's obviously speaking for more than himself. The psalmist is speaking for the whole nation of Israel, probably in the persona of the king of Israel. Though, as I said, it's not written by David, so it's not written, maybe it was written by a king. We don't know that. But the persona is clearly of a military leader or a king. And all of the nations are surrounding small and insignificant Israel. We see this in verse 10. In verse 12, we see that the metaphor used is surrounded like bees. Now, I've learned recently a lot about bees. My brother is beginning to keep bees, and they are absolutely fascinating and incredible creatures. They're unbelievable, but not when they're surrounding you to sting you. If you don't know what you're doing, and bees are around you, and it can be quite panicking. I remember one time I was selling, for school, they made us sell wrapping paper. I don't know if any of you had to be subjected to that, but we had to sell wrapping paper for a fundraiser. And I remember my brother, my littlest brother and I went to a house and I don't know what, some kind of booby trap or something in the house. We knocked on the door and all of a sudden all these ground bees came and attacked me. It was just nothing I'd ever seen before or ever seen since. I don't know why they would be right there in front of someone's house so that anyone who enters can get the royal treatment like that. We did, and my brother and I ran faster than we've ever run, and probably ever have run since, running up the hill to our house. And my other brother was watching this. He was getting a whole lot of amusement from it as we were running, and all of a sudden saying, ow, ow, every couple of minutes with more bees coming and stinging us. It was not a good position for us to be in. We were surrounded by bees, we had no idea what we were doing, and we were just running in a terrified type of way. And the psalmist uses that illustration here, that picture of a bee, a bee surrounding people to harm and to hurt the nation of Israel. They're surrounding, the nations now are around the people like this, around the people of God, and are there not to help but to destroy, not to bless but to curse the people. And so, they're in a time of utter duress, distress, and even God's own promises are being tested at this point. We saw this earlier when we read about Hezekiah. Now, I don't know if this is the historical circumstance of the psalm, but it's a probable one, or at least a plausible one, that Hezekiah This is something that he would write when all the nations are surrounding him, namely the Assyrian Empire, who at that point had surrounded all of the countries. If you look at a map at that point of the Assyrian Empire, it's ridiculous. Everything is Assyria except for this little land in the middle, Judah, that somehow had been taken over except for the city of Jerusalem, and there was an enormous siege around the city, and they sent the field commander, sometimes he's called the Rabshetha, which is what it is in Hebrew, to come in and taunt the people of Israel and to say, look at the other gods. Look at the other places. Did their gods help them? No, you cannot stand up to the king of Assyria. And Isaiah tells Hezekiah, you stand strong, because those gods were just gods of wood, of stone, and of other created material. You serve the living God, the God of heaven and earth. He will vindicate His people. He has promised that He will never forsake them, and He will make sure that they are not obliterated, that they are not taken over by the king of Assyria, even though he's the most powerful man in the world. It will not happen. And so it's a situation like that, which the psalmist is now speaking to. It's about deliverance during that time when all seems lost. We read in the very familiar verses in verses 22 through 24 of what happened when the people trusted in God's vindication and God had finally come to vindicate his people. The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing and is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it in the verse. 15, we read about the tents of righteousness being opened and the king coming through there and the people, the righteous entering in. Now here the term righteousness doesn't refer to the morally upright or the virtuous, although it can mean that and that's probably true as well. What's being here referred to is vindicated. That is, it looked as if they were going to be condemned It looked as if their God was going to let them go or wasn't powerful enough, but God vindicated them. He justified them. And that justification, that vindication, was seen very concretely in saving the people in a great act of power, vindicating them and placing them to their exalted status. And so the psalmist says, the stone which the builders rejected, the builders here are seen as a nation surrounding them, the ones who laughed at them and mocked them like the Rabbi Sheikha and like Sennacherib. These people mocked Israel for being small and rejected it as if it were nothing. God has made it the chief cornerstone, the most important stone, the most important nation, the most important people through whom all the world would be joined. Just like that imagery suggests, the cornerstone is the one on which the whole temple or the whole structure is founded. These people would be that cornerstone. And they would be vindicated by God. And the psalmist rejoices in that fact. The despised, the small, the insignificant Judah is vindicated by God and his people. Now, how would Jesus have read this? Well, we have more insight into this now because Jesus actually quotes this passage here in Psalm 118 in reference to himself. He tells the Pharisees, what then does it mean that the stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone? And what he means by that is the one who was rejected by the leaders, both of the Jews and of the Gentiles. This one would become the chief cornerstone, the chief stone on which God would build his new temple, the church. And so Jesus would have seen that stone as himself. And the irony of it all is this. The very same people who would have been singing this song after the Passover and thinking they were the rejected stone actually turned out to be, in many cases, the builders, the ones who rejected the new Israel, the true Israel, the one whom the Old Testament always had in mind. These rulers and these leaders had become the builders themselves. And Jesus knew that the psalm was speaking about him, Jesus, Israel in person. The one who it seemed was despised, who it seemed was rejected, who it seemed was insignificant, dying in the worst possible way, receiving God's curse, as it is explicitly stated. In Deuteronomy, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. This one was vindicated by God himself. There must have been some irony as he read the words in verse 17, I shall not die, but live. Because Jesus knew he had to die but what he meant what the song means is he would not be held down by death Yes, he would die but he could not be kept in Sheol as psalm 16 says but God would grant him life and this life this resurrection is seen among other things as a vindication of Christ and of His people. 2 Timothy 3.16 talks about how Jesus was justified or vindicated in the Spirit. By the power of the Holy Spirit, Jesus was resurrected from the dead, and the one who was despised and rejected became the chief cornerstone, the vindicated one, the righteous one in whom all receive righteousness from God. And so Jesus sings the victor's cheer. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. That was originally sung as people around would sing that when the king came back victorious to rest on the throne. And so Jesus saying that as he knew what he was about to do was to win the victory, but he knew that God promised him he would. And so he's saying that in hope, and in confidence that God would vindicate him after he defeated his enemies, because Christ's enemies also surrounded him as well. And it wasn't just the leaders of the Jews. It wasn't just the leaders of the Romans. It was the greatest and last enemy of all death itself, Satan and his minions, they were destroyed in Christ's death and resurrection. And all those enemies came up to rise against Christ himself. And in the name of the Lord, he cut them off. He destroyed them through his death and through his resurrection. And God vindicated him and sat him at his own right hand. So how do we read this psalm? This is how Jesus, I think, I think we have more indication here than we have the previous one, because Jesus himself quotes this. But how do we read it in Christ? Well, people are rising up as we speak, are rising up against Christ and against his church. Recently, people in the church have been called bigots, have been called intolerant, have been called all these names, which are kind of hateful in themselves and kind of intolerant in themselves. But we'll leave that, be that as it may. We've been called these things. So what should we do? How should we react? The first reaction is to be vindictive, to justify ourselves. But guess what? In Christ, we are already justified. If God is for us, who can be against us? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Yes, who responds to them in a loving way, in a way that's consonant with the Gospels themselves, reproving error when it needs to be done and glorying in truth when that needs to be done as well. But we don't do so in a vindictive way as if They determine whether we were right or wrong. It is God who justifies who is he that condemns. We continue to act as Christ acted. We're proving when that's necessary. Asking the father to forgive them for they know not what they're doing when that is necessary. and loving those who would hate us, loving our enemies. That is how we, in a Christ-like way, respond when we are being condemned, realizing that, like Christ, it is God who justifies. Who are we to condemn? Finally, the psalm ends and begins with praise. I'm not going to spend too much time on this. I think it's rather self-explanatory, but I think it's also important that we see this. Verses 1 through 4, I'll give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His mercy endures forever. And then it continues to say that through verse 4. And the psalm ends, I'll give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His mercy endures forever. The word mercy there could be translated. It's a very difficult word to translate. It could be translated as loyalty, or covenant love, or covenant faithfulness, or all kinds of ideas. That's the idea of it. Christ and God the Father's faithfulness to their covenant, to their promises that endures forever. And it's seen in Christ's resurrection and it's seen and the growth and progress of the church and will be seen finally in the resurrection from the dead. And so all we can do now is praise. We are called to praise. You are my God and I will praise you. So oftentimes, oftentimes, I found myself in a position where looking back on an event that happened, with everything going against it. And it happened that it worked out that I knew that only God could have done this. One example is when our third daughter Lucille was born, we were having all kinds of problems with the insurance. And we thought that we'd have to pay a lot of money to get hospital insurance, all kinds of things. that happened there when Lisa was eight months pregnant. I finally went to the insurance office one last time. It was a last gasp effort. And there was someone there who I'd never seen before and never seen since. I think she was an angel. She may not have been, but she was to me. That was for sure. Who looked at our case, looked over it, and said, you can get this. You're eligible for it. I don't know what they were doing. And worked on it just like that, and she had insurance just like that. And I looked back at that, and I thought, Only God could have done that. Only God could have done that in such a way. And I think God puts us, all of us, through those types of situations, not only so that we could be delivered from those kinds of situations, but also that we might know that He is the one to whom belongs all the glory and all the praise. So if we found ourselves in that situation, or even if we haven't, we know that even our own being brought to Christ and being in a fellowship here is part of God's mercy and his grace. So as we think of this song, we think of Jesus's death and his resurrection, that great reversal of circumstance there. And as we think of all the little things in our lives where we see God at work, Let us give praise to God and thanks knowing that he is the one who gives life to the dead and vindicates the righteous. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you for this psalm and we thank you that Jesus sung it and not only sung it, fulfilled it. We thank you that he, although despised and rejected, has become the chief cornerstone in the new temple which you are creating. as your scriptures teach us. And so we pray that as we as we reflect on these things and as we reflect on your working in our own lives, that you would become the object of our praise and that all the glory would go to you. And as we pray in Jesus name, Amen.